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| Bolton blasts giant limit and takes lead with 54-03lbs! (Photo: FLW) |
After sacking up 20 pounds, 10 ounces on day
one of the FLW Tour season opener presented by Polaris at Big Sam – good for
10th place entering Friday – the Benton, Ky., angler put together a megabag
full of hawgs that totaled 33-9 and moved Bolton to the top of the leaderboard
with all the momentum he could want heading into the weekend.
One could point to technique, preparation and
skill as the reasons for Bolton’s success on Rayburn, and all would be valid
reasons. Yet, what’s happening for Bolton at the weigh-in stage is all about
what’s happening between his ears on the water.
“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do [on
Saturday]: I’m going to do the same thing I’ve done the last two days,” he
quips. “I’m going to get up, put my clothes on, go fishing, and I’m going to
enjoy myself because that’s all this year is about is me having fun.”
Bolton kicked around retiring after the last
Tour season, during which he says he didn’t have as much fun as he should have.
Rayburn tends to be a cure-all for that when it’s fishing as hot as it is right
now.
“When you catch 33 pounds, that helps you have
fun,” Bolton adds.
The veteran pro says he caught some of his
fish on day one on a spinnerbait, but overcast conditions today ignited a
crankbait bite, and he did most of his damage with a Rapala DT14 or
DT16 in his hand. Bolton caught fish throughout the day but
really pounded on them during an early afternoon flurry that culminated with
him culling 5 1/2-pounders.
Surprisingly enough, Bolton’s massive stringer
wasn’t his largest bag ever. In 2008, during the FLW Series East-West Fish-Off,
Bolton sacked up 38-15 at Falcon Lake. Still, you won’t catch him complaining.
Quite the opposite, actually.
Nick LeBrun – 48-4
(19-2 day two)
Louisiana native Nick LeBrun put up a big
showing at Rayburn on day one, totaling 29 pounds, 2 ounces for the outright
lead heading into Friday. Bolton might have eclipsed LeBrun both on the
leaderboard and in the big-bag rankings, but second place on cut day isn’t too
shabby, especially considering it could have been much worse.
LeBrun had 12 pounds at 1 o’clock. His spots
seemed to dry up a bit, which he attributes in part to fishing pressure in that
area of the lake. After a tremendous day one, it was starting to look like all
of LeBrun’s momentum was about to push him headlong into a brick wall.
Instead, the Tour rookie reached into his bag
of tricks and decided to fish a spot he’d been saving for a rough stretch. It
paid off in a big way, aided by a 5-pounder that buoyed his day-two weight into
the high-teens.
“I’m excited,” he says. “You’re going to have a bad day. If today was my bad day, I’ll be really excited.”
As he should be. LeBrun is less than 6 pounds
out of the lead with (potentially) two days left to fish, and 6 pounds in
nothing to make up on a lake that’s been churning out 7- to 11-pounders thus
far this week.
Jim Tutt 45-4 (21-11
day two)
Few professional anglers know Big Sam the way Jim
Tutt does. The Longview, Texas, angler has more FLW Tour and Costa FLW Series
tournaments at Rayburn under his belt than anyone in the field this week with
23, and his wealth of knowledge about the fishery showed out in a big way on
Friday.
“It’s awesome to fish a spot you’ve fished for
30 years and catch one,” Tutt quipped after landing a 5 1/2-pounder at around
10 o’clock Friday.
Tutt spent most of the day slow-rolling a
small crankbait on 10-pound-test line around grass lines. It’s a formula that’s
worked for him in the past, and it’s one that is paying off so far this time
around, even with water levels still absurdly high.
Another lesson Tutt has learned about Rayburn
over the decades: If it’s working, keep doing it. He’ll spend Saturday doing
much of the same in many of the same spots.
Chad Warren – 44-6
(18-15 day two)
Despite missing part of the official practice
period due to illness, Chad Warren hammered on big fish Thursday. He did the
same thing Friday, with the same baits, in many of the same ways.
Warren was targeting contour lines with grass
– a staple for many anglers this week – but his three primary spots have all
paid off. As an added bonus, the Sand Springs, Okla., pro had two of those
spots entirely to himself each of the first two days of the tournament.
With the field now cut to 30 anglers heading
into Saturday, there’s a good chance he’ll have them all to himself again,
which probably means more of the same: big fish, and lots of them.
Bryan Thrift – 43-15
(23-0 day two)
Death, taxes and Bryan Thrift near the top of
the leaderboard.
The best angler in professional bass fishing
is never out of the hunt. He tallied 20-15 on day one and surprisingly flew a
little under the radar given the multitude of big bags carried to the weigh-in
stage Thursday. But with another 20-plusser on Friday – and a top-five
positioning heading into the weekend – Thrift is once again knocking at the
door of a Tour win in search of lucky No. 7.
Thrift has done all his damage with a Carolina
rig. All day. Cast and catch. It’s what worked for the Shelby, N.C., pro
Thursday and Friday, and if it works out Saturday as well, he may be dragging
that Carolina rig all the way to a big win on Big Sam.
Record falling
FLW Tour sophomore Andy Wicker turned in a bag
of 22-5 on Friday – a respectable bag, to be sure – but the size of the
stringer wasn’t what impressed spectators at the weigh-in stage. It just so
happened that almost half that stringer was comprised of one fish.
Wicker landed a behemoth 11-2 largemouth on a
3/4-ounce TrueSouth football jig with a green pumpkin Berkley PowerBait
MaxScent Chunk trailer. It was the largest fish ever
weighed in for Big Bass at an FLW Tour event on Rayburn and the ninth-largest
in Tour history. And the best part? Wicker was simply fishing to fill his
limit, expecting to catch only small bass when he landed the new record.
Getting 110 percent
Kyle Cortiana sits in 13th place following day
two. His 23-3 on Friday was exactly what he needed to remain in contention
heading into the weekend, though the way he sacked up that impressive bag is
equally impressive in its own right.
When you make 29 casts and get 34 bites,
that’s just getting more than you paid for.
Cortiana found a grassy spot to hunker down
and toss a Texas-rigged Yamamoto Senko,
assuming a little finesse might be the key to catching some numbers. When
you’re right, you’re right.
The Coweta, Okla., pro landed 29 fish on 29
consecutive casts, which has to be some kind of record. He noted that on
several casts he lost a fish that he had hooked and another fish swooped in to
clean up. When the dust had settled, Cortiana landed 29 fish in a row – all but
two of which were his biggest fish of the day.
The streak stays alive
Thrift’s consecutive limits streak is alive
and well. In his last 65 days of Tour competition, he’s managed to fill out a
full five-fish limit in all 65. Don’t expect the streak to die at Rayburn, as
hot as the lake is fishing.
Monsoor’s giant leap
Sixteen-year Tour vet Tom Monsoor turned
disappointment to elation on day two, virtually erasing the sting of his
8-pound, 1-ounce bag Thursday with a massive 26-4 effort on Friday. He moved
into 17th place with that stringer, which he caught primarily on a homemade
1/2-ounce football jig with a green pumpkin Yamamoto Double
Tail Grub.
Top 10 pros
1. Terry Bolton –Benton, Ky. – 54-3 (10)
2. Nick LeBrun – Bossier City, La. – 48-4 (10)
3. Jim Tutt – Longview, Texas – 45-4 (10)
4. Chad Warren – Sand Springs, Okla. – 44-6
(10)
5. Bryan Thrift – Shelby, N.C. – 43-15 (10)
6. Miles Burghoff – Hixson, Tenn. – 42-8 (10)
7. Billy Shelton III – La Crosse, Va. – 42-1
(10)
8. Jordan Osborne – Longview, Texas – 41-9
(10)
9. Sam George – Athens, Ala. – 39-9 (10)
10. Andy Wicker – Pomaria, S.C. – 38-14 (10)
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