by Justin Onslow
FLW PRESS RELEASE
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| Alvin Shaw consistent with 18lbs each day for lead. (Photo: FLW) |
Day
two of the FLW Tour event presented by Lowrance on Cherokee Lake again featured
great fishing and remarkable consistency from most of the field. Still on top,
Andrew Upshaw weighed 17 pounds, 14 ounces of smallmouths to up his two-day
total to 36-4.
In
second, Dylan Hays dropped off the pace slightly and weighed in 16-11 for a
34-8 total to lurk a bit less than 2 pounds behind Upshaw. Overall, 18 pros
weighed more than 16 pounds on day two, and 28 pros have amassed totals
over 30 pounds to this point.
Upshaw,
perhaps more than anyone else in the field this week, showcased remarkable
consistency and the ability to find and land key bites. He didn’t change up
much on day two – except for running some water he didn’t hit on Thursday – and
that should be extremely troubling for the pros trying to keep pace with the
Tulsa, Okla., pro.
“My
bite is all day,” Upshaw says of the sometimes-small windows pros have to
exploit key bites. “I just haven’t got to fish all day. I’ve stopped fishing my
stuff at 10 o’clock every day.”
Day
two was no exception, as Upshaw landed a 4 1/2-pounder almost first thing
Friday morning. It’s a class of fish that is few and far between on Cherokee,
despite the massive numbers of quality bass in the fishery.
“I started right where I left off
when I caught my last big one yesterday,” he explains. “I started on the exact
same spot, went down through there and caught a 4 1/2-pounder and a 2 3/4.
“A
4 1/2-pounder is a big deal here. Three-pounders, these guys are catching
3-pounders and a lot of them and so am I. But catching a 4-pounder is really
hard, and today I was just fortunate enough to do it.”
“I
did figure out something late in the day today,” he admits. “I just started
practicing and trying to figure out a way I can catch them completely different
than what I’m doing, and I was able to catch about 14 pounds doing that very
consistently – not spawners, which was nice. I’m not really worried about that
for tomorrow. That’s more of a day four kind of thing.”
Having
back-to-back stellar days are one thing, but putting yourself in position to
potentially go wire-to-wire is another. Unless something changes drastically,
Upshaw will be fishing on Sunday. It’s all going to come down to how he handles
the pressure on moving day.
“Tomorrow
I’m going to go swing and try to catch another big bag, and if I struggle late
I can just go and try to catch a decent bag,” Upshaw says. “If I can get any
calm condition, I don’t care if it’s sunny or cloudy, whatever, if the wind
doesn’t blow an extreme amount I’ll catch them.”
With
the way he’s been crushing them so far this week, there’s a more than decent
chance he will catch them, and that’s very bad for the rest of the pros who
just made the top-30 cut.
2. Dylan Hays – El Dorado, Ark. –
34-8 (10)
Dylan
Hays backed up a strong day-one performance with another quality bag on Friday,
and despite not matching his previous weight total, he did more than enough to
remain within striking distance of the lead heading into moving day.
Hays
is fishing a stretch of water that he’s had almost completely to himself, and
he’s catching his fish a lot differently than the spinning rod-wielding
majority. As a result, he’s predominantly catching largemouths, and many of
them are the right quality to get the job done.
“Today
I had a pretty solid bag pretty early, and I knew I could largemouth fish all
day long,” he explains. “I caught more keepers, and I ended catching a 3
1/2-pounder late in the day I wouldn’t have had had I been sight-fishing.”
With
a quality stringer early in the day, Hays was able to run some new water and
identify some stretches he’ll be able to hunt for kickers on day three.
“I
ran some new stuff,” he adds. “I found a couple stretches. One stretch I culled
three times off it and weighed two of them. I saved the rest of them for
tomorrow. I was culling ounces, and then I culled a pound and I figured I
didn’t need to burn anymore 2 1/2-, 3-pounders.”
While
Hays says he didn’t find any “magic stretches,” he’s shown so far he doesn’t
need any to make a run at winning this tournament.
3. Austin Felix – Eden Prairie,
Minn. – 34-5 (10)
Catching
brown bass is something Austin Felix does with aplomb, so his third-place
standing on Cherokee through two days shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.
Provided the weather cooperates on day three and he’s able to keep running a
similar pattern to that of days one and two, Felix will be fishing on Sunday.
“I
managed to catch a 4 1/4 largemouth, 2 3/4 largemouth, 3 1/2 smallmouth and a 3
1/4 smallmouth just fishing new water, plus all those 2-pounders that I found,”
he says. “If I come across the right stretch, I can catch a decent bag again.”
Felix
marked a handful of 2-pounders he found today, and he plans to catch those fish
early in the day on Saturday before running some new water. His pattern is
repeatable, just so long as the weather doesn’t do anything too crazy.
“Cloudy
and calm, that’ll be fine,” Felix says. “I’ll be able to see everything. I just
have to put it in front of a bigger one.”
After
day one, Felix wasn’t sure how many fish he’d have left on Friday. As it turns
out, he had plenty, and the now 30-boat field should further ease concerns
about fishing pressure on Cherokee. Now, it all comes down to tacking on one more
great day of fishing to try and make it to the final round on Sunday.
“It’s
up in the air,” he admits. “I’m glad I did well. I don’t know what I’ll need to
stay in the top 10.”
4. Grae Buck – Harleysville,
Penn. – 34-0 (10)
Grae
Buck made a big jump on day two running and gunning in mostly new water. His
pattern – “fishing anything that looks like they could possibly spawn on” –
worked to the tune of 17-10 to back up his 16-6 stringer from day one.
In
practice, Buck spent a lot of time targeting prespawners further out from
bedding areas, but after a warm off day (the day before the tournament), fish
moved up enough to allow Buck to target beds with a shaky head and a finesse
worm.
“In
practice, I was fishing out and looking for more of those prespawners,” he
says. “I was catching a couple shallow around these rocks that they were
getting ready to spawn on. I had a general idea of what was going to be going
down, but that warm off day really pushed them up even more than I realized.
“I
went and fished some largemouth stuff the first morning, and I had a couple
small ones, and then I started running some of that just looking around. I
pulled up on one point and I caught four off of it in probably 15 minutes.”
From
then on, Buck started targeting any spot he thought looked like a prime bedding
area. He ran a lot of new water on day two, and, with the exception of an area
he tossed back some 2-pounders on day two, he plans on running a bunch of new
stuff on Saturday as well.
5. Tim Frederick – Leesburg, Fla.
– 33-9 (10)
Tim
Frederick had a limit within the first hour of fishing on day one. Friday, it
took him nearly four times as long, but good things sometimes come to anglers
who wait.
Milking
the same area as he did on Thursday, Frederick slowly and methodically picked apart
spots he knew fish were spawning. But it wasn’t until a slow start prompted him
to move to some new areas that Frederick’s day really kicked into high gear.
“I
never fished it at all yesterday because there was so much boat traffic,” he
explains. “It didn’t look as good to me, honestly. “I was looking for some new
stuff that’s close by, because that area for some reason holds big fish.”
Frederick
has been bouncing around within the same one-mile area near mid-lake. He knows
there are big fish in that section of the fishery, and his plan tomorrow is to
avoid wading through a lot of smaller fish to find the difference-makers.
“I
don’t need to catch 15 or 20 [fish],” he says. “Today I probably caught 18
total. I don’t need to catch that as long as they’re the right ones. The size
is there. The one I missed, there was about a 4- or 4 1/2-pounder that I missed
twice; it jumped off both times. I know it’s on a bed. In the morning, that’s
the first place I’m going to go.”
If
he’s able to land that fish first thing in the morning, it will be an
immediately better start than he had one day two, though it’s hard to complain
when the result is a bag that keeps you firmly in the top five ahead of moving
day.
NEWS
AND NOTES
Pushing the limits
After
144 five-bass limits were weighed in on Thursday, it seemed like Cherokee
couldn’t possibly fish any better on day two. Instead, three additional pros
weighed in a full stringer for 147 total limits.
Cherokee
might not produce many trophy bass, but it sure shows out in the numbers
department. And given how diverse the fishery is – having healthy populations
of smallmouth, largemouth and spotted bass – it’s truly astounding how many
quality fish are in the eastern Tennessee impoundment.
It’s
a guarantee there won’t be as many limits tomorrow, but the percentage of pros
weighing in limits could be even higher. Don’t expect to see more than a couple
anglers with less than five fish in their bag on Saturday.
Fickle Mother Nature
Initial
forecasts called for all-day rain and wind on Friday, but that didn’t prove to
be the case. Aside from a somewhat brief drizzle late in the morning on day
two, the conditions weren’t all that unpleasant.
What’s
actually surprising, however, is that drastically different conditions overall
(cloud cover and some wind) didn’t do much to curb quality or quantity. The
fishing was pretty much the same – or perhaps even better – than on day one.
The
forecast again calls for an isolated storm or two tomorrow, but even if that
does come to fruition, Cherokee is fishing well enough to not let a little
thing like weather cool it off.
Big(ish) bass
Hensley
Powell won Big Bass honors on day two with a fish that weighed in at 5 pounds
even, which is about in line with what everyone expected to be the case heading
into this event. A 5-pounder leading the way at weigh-in highlights how crucial
it is to catch bass in the 3- to 5-pound range this week. We haven’t seen a
20-plus-pound bag yet, and it’s going to take more than one of that class of
fish to get it done.
Top 10 pros
1.
Andrew Upshaw – Tulsa, Okla. – 36-4 (10)
2.
Dylan Hays – El Dorado, Ark. – 34-8 (10)
3.
Austin Felix – Eden Prairie, Minn. – 34-5 (10)
4.
Grae Buck – Harleysville, Penn. – 34-0 (10)
5.
Tim Frederick – Leesburg, Fla. – 33-9 (10)
6.
Ron Nelson – Berrien Springs, Mich. - 33-9 (10)
7.
Kurt Mitchell – Milford, Del. – 33-7 (10)
8.
Tom Monsoor – La Crosse, Wis. – 33-4 (10)
9.
Derrick Snavely – Piney Flats, Tenn. – 32-14 (10)
10.
Joey Cifuentes – Clinton, Ark. – 32-7 (10)
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