2017 Walmart FLW Tour Harris Chain Day 3: Cox Leads with 54-14lbs!

Sight fishing battle becoming more difficult each day. 
by Rob Newell

FLW PRESS RELEASE
For two days, John Cox has been the king of the Harris Chain, dominating the FLW Tour event presented by Ranger at the Harris Chain with his favorite sight-fishing technique. But Saturday his sight-fish gave him the slip and now the outliers are moving in on him from all directions.

Local John Cox hunting every secret spot he has for nesting bass.
(Photo: FLW)

Cox posted a 10-pound, 4-ounce catch on day three and as a result his nearly 6-pound lead shrank to just over 2 pounds. He still leads the field with a 54-14 three-day total, but now pros from North Carolina, Texas and Alabama seriously threaten King Cox’s throne atop the leaderboard in his Florida domain.

“Would you like me to sum up the day for you?” Cox asks with a laugh. “Okay, well, I burned a lot of gas and I didn’t catch anything – how’s that?”

Cox’s frustration came from the fact that he ran many, many miles and burned a lot of trolling motor battery for his dismal catch.

“I only caught five keepers all day,” he says. “That’s it.”

Piling onto Cox’s disappointment is the fact that the wave he was hoping would move up with the impending full moon tomorrow doesn’t seem to be materializing.

“The fish were just acting so weird today,” he says. “I found one male that had a 5- or 6-pound female with it. I shook the male off several times, trying to catch her first. Then I went ahead and caught him and when I did, she just swam out to my boat, looked at me, and hit the highway – gone. It’s like she knew what was going on – those are the little signs that tell you it’s not really happening.

2017 Walmart FLW Tour Harris Chain Day 2: John Cox Extends Lead to 6 Pounds with 44-10lbs!

Cory Johnston 57th, Gustafson 77th, Chris Johnston 111th & Richardson 117th.

by Rob Newell

FLW PRESS RELEASE

John Cox has a large history book of bass fishing memories on the Harris Chain of Lakes near his home in DeBary, Fla. Today, Cox had to leaf through many of the chapters in that book to come up with an 18-pound, 15-ounce catch to increase his lead at the FLW Tour event presented by Ranger at the Harris Chain. After two days, his total is 44 pounds, 10 ounces, and his lead over Shane LeHew is nearly 6 pounds.

Cox catches them on very difficult day.
(Photo: FLW)

Cox stayed committed to the looking game today, running far and wide across the Chain to assemble his catch. To give some idea of how much water he had to run to find bass still clinging to beds, several of his fish were caught up to 10 miles apart.

“I covered a lot of water today,” Cox says. “It’s not like I’m pulling into one secret canal or backwater and catching 19 pounds. I catch one, run, look, run, look, run…catch another and keep looking.”

Cox was headed for an average 12-pound bag today when he made a last-minute decision to check one main lake spawning spot where he found two four-pounders locked on beds.