Chris Johnston 12th, Gustafson 21st, Richardson 32nd, Cory Johnston 88th
FLW PRESS RELEASE
 |
| Horton's 2 big bass pave way to lead. (Photo: FLW) |
They say you should make hay while the sun shines, and
apparently the FLW Tour’s best pros already knew that. They steamed back to
Florida’s Harris Chain for the second event of the season, which is presented
by Lowrance, and enjoyed a sunny, breezy, all-around beautiful first day that
resulted in 11 limits of more than 20 pounds. Their co-angler partners added
four more 20-plus bags.
At the top of the heap is
Alabama pro Jamie Horton, who weighed 24-13 to take the early lead over
Florida’s Koby Kreiger. Kreiger, who was assessed a 2-pound penalty after he
violated rule No. 9 by running the main motor while he was on the front deck,
trails Horton by just 1 ounce.
Horton admits he didn’t really
have a sound game plan coming into the day, but he had two patterns that he
knew had the potential to produce limits of fish. Thankfully for Horton, he was
able to put a few in the boat early to relieve some of the pressure caused by
his uncertainty.
“I just caught a couple good
ones this morning,” he says. “I tried to capitalize on the shad spawn, what
little bit was going on.”
With what would eventually be
his second-best kicker in the boat early, Horton switched his attention from
shad eaters to spawners in an area where he’d found bedding fish in practice,
but where he didn’t expect to see the quality he found during day one.
Thankfully, the water had cleared a tad, allowing him a better visual approach,
and he was able to slowly decipher what they were “sitting on.” From there he
just chipped away at 24 pounds.
