2018 BASS PRO SHOP Bassmaster Open Championship Day 1: Mark Rose Leads with 15-09lbs.

Cool weather heats up fishing

By Craig Lamb

BASS PRESS RELEASE

Mark Rose eye Championship crown. 

Fishing without any preconceived idea of a game plan is paying off for Mark Rose, who took the lead at the Bass Pro Shops Bassmaster Opens Championship on Table Rock Lake.

Rose, of West Memphis, Ark., caught a 5-bass limit weighing 15 pounds, 9 ounces, to earn first place ahead of Caleb Sumrall. The New Iberia, La., angler took second with 15-1, while Tyler Rivet of Raceland, La., claimed third place with 14-6. Jared Lintner of Arroyo Grande, Calif., is fourth with 12-14. Ed Loughran III, of Mechanicsville, Va., is fifth with 12-12.

Transition. That word best describes fishing conditions this week on Table Rock. The transition occurs when fall cold snaps prompt the bass population to migrate from deep to shallow water, where the fish feed on roaming baitfish. The bass are moving shallower each day, posing a greater sporting challenge to this tournament. Keeping track of those moving bass is the goal.

“When it’s transition time that makes it tougher, but I’m the most instinctive fisherman that I know of,” said Rose. “It’s what I like to do the most.”

The fundamental of being instinctive is rooted in fishing with an open mind. Rose caught fish from the shoreline out to 35 feet deep, playing off the textbook conditions in play this week. He intentionally skipped the optional scouting period prior to the tournament.

“Table Rock and all these Ozarks lakes are very conditional,” he explained. “The patterns are textbook, very black and white, and you catch bass in shady areas during sunny conditions, on moving baits under cloudy skies.”

Canadian's New All-Time Tournament Big Bass?

Matt Belzil (l) and Jason Clay(r)  and win the Barrie Bassmaster 
Simcoe event with 29.0lbs sporting a 8.35 lb giant kicker!

Coming later this week
Learn all about this pending new Canadian record smallmouth.

(Photo: Derek Strub)

Jeremy Lawyer Wins Costa FLW Series on Lake of the Ozarks with 46-03lbs!

Topwater and Jig Top on Ozark

by Kyle Wood

FLW PRESS RELEASE

New locations and topwaters key for Lawyer win.
(Photo: FLW)

Forgetting the past can be a hard thing for a bass fisherman to do. But for Jeremy Lawyer, it proved to be the right decision.

When Lawyer left the dock this morning for the final day of the Costa FLW Series event on Lake of the Ozarks presented by Evinrude, he was in fourth place and just 2 pounds, 8 ounces off the lead. Being that the top-10 weights were so close, the general consensus was that whoever caught the biggest limit on the final day would likely be crowned champion.

Lawyer hauled in a rare limit on Saturday worth 13-12 – also the heaviest of the day – and it proved to be more than enough to earn him his first FLW Series win with a total of 46-3 and $88,500 in winnings.

Fishing off instinct instead of history was the biggest key for the Sarcoxie, Mo., pro this week, and really for the entire season.

“Earlier in the year before the first Central Division event on Table Rock I erased all my waypoints there and had a good finish,” Lawyer says. “I just got a new Ranger before coming [to Lake of the Ozarks] and I didn’t transfer any of my waypoints over. You can get in trouble sometimes when you try to fish history and I just wanted to go fish what looks good and what’s right for the conditions.

“I’ve fished a lot of tournaments up here and have a lot of history and you can get stuck in a comfort zone, so I figured without my waypoints I wouldn’t have the pressure to try and fish that stuff. Sure, you remember good stretches of bank, but I wanted to be able to fish free. Really, fishing the (FLW) Tour has helped build my confidence to just fish because most of the lakes we go to I don’t have any history on.”

It all started this week when Lawyer ran to a stretch he hadn’t practiced on in the Gravois Arm and started catching fish flipping a prototype JaKKed shaky head (it will be his signature series jig) with a Zoom Magnum Trick Worm. He would then go on to cull up to 14-7 thanks to a River2Sea Whopper Plopper.

Keep Florida Fishing Applauds Congressional Passage of America’s Water Infrastructure Act

Important Everglades Restoration Legislation Moves to the President’s Desk

 Keep Florida Fishing®, (KFF) an advocacy arm of the American Sportfishing Association, today praised the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives for passage of the America’s Water Infrastructure Act of 2018 (S. 3021). The Act, which incorporates the biennial Water Resources Development Act (WRDA), includes authorization of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Storage Reservoir project and requires an expedited review of how Lake Okeechobee levels are managed under its regulation schedule. The legislation also supports restoration of the Kissimmee River and requires the development of a Harmful Algal Bloom technology program. All are important components that will help address South Florida’s water quality issues.

The U.S. House previously approved the compromise legislation on September 13th, the bill now heads to the President’s desk for his signature.

“Thank you to everyone who has contacted their representatives to support WRDA. This legislation is crucial to reducing the ongoing estuary discharges and algal blooms affecting the state. Passing WRDA is a monumental step in restoring the Everglades and providing clean water for our fisheries, and we greatly appreciate the leadership of Florida’s Congressional Delegation in securing its passage. We will continue to work with Congress to ensure that sufficient funding is available to carry out the Act’s provisions,” said Kellie Ralston, Southeast Fisheries Policy Director of the American Sportfishing Association.

New Daiwa Tatula 100 with Ish Monroe

The Daiwa Tatula reels are one of the best selling reels in recent years. Listen to MLF and 2018 BASS Elite Champ Ish Monroe as he explains why the Daiwa Tatula 100 might be the best one made yet.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING CANADA!

Wishing you and your family a very wonderful Thanksgiving!

2019 COSTA FLW SERIES

FLW announced Wednesday the Costa FLW Series rules, entry fees and payouts for the 2019 season, including new Forrest Wood Cup advancement opportunities and larger first-place awards. The season will again consist of three events in five divisions to keep travel costs low plus the no-entry-fee Costa FLW Series Championship to be held on Lake Cumberland in Burnside, Kentucky. The FLW Series offers pros and co-anglers the highest payback for the lowest cost to compete of any national circuit, and new for 2019, the FLW Series provides co-anglers a pathway to fish as a pro in the 2020 FLW Cup.

The top two pros from each of the five FLW Series U.S. divisions and the top pro from the FLW Series International division along with the winning co-angler at the 2019 FLW Series Championship will advance to the 2020 FLW Cup, the world championship of bass fishing. An angler only has to beat 38 other pros from their division at the FLW Series Championship to punch their ticket to the Cup. The top five pros from each U.S. division in Angler of the Year standings also qualify to compete against the best anglers in the world in the 2020 FLW Tour, the world’s most competitive professional bass-fishing circuit.

PAYOUTS below

Major League Fishing Announces 80 Anglers Set for New Bass Pro Tour

All set for 2019!

Major League Fishing (MLF) leadership today announced the official roster of the 80 anglers who have committed to compete in the new-for-2019 Bass Pro Tour and MLF Cup events. The final list was made public during an MLF meeting held this week at Big Cedar Lodge with several of its sponsors and anglers present to discuss plans in follow up to the league's recent announcement of significant expansion for the purpose of growing the sport.
 

"We understand how difficult this decision was for pro anglers ... everyone who has faced a potential career-changing move can relate to it, but the deadline has passed for the invitees and we now proudly have 80 individuals who have committed to a dream that goes beyond just a tournament payday," said MLF co-founder and PBTAA Vice President Boyd Duckett. "Sure, higher payouts are part of it, but for us this is not a competition we're in against other trails. It doesn't matter what B.A.S.S. or FLW does; our goal is different. These anglers know that and we're ecstatic to have them on board with the new MLF plans."

 

The full 80-man field includes Bassmaster Classic champions, FLW Forrest Wood Cup winners, Anglers of the Year and top tour performers from throughout the world of competitive bass fishing.

 

The 2019 MLF anglers are: Casey Ashley, Justin Atkins, Adrian Avena, Josh Bertrand, Tommy Biffle, Zack Birge, Stephen Browning, Brent Chapman, Jason Christie, Luke Clausen, Gary Clouse, Dustin Connell, Brandon Coulter, Cliff Crochet, Mark Daniels Jr., Mark Davis, Ott DeFoe, Boyd Duckett, Brent Ehrler, James Elam, Paul Elias, Edwin Evers, Todd Faircloth, Shinichi Fukae, Shaw Grigsby, Greg Hackney, Roy Hawk, Brett Hite, Tim Horton, Randy Howell, Mike Iaconelli, Alton Jones, Alton Jones Jr., Kelly Jordon, JT Kenney, Gary Klein, Jeff Kriet, Jason Lambert, Bobby Lane, Chris Lane, Russ Lane, Jordan Lee, Matt Lee, Dave Lefebre, Jared Litner, Justin Lucas, Aaron Martens, Mike McClelland, Cody Meyer, Ish Monroe, Andy Montgomery, Andy Morgan, John Murray, Britt Myers, Michael Neal, Takahiro Omori, Cliff Pace, Brandon Palaniuk, Keith Poche, Jacob Powroznik, Skeet Reese, Marty Robinson, Dean Rojas, Mark Rose, Fred Roumbanis, Bradley Roy, Terry Scroggins, Fletcher Shryock, Gerald Spohrer, Wesley Strader, Scott Suggs, Gerald Swindle, Randall Tharp, Jonathan VanDam, Kevin VanDam, Greg Vinson, David Walker, James Watson, Jacob Wheeler and Jesse Wiggins.

 

Advanced Drop Shot : John Murray's Favourite Baits for Drop Shotting Bass

John Murray is one the original West Coast killers. Being one of the first to use the drop shot here in American, he has developed a lot of tips and tricks on making a drop shot deadly. Listen to BASS Elite angler John Murray as he gives some advanced tips on drop shotting for bass.