DAYTON, Tenn. (May 2, 2019) – After the day one of the FLW Tournament at Lake Chickamauga Thursday in Dayton, Tennessee, John Cox of DeBary, Florida, weighed a five-bass limit of Lake Chickamauga largemouth totaling 24 pounds, 11 ounces to take the early lead. Cox holds a slim 5-ounce lead over Tour rookie Ron Nelson of Berrien Springs, Michigan, who caught five bass weighing 24-6, good for second place.
“This place is just awesome,” said Cox, a six-time FLW Cup qualifier. “I started out on a real big fish that I had marked in practice – she’s at least a 10 (pounder) – but I couldn’t catch her. I got frustrated and bailed and went and caught a few decent males that I had marked, then came back to her. I caught the male with her, which was a 4-pounder, so I kept it at the time. Then she left.
“I came back an hour later, and she was with another one,” Cox continued. “I accidently caught that male, and she left again. I came back at the end of the day and she was with another male. So I told her to just finish up and that I’d come back tomorrow.”
Cox said he caught six keepers– all sight fishing – but marked 10 more while looking for beds this afternoon. He said he caught his bass using a selection of Berkley PowerBait MaxScent plastics.
“It was not easy today,” Cox said. “The water is coming up and a lot of the banks are getting really stirred up. The visibility is gone on almost every spot that I stopped at. I was guessing as to where they were.
“I’m going to go out tomorrow and try to catch five more decent males and hope I can get lucky and catch a 9- or 10-pounder,” Cox went on to say. “I will stop in and see if the big female I have marked is ready, then after that I really don’t know what I’m going to do yet.”
The top 10 pros after day one on Lake Chickamauga are:
1st: Berkley pro John Cox, DeBary, Fla., five bass, 24-11
2nd: Ron Nelson, Berrien Springs, Mich., five bass, 24-6
3rd: Yamamoto Baits pro Matt Greenblatt, Port St. Lucie, Fla., five bass, 23-5
4th: Ramie Colson Jr., Cadiz, Ky., five bass, 23-2
5th: Tim Frederick, Leesburg, Fla., five bass, 23-0
5th: Billy McCaghren, Mayflower, Ark., five bass, 23-0
7th: Randy Allen, Gilliam, La., five bass, 22-14
8th: Strike King pro Andrew Upshaw, Tulsa, Okla., five bass, 22-7
9th: Polaris pro David Dudley, Lynchburg, Va., five bass, 22-2
10th: Lowrance pro Austin Felix, Eden Prairie, Minn., five bass, 21-0
McCaghren earned Thursday’s $500 Big Bass award in the pro division after bringing a 9-pound, 13-ounce largemouth to the scale – the largest fish of the day. Overall there were 766 bass weighing 2,190 pounds, 14 ounces caught by 164 pros Thursday. The catch included 134 five-bass limits.