ROGERS, Ark. (May 15, 2009) - Brent Ehrler of Redlands, Calif., caught a five-bass limit weighing 13 pounds, 9 ounces Friday to capture the lead in the FLW Tour Open bass fishing tournament on Beaver Lake with a two-day catch of 10 bass weighing 24-6. He now holds a 1-pound, 2-ounce lead in the tournament featuring 155 pros and 155 co-anglers from across the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan.
"I'm just junk fishing," said Ehrler, who has won more than $1,126,000 in FLW Outdoors events. "I'm fishing shallow and running the bank and running new water. Today was kind of an interesting day.
"I didn't really have much and just kind of chipped away and started getting on them a little more and they started biting and I started catching them more and more," Ehrler added. "The problem is I'm catching small ones, so I may catch seven pounds tomorrow and I may not catch anything. Or I could catch 12 or 13 pounds again."
Ehrler said he was fishing slowly by flipping as well as throwing a shaky-head rig. He said the fish came from both open water as well as heavy cover, where he has to use heavier baits and equipment.
"I actually ran a lot of different water today and I pulled into a few areas today that I hadn't been to before and caught a couple of keepers," Ehrler said. "I'm just going to run that, and hopefully it will work.
"I was real nervous about the end of the year points, and I had caught 10 pounds by 12 o'clock and I was real happy because I knew that weight would stay up there, and the next thing I know I caught a 2 1/2 (pound fish) and a 3 1/2 (pound fish) and I thought, 'Wow. I just made the cut.' It's going my way, for sure. Everything's going right."
Jason Christie of Park Hill, Okla., advanced to the final round of 10 pros in the No. 2 spot with a two-day total of nine bass weighing 23-4.
"It was really, really, really extremely difficult," Christie said. "I only had four fish. I lost two in real thick stuff."
Christie said he had one fish at 12:30 p.m., but said he had an area that had been producing for him later in the day. He went to that area and caught solid fish to land him in the top 10.
"What hurt me today was not being able to fish as late as I did yesterday," Christie said. "I had to be in at 3 o'clock."
Christie said he caught his fish flipping a black neon YUM soft-plastic tube on 25-pound Silver Thread line paired with a Falcon rod.
"That's changing day-to-day, but today that was the deal," Christie said. "Yesterday I caught 20 to 25 keepers. Yesterday you could just go down the bank and catch the fish in bushes that didn't have any shade. Of course, yesterday it was overcast.
"What changed today was the high, bright sun," Christie added. "The fish would not bite in that type of bush. You had to get back in the shade ... the dark shade. That's where I caught all of my fish."
Christie said he has only two small areas that hold fish that he feels confident in and will look for new water to sustain him through the weekend.
Rounding out the top five pros who will continue competition Saturday and Sunday are pro Glenn Browne of Ocala, Fla. (10 bass, 23-3); pro Clark Wendlandt of Leander, Texas (10 bass, 22-14); and Mark Rose of Marion, Ark. (10 bass, 22-11).
Also clearing the top-10 cut weight of 21 pounds, 4 ounces and adding to this already power-packed top-10 field are pro Jay Yelas of Corvallis, Ore.; pro Ray Scheide of Dover, Ark.; Rob Kilby of Hot Springs, Ark.; Keith Combs of Del Rio, Texas; and pro Gabe Bolivar of Ramona, Calif.
Wendlandt earned the day's $1,000 Big Bass award in the Pro Division thanks to a 5-pound, 1-ounce bass.
Kevin Hawk of Ramona, Calif., leads the Co-angler Division with an opening-round total of 10 bass weighing 18 pounds, 6 ounces, followed by Moo Bae of West Friendship, Md., in second place with 10 bass weighing 17-8.
Hawk said he caught every fish Friday on a green pumpkin trick worm rigged on a 1/8-ounce shaky-head jig head. He threw the rig on a 7-foot medium-heavy action rod using 10-pound braid and an 8-pound-test fluorocarbon leader. He said the rig gave him the muscle he needed to get fish out of heavy cover.
"That's the only bait I threw in practice, so I decided not to change anything and use that in the tournament, and so far it's paid off for me," Hawk said. "I'm excited to go out and go fishing again."
Rounding out the top five co-anglers are Brent Bridgeman of Elkmont, Ala. (10 bass, 15-14); Shane Lehew of Charlotte, N.C. (10 bass, 15-12) and Zac Cassill of Fairfax, Iowa (nine bass, 15-11).
Also clearing the top-10 cut weight of 13 pounds, 6 ounces in the Co-angler Division are David Hudson of Jasper, Ala.; Todd Lee of Jasper, Ala.; T.R. Fuller of Auburn, Ala.; Eddie Laster of Morton, Miss.; and Dirk Davenport of Delaware, Ohio.
Earl Bennett of Mt. Vernon, Ill., earned $500 for the day's Folgers Big Bass award in the Co-angler Division thanks to a 3-pound, 7-ounce bass he caught while fishing with Jason Reyes of Huffman, Texas.