Colson takes lead at professional bass fishing’s Forrest Wood Cup
Category: press release
Aug 21st, 2015 by OutdoorsFIRST
Modified Aug 21st, 2015 at 12:00 AM
Fifty of the best professional bass anglers in the world continued their four-day competition for a top cash award of $500,000 at the Forrest Wood Cup presented by Walmart, the world championship of bass fishing, at Lake Ouachita in Hot Springs, Arkansas on Friday.
After the last fish had been brought to the scale, Ramie Colson Jr., of Cadiz, Kentucky, grabbed the lead by weighing in a five-bass limit totaling 17 pounds, 4 ounces – the heaviest stringer of the tournament thus far. Colson’s two-day total of 10 bass weighing 31-1 give him a 2-pound, 13-ounce lead heading into day three, with Brad Knight of Lancing, Tennessee, right behind him in second place with 10 bass weighing 28-4.
“I had about 12 or 13 pounds in my livewell this afternoon and was already having a pretty good day,” said Colson, who has earned more than $645,000 in his 11 years as a professional on the Walmart FLW Tour. “I told my co-angler that if I could get a big fish right now, it would be a game changer for me. Then the Good Lord blessed me and I caught a 5 (pound), 14 (ounce) fish at 2:30. Now, here I am getting ready to fish another day.”
Colson said that he has stuck to one main area, consisting of three different arms of the lake. He said that while many of his competitors were beating the banks with topwater baits, he opted to stay out deeper and fish very, very slow.
“That’s been my key so far, fishing extremely slowly,” Colson said. “I don’t cover water very fast, and it seems like that is what everybody else is doing. That seems to be working for them, but that is not my cup of tea. I like to spend my time fishing slow and dissect the spot, then I move on to another.”
Although he declined to mention any specifics, he did say that he was fishing soft plastics and managed to bag a total of 12 keepers throughout the day. He credited his Garmin Panoptix sonar as being a major factor in his success.
“I can turn my Panoptix directly on the brush pile and it’ll show me if there are any fish there, saving me quite a bit of time. I caught them out of 15 different piles, but I’ve got around 40 different piles marked.
“I figured that if I could catch 10 to 12 pounds a day that I would make the top-20 cut and get to fish the weekend. Anything more than that would be a bonus,” Colson went on to say. “It’s tough fishing out there, but I’m having a lot of fun and doing what I love to do.”
The top 20 pros that will continue to Saturday’s competition are:
1st: Ramie Colson Jr., Cadiz, Ky., 10 bass, 31-1
2nd: Brad Knight, Lancing, Tenn., 10 bass, 28-4
3rd: Jacob Wheeler, Indianapolis, Ind., 10 bass, 27-1
4th: Brandon Cobb, Greenwood, S.C., 10 bass, 25-12
5th: Chris Baumgardner, Gastonia, N.C., 10 bass, 25-10
6th: Todd Auten, Lake Wylie, S.C., nine bass, 24-13
7th: Scott Martin, Clewiston, Fla., 10 bass, 24-9
8th: Mark Daniels Jr., Tuskegee, Ala., 10 bass, 23-4
9th: Walmart pro David Dudley, Lynchburg, Va., 10 bass, 21-11
10th: Bryan Thrift, Shelby, N.C., 10 bass, 21-10
11th: Luke Clausen, Spokane, Wash., nine bass, 21-8
12th: Larry Nixon, Bee Branch, Ark., 10 bass, 21-7
13th: Zack Birge, Blanchard, Okla., 10 bass, 20-9
14th: Dave Lefebre, Erie, Pa., 10 bass, 20-6
15th: Quaker State pro Matt Arey, Shelby, N.C., 10 bass, 20-1
16th: Livingston Lures pro Stetson Blaylock, Benton, Ark., 10 bass, 20-0
17th: Clark Wendlandt, Leander, Texas, nine bass, 19-15
18th: Wesley Strader, Spring City, Tenn., 10 bass, 19-13
19th: Lowrance pro Ishama Monroe, Hughson, Calif., seven bass, 19-12
20th: James Biggs, Euless, Texas, nine bass, 19-4
Final results for the remaining field can be found on FLWFishing.com.