ROGERS - Spencer Shuffield is a few pounds closer to $100,000 going into today’s third round of the FLW Tour bass tournament being held on Beaver Lake.
Shuffield, of Bismarck, finished the first round in second place but caught five bass weighing 13 pounds, 11 ounces, in the second round Friday to take the lead with a total weight of 29 pounds.
The top 20 pros and top 20 co-anglers will fish today. The co-angler with the heaviest combined three-day weight will win $25,000. The top 10 pros with the heaviest three-day weights will fish Sunday for the $100,000 championship.
Bryan New of Belmont, N.C., leads the co-angler division with 12 pounds, 10 ounces. He caught five bass Friday that weighed 6-8. Frank Divis Sr. of Fayetteville finished the second round in 11th place with a two-day total of 13-5.
Andy Morgan of Dayton, Tenn., is in second place in the pro division after catching five bass Friday weighing 15-4 for a two-day total weight of 27-15. He is followed by Matt Arey (5/14-6; 27-6) of Shelby, N.C.; Troy Morrow (5/12-7; 26-10) of Eastanollee, Ga.; Michah Frazer (5/12-2; 26-5) of Newnan, Ga.; Cody Meyer (5/12-4; 26-1) of Auburn, Calif.; Casey Ashley (5/11-3; 25-13), of Donalds, S.C.; Bryan Thrift (5/9-10; 25-12) of Shelby, N.C.; David Dudley (5/13-10; 25-10) of Lynchburg, Va.; and Mark Rose (5/12-0; 24-14) of West Memphis.
The tournament opened Thursday with bright and windy conditions, but Friday was bright and calm. Shuffield said the calm conditions made it hard to get bites throwing a jerkbait after the sun came up and that he was fortunate to catch most of his fish early.
“I only caught nine or 10 keepers all day. Yesterday it was about 50,” Shuffield said. “Today they just weren’t biting. I can’t tell you how many two-anda-half pounders and three-pounders I saw come after my bait today, but they wouldn’t take it.”
Shuffield said wind is important to roil the surface and distort light, which makes a jerkbait look more realistic.
“It’s only getting down five or six feet, and a lot of the fish are biting out over 20,” Shuffield said. “They’re coming 10 to 15 feet to get it. When you’re fishing where you can see 18 to 20 feet in the water and you don’t have no wind to break the surface, the fish run up there and they can see the treble hooks hanging down, the split rings and stuff like that.
“The wind makes such a big difference because the fish can’t see all the gear hanging from it and they’ll go ahead and bite it.”
The good news for Shuffield is that today is supposed to be windy, with a storm coming Sunday.
“It should be game on,” Shuffield said.
Morgan said he burned a lot of battery juice trolling up and down banks until he finally found some fish. The key was finding some overlooked structure that other anglers haven’t found.
“The thing about Beaver Lake is that it fishes small,” Morgan said. “It’s not a bad lake, but I was fortunate to find a couple of little areas off the beaten path.”
Arey said he has caught fish by abandoning shad-based patterns and presenting baits that imitate crawdads.
“They had such a big shad kill here this year, and I really think these fish are on a crawdad deal right now,” Arey said. “Last year when I came here, the pockets were full of birds and full of bait. It’s hard to find a big ball of bait right now.”
Arey said he is keying on fish that are staging to move to the bank to spawn in stained water. He said he has caught most of his fish early in the day and saved his best water for the final two days.
He said wind and weather won’t affect what he’s doing.
“I call it the Beaver Lake Marathon,” Arey said. “If you can catch 13 pounds each day, you’ll be right there at the end of it.”
Sports, Pages 28 on 04/12/2014