Outdoors: Walmart FLW Tour bass tournament starts today at Beaver Lake

Fishermen hope to catch black bass to earn some green prize money when the Walmart FLW Tour bass tournament starts today on Beaver Lake.

The tournament is the third contest of the 2015 season for the Walmart FLW Tour. Fishing starts at 6: 30 a.m. out of Prairie Creek park. The tournament runs through Sunday. Anglers will weigh their fish at 3 p.m. today and Friday at Prairie Creek park east of Rogers. Weigh-ins move to the John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers at 4 p.m., on Saturday and Sunday.

At A Glance

FLW Tour

At Beaver Lake, Rogers

When: Today through Sunday

Weigh-ins: 3 p.m. today and Friday at Prairie Creek park. Saturday and Sunday weigh-ins are at 4 p.m. at John Q. Hammons Center in Rogers. The public is invited to all FLW weigh-ins and activities at no charge.

FLW Expo: The free expo is from noon to 4 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at the John Q. Hammons Center. Games, free product samples, trout fishing tank for kids are available. A free concert by Backroad Anthem is at 3 p.m. on Sunday at the Hammons center.

Prize money: First place pro division, $125,000. First place co-angler, $25,000.

All 154 anglers in the pro division and 154 co-anglers, who fish from the back of the pro's boat, fish today and Friday. The top 20 pros fish on Saturday and the top 10 fish Sunday. The pro division winner gets $125,000. Top co-angler recieves $25,000.

Anglers may weigh five bass each day. Largemouth bass, spotted bass or smallmouth bass, which are the three species of black bass, may be weighed.

FLW contestants are generally hush-hush about how they plan to catch them. Chris Johnson of Lincoln doesn't fish the tour, but he's a top contender at local tournaments. He predicts FLW anglers will catch bass several ways.

"The tournament is right in the middle of the spawn this year," Johnson said. "Catching fish that are on spawning nests will be a major player."

Top-water lures, small jigs and small plastic worms fished near nests should put fish in the boat, he said. All bass caught in the tournament are released after they're weighed.

Not all bass will be in spawning mode, Johnson noted. Fish that aren't on the nest yet can be caught with single-tail grubs and plastic worms, he said.

Jon Stein, fisheries biologist with the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission, said his crew did an electrofishing study at Beaver last week and found good numbers of large bass in shallow water. Bass are spawning, Stein confirmed

Largemouth bass are the most sought-after species, but the population of smallmouth bass is growing rapidly at Beaver. Greg Bohannan of Bentonville, an FLW pro fisherman, said anglers who target smallmouths may pocket a nice check, but he predicts the tournament will be won with largemouth bass.

The lake level is good, Bohannan said. It's high enough that there is flooded cover to fish, but not so high that bass can get far back into thick stuff and out of reach. Lots of five-fish limits should be weighed, he said.

FLW anglers will find any type of water clarity they like, Bohannan said. Water is dingy at the head of the lake, east of Springdale and Lowell, and clear at the dam near Eureka Springs.

"A lot of guys like to fish dirty water and there will be a big group headed to that," Bohannan said.

A choice of clarity should keep the field spread out all over the lake.

New this year is that co-angler competition ends on Friday. The the co-angler winner crowned at the Friday weigh-in.

Co-anglers fish from the back of the pro's boat, but pay a lesser entry fee. Entry fee for the tournament is $4,300 for the pro division and $800 for co-anglers.

Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip

Sports on 04/23/2015

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