BASS REPORT: Largemouth hotshots Salewske, Curtis lead FWC on Day 3
NEW Aug. 1, 2009 / 8:30 p.m. EST

PITTSBURGH, Penn. - Ironic, isn’t it, that the two anglers sitting at the top of the leader board heading into the final day of the 2009 Forrest Wood Cup are largemouth anglers from Southern California and Texas?

Check that: the true irony is that the fishery they’re competing on – the Three Rivers of Pittsburgh, PA – is almost exclusively a smallmouth fishery that prompted one angler to say “I doubt there’s seven largemouth in that whole system.”

But like it or not, smallie fans, when the guys sitting in places 3 through 10 blast off tomorrow for the penultimate day of the $2 million FWC, they’ll be chasing Alpine, California’s Rusty Salewske and Trinity, Texas’ David Curtis, a pair of lifelong largemouth anglers from two of the sport’s green-fish Meccas.

Salewske takes a 15-ounce lead into Day 4 with 6 pounds 6 ounces, just ahead of Curtis’ 5-7.

“Are you sayin’ I’m a largemouth angler?” Salewske challenged after the lights went down at Mellon Arena for Saturday’s weigh-in. “You know what my favorite fish to catch is? It’s a smallmouth. You know why? Because I don’t get many chance to fish for them.”

Same deal for Curtis, who, while weighing his fish on Day 1 freely admitted to FLW Outdoors host Charlie Evans that he preferred fishing for largemouth over smallies. He went even further after weigh-in on Saturday, admitting that his three days on the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers represent his most extensive – and successful – tournament smallmouth experience to date.

“I’ve only fished half a handful of times for smallmouth,” Curtis admitted. “They’re not what I’m accustomed to fishing for.”

But while neither of the two leaders can list a long smallie resume, both Saleske and Curtis have displayed ability to adapt to situations and nuances on the fly. Curtis has made his tournament by fishing a variety of baits he’d normally fish for largemouth – “Just junk-fishing,” he said – while Salewske has hammered away with a handful of baits and presentations that’d work just as well on 500 different spots on the West Coast as they will on the upper Allegheny, where he spent the day today.

“If you were in my boat today, you could catch every fish I caught today on a drop-shot or a shaky-head or anything … it’s not the bait, I guarantee it,” Salewske said. “It has nothing to do with the bait. It’s finding out what they’re doing.”

Conditions continue to fluctuate: The morning dawned clear and muggy today, leading some observers to believe that the Top 10 might find clearer water throughout the system. While that was true in some spots on the Allegheny and Ohio, the previous two days of rainfall caused the current to fluctuate wildly in some of the spots as water was released from the dams on the Allegheny.

“It really blew out today, bad,” said 2007 FWC champ Scott Suggs, who sits in fifth place with 4-6, just behind Mike Iaconelli at 4-12 and Redding’s Cody Meyer at 5-0. “The current breaks I’ve been fishing are totally gone. One of them even had a bicycle on top of it today. I had to make some adjustments today.”

Meyer poked and pecked his way through the Allegheny today, fishing spots he’d never fished before and working from blast-off to shutdown to find biting fish.

“I didn’t get nearly as many bites as I got the last couple of days,” Meyer said. “Basically all I’m doing is going fishing, and finding them as I go.”

Ike’s co-angler scores big: Although he didn’t show it, perhaps the most frustrated pro today was Iaconelli, who entered the day completely confident in his ability to catch a five-fish limit on a handful of spots on all three rivers. Unfortunately for Iaconelli, his co-angler – Brad Roberts from Nancy, Kentucky – benefited more from Ike’s spots than Ike did: Roberts caught five fish for 6-4 pounds to win the $50,000 co-angler championship by nearly 5 pounds.

“It’s a little hard to stomach when you’re up front and you keep seeing those big fish caught out back,” Iaconelli said. “He’s a heck of a fisherman. He fished hard today, and made all the right choices. You have to be in a constant state of flux to figure (this fishery) out. Hopefully by watching my co-angler today I learned a little something that’ll help me tomorrow.”

Day 3 superstar Greg Hackney, who wowed the Mellon Arena crowd with a bag of 11-12 yesterday, never settled into the same groove today. As promised, Hackney ran up to the Allegheny and methodically worked his way downriver through the day. He ended up weighing in four fish for 4-3 (6th place) and missed a couple of bites that might’ve boosted him slightly in a format where every last ounce will likely matter come tomorrow’s final weigh-in.

“I caught fish over a 30-mile stretch, but the weather changed and the water dirtied a little,” Hackney said. “I felt like I was pushing it – I never could get it going. It just felt weird today.”

Unfortunately for four of the 10 anglers in the top 10 – Dave Lefebre, David Walker, Bryan Thrift and Larry Nixon – finding bites was a tall order on Day 3. Nixon caught two fish, but was docked a pound when one of those fish officially came in under the 12-inch size minimum. The other three only caught one fish apiece.

Fortunately for Lefebre, that one fish was a doozy: a 3-15 that he hooked in the last half-hour of the day, which keeps him in contention on the final day.

“That was the best moment of my entire fishing (career),” Lefebre said. “I never get those bites. It was a struggle today. I got that fish right at the end of the day.”

Tomorrow’s finals: The Top 10 take off at 7 a.m. EST tomorrow and weigh in at 5 p.m. EST. You can follow the entire weigh-in at FLW Live.
 -JS

Copyright © 2009, Northwest Wild Country Radio Network, All Rights Reserved