Past champs keen on $500,000 prize

Jacob Wheeler of Indianapolis weighed a five-bass limit of 16 pounds, 2 ounces to grab the lead after Day 1 of the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita.
Jacob Wheeler of Indianapolis weighed a five-bass limit of 16 pounds, 2 ounces to grab the lead after Day 1 of the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita.

HOT SPRINGS -- It's in the air that the first two-time champion in the Forrest Wood Cup will be crowned Sunday on Lake Ouachita.

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Angler Ishama Monroe shows off his catch Thursday during the weigh-in at the Forrest Wood Cup. Monroe is in second place after weighing in five bass at 15 pounds.

That kind of talk is usually taboo in a major bass fishing championship, but at least three former Forrest Wood Cup champions talked about it freely during the first-round weigh-in at the prestigious tournament Thursday at Bank of the Ozarks Arena.

One of those was Jacob Wheeler of Indianapolis Ind., the 2012 champion, and he made the strongest opening bid to win the $500,000 top prize by weighing in five bass that weighed 16 pounds, 2 ounces. Scott Martin of Clewiston, Fla., who won in 2011 at Lake Ouachita, talked about it, as did Luke Clausen, the 2004 champion.

"It's going to happen this year, right here," Wheeler said. "I know Scott wants to win it real bad, and I know Luke does. I want to be the first one to win it twice real bad, too."

Ishama Monroe of Hughson, Calif., eyeing his first championship, finished the day in second place (5/15-0), followed by Brandon Cobb of Greenwood, S.C. (5/14-10). Martin (5/14-6) is fourth and Clausen (5/13-1) is eighth.

Cobb received an 8-ounce penalty for weighing in two dead fish Thursday. Had they been alive, his weight would have been 15-2 and put him in second place.

Stetson Blaylock of Benton is 17th (5/10-9), followed by Larry Nixon of Bee Branch in 23rd (5/9-5), and Shawn Gordon of Russellville is 35th (3/6-5).

Sunny Hawk of Salt Lake City, Utah, led the co-angler division with five bass that weighed 13-6.

The entire 100-angler field will fish in today's second round, which begins at 7 a.m. at Brady Mountain Recreation Area. The field will be cut to the 20 anglers with the heaviest cumulative two-day weights in the third round Saturday, which will also be the championship round for the co-angler division. The pro field will cut to the top 10 for Sunday's final round.

Wheeler, who finished 12th in the 2011 Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Ouachita, said he learned some valuable lessons in that tournament. There aren't as many bass in shallow water as there were then, he said. Instead of relying on one pattern, he said he's employing multiple patterns.

"If you put all your eggs in one basket, you can get burned really easy," Wheeler said. "Randall Tharp got second doing that in 2011. I got 12th in that event. It's not like it was. You have to have multiple things going."

Timing his patterns is a matter of instinct.

"It's minute to minute," Wheeler said. "You think, 'I'm going to fish this for an hour.' You pull up and after five minutes you're like, 'I don't like this. It's not the deal.' You roll on. It's all gut feeling."

The most prominent pattern for anglers fishing shallow water was bass preying on spawning bluegills. Monroe tapped into that pattern all day with two baits. One was a large jointed swimbait called an S Waver. The other was a walking type bait called the Rover. He said he used the Waver in the wind, and he used the Rover if the wind died.

"I call it the two-rod Todd," Monroe said. "I just kept mixing it up until I ran across them. I might fish an hour without a bite, and then I'd catch 1, 2, 3. Then I'd go another hour without a bite and then catch 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It was just a matter of timing it right."

Monroe said his weight probably peaked Thursday, and that he will be satisfied to catch 12- to 13-pounds a day for the rest of the tournament.

Sports on 08/21/2015

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