Four Arkansans will compete Aug. 4-7 for $300,000 first prize at the Forrest Wood Cup on Wheeler Lake at Huntsville, Ala.
The Forrest Wood Cup is the championship tournament for the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, the highest competitive level in the Fishing League Worldwide organization. It features the top 36 anglers in the FLW Tour, the 10 qualifiers from the 2015 Costa FLW Series National Championship, the 2016 Bass Federation national champion, the FLW college fishing national champion, the FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) All-American champion, the 2015 FLW Tour Angler of the Year and the 2015 Forrest Wood Cup Champion.
Usually, the field includes the top 35 FLW Tour anglers, but Scott Martin of Clewiston, Fla., qualified twice by finishing in the top 35 and by winning Angler of the Year. FLW invited the 36th-place angler, Troy Morrow of Eastanollee, Ga., to complete the field.
Arkansans that qualified for the Forrest Wood Cup are Scott Suggs of Bryant, Stetson Blaylock of Benton, Mark Rose of West Memphis and Greg Bohannan of Bentonville. Suggs won the 2007 Forrest Wood Cup in Hot Springs, where he became the first of only two anglers to win $1 million in a bass tournament.
Michael Bennett won $1 million at the 2008 Cup in Columbia, S.C. No tournament has offered such a large prize since.
Terry Bolton, formerly of Jonesboro, qualified for the Cup, as did Clark Reehm, formerly of Russellville. Bolton currently lives in Paducah, Ky., and Reehm in Huntington, Texas.
Also in the field is Denny Brauer, a Bassmaster Classic champion. Brauer competed in the Costa Series and finished 10th in the 2015 Costa FLW Series Championship. FLW invited him to compete in the Forrest Wood Cup after Trevor Fitzgerald of Belleview, Fla., was ruled ineligible.
This will be Brauer's fourth appearance in the Forrest Wood Cup. His best finish was eighth in 1998 when he was also FLW's Angler of the Year. He also won the Bassmaster Classic at High Rock Lake in North Carolina in 1998.
Brauer won the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament on the Arkansas River in 2011 when he publicly accused Jonathon VanDam of poaching his fishing spots in Pine Bluff Harbor.
FLW's top rookie
Chris Johnston of Peterborough, Ontario, was named FLW's Rookie of the Year last week after finishing the season in second place with 1,060 points.
This was Johnston's first season on the FLW Tour, but he fished the Costa Series for several years.
"I didn't want to make the jump to the Tour until I was financially ready," Johnston said. "I've got my career set up with my job at home where I can do this now. I didn't want to be living in my truck and going paycheck to paycheck. I wanted to be able to fish to win."
Johnston's professional debut was a third-place finish on Lake Okeechobee in Clewiston, Fla. He finished 12th and 25th, respectively, at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina and Beaver Lake.
Arkansan inducted
Billy Murray of Hot Springs, noted for his accomplishments as a bass fishing educator, was recently inducted into the National Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, along with Gary Yamamoto and President George H.W. Bush.
Murray's twin brother Bobby Murray, a two-time Bassmaster Classic champion, also is in the National Bass Fishing Hall of Fame. They are the only brothers to be so honored.
Billy Murray's fishing career began in the 1960s when he was a guide on Lake Ouachita. He was later a cinematographer on The Fishin' Hole, a long-running television program hosted by Jerry McKinnis of Little Rock.
In the 1970s, Murray formed a fishing education program known as the Bass Fishing Institute at Mountain Harbor on Lake Ouachita. It was America's first on-the-water fishing school. It become one of the nation's largest fishing education programs and was taught in major universities across the U.S. until the mid-1980s. Murray traveled with his crew teaching bass fishing tactics to tens of thousands of people across the country.
Murray also worked for Pradco Outdoors Brand for around 30 years in various positions. He designed lures and trained Pradco staff and their clients, such as Bass Pro Shops and Cabela's.
Sports on 07/07/2016