Photo: Anthony Gagliardi The day 2 conditions at Murray matched Anthony Gagliardi's confidence that the deep bite would pay off.

Gagliardi Committed To Spinnerbait At Murray FLW

Thursday, March 20, 2003

South Carolina's Anthony Gagliardi turned in the Best Under the Cut Performance at the FLW Tour stop at Lake Murray, thanks to catching nearly 24 pounds on day 2. Gagliardi jumped from 87th to 11th and missed the Top 10 by 1 ounce.

Here is a look at his performance in the tournament:
Day 1: 3, 11-00
Day 2: 5, 23-15

The Pattern

Hailing from nearby Prosperity (also the hometown of Davy Hite), Gagliardi had the home-court advantage at Lake Murray. His advantage was not in the form of honey holes or brush-sweetened coves, but rather the experience in knowing that if he committed to a big spinnerbait in deep water, it would eventually pay off.

"In pre-spawn, throwing big spinnerbaits on main-lake points is the way to catch big fish on Murray," Gagliardi said. "But you have to commit to it. You can't just throw it for a few minutes and then go try something else. It's one of those techniques where you only get 4 to 6 big bites a day.

"It takes discipline to stay with it. Probably my biggest advantage was knowing if I kept that spinnerbait glued to my hand, I would eventually get the bites."

Most of Gagliardi's fishing spots were obvious main-lake points that protruded from islands in the lower lake. He favored long, skinny points that had steeper drops on the sides and a more-defined grassline. He was running a true pattern in that he had eliminated the flat, rounded points and isolated a dozen or so of the sharper points as his key water.

He kept his boat in 12-20 feet of water, and made long casts to the shallow parts of the points. He slowrolled his spinnerbait over 4-12 feet of water.

His spinnerbait was a 3/4-ounce LedgeBuster, which he threw on 15-pound P-Line with a Falcon 6' 10" heavy-action rod. He prefers that action of rod for the technique because of the size of the bait and the need to drive a hook home on such long casts.

Right on Track

On day 1, Gagliardi brought in 3 fish for 11 pounds. Despite the giant bags that were being brought in, he wasn't disappointed. He was right on track.

"That's typical of that spinnerbait bite," he said. "I had three that weighed 11 pounds, and that's still nearly a 4-pound average. I had four bites. I lost one about 5 pounds that would have put me up there in the thick of it."

Another thing that may have hurt his day 1 bag was the sunny, calm weather. The lower end of Murray was sunny and slick, and in that clear water the big spinnerbait looked more like a disco-ball submarine than shad fleeing for its life.

When day 2 dawned into a thunderstorm, and then the day turned partly cloudy and breezy, Gagliardi's big spinnerbait bite came alive. He got six bites and connected on five of them. Four of his fish were fat pre-spawn females, including one in the 7-pound class. "That's how it's supposed to work," Gagliardi said, though he was bummed about missing the cut by an ounce.

Liked His Chances

If he got a shot at day 3 -- as one of the cut anglers or if there'd been only a day 3 cut -- he liked his chances for a win. "The conditions the last two days -- that real cloudy, rainy and windy stuff -- is when that bite is best," he said. "My biggest fear during the tournament was that it was warming up too fast and they were moving to the bank. But that weather we had Friday and Saturday would have definitely kept them off the bank and backed out on those points."

The wind hindered some Top 10 qualifiers who were fishing deep spinnerbaits in the finals. But Gagliardi said he had enough places to stay out of the wind.

"Some of the qualifiers that were fishing that way only had one stretch or a few points to work, and that heavy wind blew them out. I had many points all over the lower end that I could've fished. I didn't even go to some of them during the first two days because they had boats on them. With only 10 guys out there, that would have opened up a lot of water for me."