By BassFan Staff
Brent Long is a housing contractor back home in Cornelius, N.C. He just recently closed on a construction loan to finish building his family a new home and his twin 13-year-old step-daughters are happily picking out furnishings for their rooms and the rest of the house. The project dates back to 2009 so he’s pretty anxious to get the building completed and move in.
In the meantime, he’s building himself quite the fishing résumé as well. He probed the stained water in Long Creek (pun intended) and pulled out a solid 19-14 final-day limit today that gave him a 4-day total of 78-13 and the victory at the Table Rock FLW Tour Major. He now has a matching mantelpiece for the Tour win he had at Guntersville in 2010.
Tour rookie Spencer Shuffield settled for 2nd with 78-06 after briefly surging to the lead with a 22-13 stringer, the best bag of the day.
It made for a dramatic conclusion as Long was sure he’d be the runner-up. When he saw Shuffield’s weight flash on the leaderboard, he thought for sure his chance to win had evaporated.
“I really thought I was half-pound to a pound out,” he said. “When they announced his weight I started preparing myself for 2nd place. I knew I was 2nd place. When I got on stage before (FLW weighmaster) Chris (Jones) weighed them, I wanted to stop and thank my sponsors because I knew I wouldn’t get another chance.”
In 3rd was Troy Morrow, the only other pro to crack the 70-pound barrier. He caught 21-13 today to finish with 70-13 and complete a remarkable turnaround from being in 97th place after day 1.
Clint Brownlee stuck 18-08 and wound up in 4th place with 67-06, erasing the sting of his 109th-place showing at the first Tour Major of the year at Lake Hartwell. Rounding out the Top 5 was Stacey King, who was a fish light today and caught 7-14 to close with 63-13.
Here's a look at the final totals for the 10 pros who competed today:
1. Brent Long: 78-13
2. Spencer Shuffield: 78-06
3. Troy Morrow: 70-13
4. Clint Brownlee: 67-06
5. Stacey King: 63-13
6. Anthony Gagliardi: 62-09
7. Chris Baumgardner: 62-01
8. Jason Christie: 61-11
9. Kyle Welcher: 60-02
10. Clent Davis: 56-05
The wind some of the contestants were hoping for finally arrived today and a few reported that it seemed to activate their fish even as the water level came down again. The vast majority of the Top 10 focused on stained and dingy water, including Long, providing a bit of irony considering Table Rock’s reputation for being a deep, clear fishery and the wicked-good results locals were having throwing the Alabama Rig in deeper water in the preceding weeks.
Anthony Gagliardi will leave Table Rock as the points leader in the Angler of the Year chase following a 6th-place finish that was aided by his 13-02 limit which gave him 62-09 for the week. He was 8 ounces better than 7th-place Chris Baumgardner, who caught 12-09 today.
Long had a fast start this morning that carried him to the win.
It was a tough day for Jason Christie, who launched today in 3rd place, just 3-01 out of the lead. He weighed two for 5-13 and fell to 8th while day-2 leader and Tour rookie Kyle Welcher, who went out in 5th, managed three keepers for 6-07 and faded to 9th. Clent Davis finished where he started today -- in 10th after a 9-01 bag pushed his total to 56-05.
The Tour will take a 3-week break before the next Major is staged back in the Ozarks, this time at Beaver Lake on April 26-29.
Long Earns Some Validation
> Day 4: 5, 19-14 (20, 78-13)
Long’s confidence in his areas never wavered all week as he was certain good fish were still around. He remarked on day 3 that he’d lost a handful of good bites and he’d get after them first thing on day 4. It took him all of three casts to get a 6-pounder in the boat to take the edge off.
“In my mind, I was thinking I had a 3-pound lead and when I caught that, I started thinking I had a 9-pound lead right off the bat,” he said. “It was a good momentum swing. I knew if I could get the bites and get them in the boat, they’d be good quality because they’d been like that since practice.”
He didn’t share water with anyone today, other than a few local crappie boats.
“I went to one of my best pockets today and there were three jonboats and a pontoon boat banging around,” he added. “It had me a little worried.”
When he won at Guntersville, he did it fishing a deep ledge adjacent to the main river channel, not exactly his forté. He fished his strength this week, flipping shallow wood in dirty water and came out on top and shed the “one-hit wonder” label along the way.
“When I won at Guntersville, I won it deep and that’s not one of my strong points,” he said. “Then I come to a deep, clear lake and win it shallow. That solidifies me as a good angler, I think.”
Details of his winning pattern, as well as those of the other top finishers, will be published soon.
2nd: Shuffield Needed One More Quality Bite
> Day 4: 5, 22-13 (20, 78-06)
Shuffield got the wind he was hoping for and nearly got the result he has hoping for as well. In the end, he was 7 ounces shy of going home with a trophy and hefty paycheck, but he’s taking it in stride.
“It’s no big deal to me,” the 22-year-old Arkansas pro said. “Everybody was saying, ‘Don’t get your head down.’ I’m not hanging my head. It’s fishing. I’ll go try to win the next one. I don’t let it get to me at all.”
Spencer Shuffield pulled all of his fish out of new water today.
He combined his umbrella-rig program with sight-fishing again today, but left his used water behind and went to places he had not fished before.
“I went practicing today,” he said. “That 22-13 was all from new water, stuff I hadn’t made casts on. I had a feeling all day long that I needed one more 3-plus pound fish and I never could get it.”
The breeze really benefited him and how he was fishing.
“It made a huge difference,” he said. “I wish I could’ve had it yesterday. I would love to be able to go back out there tomorrow because right now, I’m wishing this was a 5-day tournament.”
He caught 10 keepers today, but noted a bunch of bites were so hard that they didn’t grab a hook and got off.
“I had 30 or 35 other bites today and I know a couple of them were good fish, but they hit it so hard that they didn’t get a hook. I never had that problem in practice or the tournament. If you got bit, you caught it.”
He had his weight by 9:15 after moving to shallower water around 8:30.
“I wish I’d have moved in earlier or I could’ve caught another big one today,” he added.
3rd: Morrow’s Snap Decision Pays Off
> Day 4: 5, 21-13 (20, 70-13)
While en route to his first spot -- and on plane, no less -- Morrow opted to scrap his primary pattern and go to something completely different in new water. It was a gutsy call for sure, but it paid off in the form of a second Top-5 Tour finish for the Georgia pro.
Initially, he had plans to go back to his shallow-water square-bill crankbait pattern. Instead, he called an audible and opted to throw a Wiggle Wart in deeper, clearer water.
His 21-13 bag, anchored by an estimated 7-pounder, was second only to Shuffield’s haul and it bumped him up five spots on the leaderboard.
“It raises my confidence level,” he said. “I’m 6th in the Angler of the Year points so I have a shot at that and a great shot at making (the Cup). I just need to carry it forward. Of course, it helps take some of the pressure off financially.
"When I took off this morning, I said, ‘I want to catch smallmouth this morning,’ so I stopped and caught two or three and then caught that monster largemouth. I had 15 pounds by 8 o’clock.”
He did go back to his stained water at the end of the day and stuck a 4 1/2-pounder to upgrade.
4th: Brownlee Adjusted on Fly
> Day 4: 5, 18-08 (20, 67-06)
Brownlee notched his second Top-5 finish at a Tour event and he had to make some adjustments today to do it.
“I feel real good about it,” he said. “I’d been catching them all week on shallow points and shallow banks and pockets, but what happened was the water came down another foot today.”
He struggled to put anything in his boat this morning, but made a move to deeper banks and “more mountainous pockets versus more flatter banks.”
The result was a 30-minute flurry that saw him pull seven keepers off one of those deeper pockets and give him his weight for the day. Among his haul was a 5-pounder.
“The deeper water, with the water dropping, just didn’t affect the fish as much as it did on the shallower flats,” he said.
With the water coming down, he thought he could move out on the flatter pockets and keep catching them.
“I don’t know what happened,” he added. “I think some of the fish suspended on some of the timber in the middle of the pockets. I think you saw a lot of guys struggle today because of that.”
10th: Davis Pleased
> Day 4: 4, 9-01 (19, 56-05)
Davis was aiming for 20 pounds today and a chance to slide up the standings. Instead, he scuffled to stick the 9-01 he did weigh.
“Today was definitely a struggle,” he said. “All of my fish went on beds and I knew it. But I really don’t know because I’d go up to check and it’d be a buck fest. So I ran around trying to find them and wound up catching buck bass. I lost a couple and bounced a couple off the side of the boat.”
He caught his fish this week cranking a Wiggle Wart in 5 to 10 feet of water in Indian Creek.
“I’m very proud of the tournament I had because I’d never seen this place before,” he added. “I like it. It fished like (Lake) Wheeler and (Lake) Pickwick back home with all the rock and pea gravel.”
Notable
> Day 4 stats – 10 anglers, 6 limits, 2 fours, 1 three, 1 two.
Day 4 Standings
1. Brent Long -- Cornelius, NC -- 19-04 (5) -- 17-08 (5) -- 22-03 (5) -- 19-14 (5) -- 78-13 (20) -- $100,200 + $25,000
2. Spencer Shuffield -- Bismarck, Ar -- 18-14 (5) -- 21-06 (5) -- 15-05 (5) -- 22-13 (5) -- 78-06 (20) -- $35,000
3. Troy Morrow -- Eastanollee, Ga -- 10-08 (5) -- 21-09 (5) -- 16-15 (5) -- 21-13 (5) -- 70-13 (20) -- $30,000
4. Clint Brownlee -- Tifton, Ga -- 20-01 (5) -- 13-13 (5) -- 15-00 (5) -- 18-08 (5) -- 67-06 (20) -- $25,000
5. Stacey King -- Reeds Spring, Mo -- 19-03 (5) -- 22-13 (5) -- 13-15 (5) -- 7-14 (4) -- 63-13 (19) -- $20,000
6. Anthony Gagliardi -- Prosperity, SC -- 18-14 (5) -- 15-00 (5) -- 15-09 (5) -- 13-02 (5) -- 62-09 (20) -- $17,000
7. Chris Baumgardner -- Gastonia, NC -- 13-13 (5) -- 21-01 (5) -- 14-10 (5) -- 12-09 (5) -- 62-01 (20) -- $16,000
8. Jason Christie -- Park Hill, Ok -- 19-08 (5) -- 17-15 (5) -- 18-07 (5) -- 5-13 (2) -- 61-11 (17) -- $15,000
9. Kyle Welcher -- Opelika, Al -- 19-12 (5) -- 24-08 (5) -- 9-07 (4) -- 6-07 (3) -- 60-02 (17) -- $14,000
10. Clent Davis -- Montevallo, Al -- 20-00 (5) -- 15-08 (5) -- 11-12 (5) -- 9-01 (4) -- 56-05 (19) -- $13,000
