The Costa FLW Series is headed to Lake of the Ozarks Oct. 6 to 8 for a tournament presented by Evinrude when as many as 400 pros and co-anglers will take to the water for the third and final stop of 2016 in the Central Division.
“Lake of the Ozarks is fishing really strong right now,” said Jeremy Lawyer of Sarcoxie, Missouri, who finished fifth in the 2016 Forrest Wood Cup – the world championship of bass fishing. “We have some cooler weather coming in, and it looks pretty stable. It’s the first fall-like weather we’ve had so it should be a really good event.
“You could throw a dart at a map of the lake right now and win a tournament at the spot it lands on,” Lawyer continued. “There’s a lot of quality fish in the lake. I think we’ll see a lot of bass moving up shallow. They’re leaving the deep brush piles and cruising the banks. I also think they’ll be chasing shad into creeks and will be found from the mouths all the way to the backwaters. We haven’t really had the cool weather yet, so they’re still strung out.”
Lawyer said that a wide variety of lures will be used in this tournament, including topwater baits, buzzbaits and square-billed crankbaits.
“Flipping docks using tubes, creature baits and jigs will also be strong patterns,” said Lawyer. “There’s really no wrong way to approach this derby.”
Lawyer said that a three-day cumulative weight totaling 57 pounds should be enough to take home top honors.
“Anglers will be able to fish their strengths,” said Lawyer. “It won’t matter if they head up north to the shallow, dirtier water, or head south to where it’s gin-clear – they’ll catch them.”
Anglers will take off from Public Beach No. 2 located on 711 Public Beach Road in Osage Beach at 7 a.m. CDT each day. Weigh-in on Thursday and Friday will be held at the marina beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday’s final weigh-in will be held at Walmart, located at 4252 Highway 54 in Osage Beach, beginning at 4 p.m. Takeoffs and weigh-ins are free and open to the public.
The Costa FLW Series at Lake of the Ozarks is being hosted by the Tri-County Lodging Association.
Pros will fish for a top award of $40,000 plus a Ranger Z518C with a 200-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard if Ranger Cup guidelines are met.
Co-anglers will cast for a top award consisting of a Ranger Z175 with a 90-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard and $5,000 if Ranger Cup guidelines are met.
The Costa FLW Series consists of five divisions – Central, Northern, Southeastern, Southwestern and Western. Each division consists of three tournaments with competitors vying for valuable points that could earn them the opportunity to fish in the Costa FLW Series Championship. The 2016 Costa FLW Series Championship is being held Nov. 3-5 on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri.
About FLW
FLW is the world’s largest tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money in 2016 across five tournament circuits. Headquartered in Benton, Kentucky, with offices in Minneapolis, FLW conducts more than 235 bass-fishing tournaments annually across the United States and sanctions tournaments in Canada, China, Mexico and South Korea. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW” television show, broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, while FLW Bass Fishing magazine delivers cutting-edge tips from top pros
By: Brian Johnson, FLW
