Tom Slater of Indooroopilly, Queensland, Australia correctly picked four of the top 10 anglers in last week’s Walmart FLW Tour event on Lake Toho presented by Mercury. For his picks, Slater won $5,000 by playing FLW Fantasy Fishing, held in conjunction with the FLW Tour fishing tournament.
“I’ve been following U.S. professional bass fishing closely for about eight months now,” said Slater. “Many of the anglers are active on social media so it makes it easy to see where they’re practicing and how they end up finishing on the FLW Tour.”
Slater said his strategy involved picking a mix of FLW Tour studs and wild card anglers.
“It seemed like J.T. Kenney was spending just about every minute he could on Lake Toho,” Slater said. “And after his lackluster season in 2014, he seemed determined. I figured Kenney would do well, he’s a Florida gunner.”
To round out his top 10 list, Slater decided to deviate from the norm and pick a unique group of anglers.
“Zack Birge was the 2014 Rayovac FLW Series champion from last year, so he’s on a good roll. I figured some players wouldn’t pick him, but instead go for a more established FLW Tour favorite like Ish Monroe,” said Slater. “I liked Stacey King as well. He’s a strong angler in a variety of conditions, so he was my wild card pick.
“In the end I picked anglers who were confident and it ended up working out,” said Slater.
Finishing in second place on the fantasy side for the Lake Toho event was Carl Bowser of Gas City, Indiana, who won $1,000, and in third was Lonnie Miller of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, who won $500. Several other winners from across the globe took home prizes including cash, ShopFLW gift cards, hats and baits.
The 2015 Fantasy Fishing season consists of seven tournaments surrounding the Walmart FLW Tour regular season as well as the season-ending Forrest Wood Cup, the world championship of bass fishing. Fans compete for more than $7,000 in cash and prizes from each of the six tournaments and a top prize of $5,000. The cumulative grand prize for the highest ranked player at the end of the season is $10,000.
To begin playing, visit FantasyFishing.com and sign up. Select a team of 10 anglers against an allocated $200 salary cap and select your guess for the tournament winning weight as a tiebreaker. Create a league to play against your friends and compete for bragging rights. Player’s modifications to their teams must be finalized by 11:59 p.m. ET the night prior to the tournament.
ABOUT FLW
FLW is the industry’s premier tournament-fishing organization, providing anglers of all skill levels the opportunity to compete for millions in prize money nationwide in 2015 over the course of 240 tournaments across five tournament circuits, four of which provide an avenue to the sport’s richest payday and most coveted championship trophy – the Forrest Wood Cup. FLW tournament fishing can be seen on the Emmy-nominated “FLW" television show and is broadcast to more than 564 million households worldwide, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoors-sports television show in the world.
By: Brian Johnson, FLW
