Pro Joseph Caporuscio of Coto De Caza, Calif., caught a 5 bass limit weighing 13 pounds, 11 ounces Saturday to win $43,419 in the FLW Series National Guard Western Division tournament on Lake Mead with a four-day catch of 20 bass weighing 49-9.
The catch gave him the win by a 1-pound, 13-ounce margin over Justin Kerr of Simi Valley, Calif., who caught a total of five bass weighing 8-9 for a four day total of 20 bass weighing 47-12 and earned $17,368.
“WOW!,” said 22 year old Caporuscio, who won his first National Guard FLW Western Series Championship. “I am speechless. This is just amazing. On the first day of the tournament I lost my motor, hung in there and fished all day with my trolling motor and was fortunate to bag a limit. I just hung in there, got a loaner boat and kept fishing.”
“Every day was different for me. Today I caught all largemouths on a drop-shot with 4 1/2” worms. I was fishing in an area that my dad and I found accidentally during practice; I wasn’t sure if it would be productive so tried to save it as a last resort and today I made the decision to try it and it paid off.
Caporuscio opened the tournament in 12th place Wednesday with 5 bass weighing 12 pounds. On Thursday he added another five bass weighing 12-7 using reaction baits to claw his way to 4th place. He then caught five bass weighing 11-7 on Friday to make the crucial top-5 cut in 3rd place. On Saturday he grabbed the victory with a 13 pound, 11 ounce sack of all largemouths.
“I lost one 4 1/2 pounder and almost threw-up,” said National Guard pro Brent Ehrler, who finished in fourth place. “It was just a lapse of concentration and it really cost me today. The wind hurt me this week, when it was calm I was able to catch much better fish-but that’s all part of the game.
“I really fished pretty conservatively today. I went to all new water and that turned out to be a bad decision; I really felt like I had beat up the areas I had fished most of the week and there was nothing left in them so decided to try something new, unfortunately it didn’t pay off for me.
Rounding out the top-5 pros are:
| 3rd: | Jason Hickey | Weiser, Idaho | 20 bass | 44-14 | $13,026 plus $1000 Cabela’s Angler Cash Bonus |
| 4th: | Brent Ehrler | Redland, Calif. | 20 bass | 44 | $14,353 |
| 5th: | Tim Klinger | Boulder City, Nev. | 15 bass | 39-3 | $10,178 |
Overall there were 21 bass weighing 42 pounds, 5 ounces caught by five pros Saturday. The catch included four five-bass limits.
Roland Andrade of Corona, Calif., won the Co-angler Division and a Ranger 177TR with a 90 horsepower Evinrude or Yamaha outboard motor, $1,500 Ranger Cup bonus, $1,000 Cabela’s Angler Cash bonus and $1,558 from the angler’s optional pot Friday with a three-day total of 12 bass weighing 23 pounds, 9 ounces followed by J.R. Wright of Truckee, Calif., in second place with 13 bass weighing 23-4 worth $4,569.
In FLW Series competition, anglers and co-anglers are also vying for valuable points that could help them qualify for the 2011 Forrest Wood Cup, the world championship of bass fishing.
The Lake Mead event was the second of four National Guard Western Division tournaments that will be held in 2010. The next FLW Series tournament will be held June 9-12 on the California Delta in Stockton, Calif. The event will be hosted by the Stockton Sports Commission and boats will launch from Morelli Park and Boat Launch located at 1025 West Weber Avenue in Stockton, Calif.
The final Western Series event will be Sept. 22-25 at Roosevelt Lake in Payson, Ariz.
Coverage of the Lake Mead tournament will be broadcast in high-definition (HD) on VERSUS. “FLW Outdoors”, will air June 13 from 12:30 to 1:30 ET. “FLW Outdoors,” hosted by Jason Harper, is broadcast to approximately 500 million households worldwide.
ABOUT FLW OUTDOORS
FLW Outdoors, named after Forrest L. Wood, the legendary founder of Ranger Boats, is the largest fishing tournament organization in the world offering anglers worldwide the opportunity to compete for millions over the course of 189 tournaments in 2010. For more information about FLW Outdoors and its tournaments, call (270) 252-1000.By: Julie Huber,
