Caporuscio Details on his Win

5/9/2010 8:17:30 PM

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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 ½ 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

A lot more about this tournament, the other finishers and the winner can be found at FLWOutdoors.com.