Pro Cody Meyer of Grass Valley, Calif., crossed the stage with a five-bass limit weighing 13 pounds, 3 ounces to lead day two of the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Lanier. Meyer now holds a 1-pound, 4-ounce lead over Chevy pro Larry Nixon of Bee Branch, Ark., who weighed five bass weighing 13-8 for a two-day total of 10 bass for 26-2 in a tournament featuring 78 of the world’s best professional bass anglers.
“Today I started off and caught two pretty quick”, said Meyer, who is appearing in his second consecutive Forrest Wood Cup. “I fished the same water I fished yesterday.
“I ran a bunch of water and wasn’t catching them,” Meyer added. “Yesterday I caught them mostly all suspended over the top of brush and today it seemed like I couldn’t find them doing that, so actually I just dropped it into brush.”
Meyer said he caught only five keepers throughout the course of the day with his last fish coming at 2:45. He said he caught his limit on a drop-shot rig in 25 to 30 feet of water on the south end of the lake. Meyer said he approached brushpiles and made long casts to them and kept fishing vertical and dropped the bait repeatedly in different spots in the brush until he provoked a strike.
“I’m going to fish a lot of new water tomorrow, so maybe that will produce,” Meyer said. “The bites that I’m getting are all really good ones, fortunately. It could be really good or I could have only a couple of fish.”
Nixon’s practice pattern dried up and forced the Chevy pro to make a change during competition.
“You’re not going to believe it, but in practice I was killing them on a Texas rig,” Nixon said. “I mean it was unreal. I thought I was going to win this thing on it and then all of a sudden I don’t know what happened. That cloud cover left two days in a row and they went deeper and went plumb off of it and I had to fall back on something else.
“I had to put together a new game plan yesterday,” Nixon added. “I was set on catching them 22 to 26 (feet deep) on a Texas-rig worm on brushpiles or a jig-head worm and they just left and went a little bit deeper and I’ve had to go to a drop shot.”
Nixon said he believes he has a chance to take home the championship title because he’s catching good limits each day.
“If I can just bust me 12 to 13 more (pounds) tomorrow and the next day and a couple of guys stumble or stump their toe, then it will be my time.”
Rounding out the top-10 pros after day one on Lake Lanier are
3rd: Jason Christie, Park Hill, Okla., 10 bass, 25-1
4th: Jason Menninger, Gainesville, Ga., 10 bass, 25-1
5th: Kevin Hawk, Buford, Ga., 10 bass, 24-15
6th: National Guard pro Brent Ehrler, Redlands, Calif., 10 bass, 24-5
7th: Ronald Hobbs Jr., Orting, Wash., 10 bass, 24-3
8th: Castrol pro David Dudley, Lynchburg, Va., 10 bass, 22-9
9th: Brain Travis, Conover, N.C., 10 bass, 22-6
10th: Troy Morrow, Toccoa, Ga., 10 bass, 22-6
Overall there were 239 bass weighing 500 pounds, 2 ounces caught by 72 pros Friday. The catch included 25 five-bass limits.
The second day of competition marks the cut to the top 30 pros and co-anglers. Pros are competing for the title of Forrest Wood Cup champion, the most prestigious award in professional bass fishing, as well as a top award of up to $600,000 — the sport’s biggest award.
Dereal Rodgers of Camden, S.C., leads the Co-angler Division with 10 bass weighing 18-0 followed by Frank Divis, Sr. of Fayetteville, Ark., in second place with seven bass weighing 17-4.
Rounding out the top-10 co-anglers are
3rd: J.R. Wright, Truckee, Calif., six bass, 14-13
4th: Chad Pipkens, Holt, Mich., six bass, 13-12
5th: Brandon Hunter, Benton, Ky., six bass, 13-11
6th: John Niedosik, Avondale, Ariz., four bass, 11-14
7th: Alan Hults, Gautier, Miss., seven bass, 11-2
8th: Brad Roberts, Nancy, Ky., five bass, 11-2
9th: Gayle Janes, Bermuda Dunes, Calif., six bass, 10-12
10th: Matt Peters, Gainesville, Ga., five bass, 9-15
Overall there were 100 bass weighing 197 pounds, 1 ounce caught by 57 co-anglers Friday. The catch included two five-bass limits.
