FLW Castrol GTX Pro David Dudley came from behind in stunning fashion this past weekend on Beaver Lake. Dudley was lurking back in 4th place coming into the final round at nearly 5lbs back of Scott Canterbury and first place. Dudley’s 16lbs 9oz was the second biggest bag of the final day and it helped him leap frog the three anglers in front of him and hold of a strong charging Andy Morgan who had 17 and a half pounds on the final day. His total weight for the week, 20 bass weighing 54lbs 7oz was enough for the $125,000 first place prize.
While Dudley amassed most of his weight for the week on an Alabama Rig, on the final day he went away from it and turned to a wacky rig to catch his biggest fish in the afternoon. Around noon, he made the switch and culled all but one of his A-rig fish on the way to his 5th major title and pushed him over the $3 million earnings mark.
Interesting enough, castable umbrella rigs were a predominant pattern at Beaver Lake as everyone in the top 10 outside of Glenn Browne caught the majority of their catch on similar rigs. The A-rigs are not miracle bait, but they have a time and a place and are not likely to go away anytime soon.
If anything, this week proved that future events at Beaver won’t be the dinkfests as seen in the past. After several years of high-water conditions, it appears a series of healthy spawns have replenished the largemouth population to the point that limits of largemouths were almost the norm this week and with the number of quality fish that were caught this week, several anglers remarked the future certainly looks bright.
Tune into NBCSports on June 3rd at 1pm ET to catch all fish catching action from Lake Table Rock.
Tight Lines,
Rich
RichLindgren.com
