FLW Tour - Beaver Lake - Mark Pack Takes It

[Swede]

Pack comeback
Texas pro comes from sixth place to win Wal-Mart Open

By Rob Newell - 18.May.2008


ROGERS, Ark. – On day one of the Wal-Mart Open on Beaver Lake, Mark Pack of Mineola, Texas, made a prophetic remark: "We're on the winning pattern, there's no doubt about that; it's just a matter of who is going to get the better bites off those places."

Pack made that statement after taking the lead on day one. The allusion was to the fact that he and several other competitors were dialed into the same pattern and same places on a high and muddy Beaver Lake.

Over the next to days, Pack took a trip backwards in the standings. He drifted to third on day two and then back to sixth on day three.

But even then he still maintained his belief: "It may not be me, but someone is going to win the tournament fishing this pattern...there are several guys doing it."

Today, Pack proved he was right by bringing in 14 pounds, 5 ounces of Beaver Lake bass to the scales to win the Wal-Mart Open and $200,000 with a two-day total of 21 pounds, 10 ounces.

Pack's big limit rocketed him from sixth place to first and gave him an untouchable 3-pound, 7-ounce margin of victory.

"It's great to win a major league tournament like this," said Pack who has fished the FLW Tour for 9 years without a Tour win. "It's been a dream of mine since I was young."

Pack's journey to his Wal-Mart Open victory actually began several years ago when he fished this event in high water. During that event he scored a top 10 by fishing road beds and long rock points that stuck way out in the main river.

The series of bars, points and road beds were located within five miles of the Hwy. 12 Bridge. This week he fished those exact same places for the win.

"Each of these places had some kind of hard structure up on top – rock, asphalt, concrete, even old boat submerged ramps – and the fish were relating to those hard places," he said. "The reason why they bit so much better today was because of the current. Yesterday there was no current and the lake was backing up; it had the fish really scattered. But today the current was running and it had the fish congregated. I had limit by 7:30 this morning and probably caught 35 keepers all day."

Pack, who is the owner of Lake Fork Trophy Tackle, used some of his own creations to catch his fish. He used a homemade 3/16-ounce jig teamed with one of his new Hyper Worms, which features a big paddle tail on a segmented body.

He also credited a Lucky Craft RC 2.5 crankbait for producing his big fish today, which weighed about 5 pounds.

When he did occasionally flip, he used a jig teamed with a Lake Fork Hyper-Freak trailer.

"Most of the fish came on the 3/16-ounce jig with the Hyper Worm," he said. "I was kind of swimming the jig over the bottom in 3 feet of water. With the water being so muddy, that paddle tail on the worm helped the fish find the bait."

Cochran second

Wal-Mart pro George Cochran of Hot Springs, Ark., finished runner-up with a two-day total of 18 pounds, 3 ounces.

Cochran, who made the top 10 by virtue of Joel Richardson's (Kernersville, N.C.) disqualification, collected $50,000 for his finish.

"I do feel sorry for Joel," Cochran said. "He just made an honest mistake that cost him his top-10 qualification. But at the same time, I was excited to represent two of my best sponsors – Wal-Mart and Ranger Boats – right here on their home grounds."

Cochran spent the entire tournament doing what he loves: fishing a spinnerbait.

"I pretty much used one lure all week: a 3/16-ounce Strike King Little Mr. Money spinnerbait that I designed," he said. "It's a smaller profile tandem spinnerbait with a Colorado blade in the front and an Indiana blade on the back. My favorite color is called emerald shad and that's what I used all week."

Cochran primarily fished the spinnerbait around floating boat docks on 15-pound P-Line.

"Throwing it down the shady sides of the dock was definitely the key," Cochran added.

1  MARK PACK MINEOLA, TX 5 14-13 5 10-03 10 25-00 5 7-05 5 14-05 10 21-10 $150,000
+$50,000 (Ranger Boat Bonus) 
2  GEORGE COCHRAN HOT SPRINGS, AR 5 10-13 5 11-07 10 22-04 5 8-00 5 10-03 10 18-03 $50,000 
3  GREG BOHANNAN ROGERS, AR 5 13-12 5 8-12 10 22-08 5 7-06 5 10-08 10 17-14 $40,000 
4  MIKE HAWKES SABINAL, TX 5 11-10 5 11-02 10 22-12 5 9-05 5 8-05 10 17-10 $35,000 
5  MATT AREY SHELBY, NC 5 12-01 5 12-13 10 24-14 5 8-09 5 8-03 10 16-12 $30,000 
6  KYLE MABREY MCCALLA, AL 5 12-06 5 11-12 10 24-02 5 8-13 5 6-04 10 15-01 $28,000 
7  SAM NEWBY POCOLA, OK 5 13-07 5 12-01 10 25-08 5 8-15 5 5-14 10 14-13 $26,000 
8  DAN MOREHEAD PADUCAH, KY 5 13-03 5 10-01 10 23-04 4 6-13 5 7-10 9 14-07 $24,000 
9  ALVIN SHAW STATE ROAD, NC 5 12-12 5 13-06 10 26-02 2 2-05 4 4-09 6 6-14 $22,000 
10  RICHARD STROTHER TYLER, TX 5 10-02 5 12-08 10 22-10 3 4-02 2 2-11 5 6-13 $20,000 

http://flw.flwoutdoors.com/tournament.cfm?cid=1&t=news&tday=4&atype=6&tid=5885&tyear=2008&aid=148569

[Stump bumper]

I knew I should have been up there this morning, I chose to run south and fish the river and flooded timber and he got 14lbs off of my usual spots.

I switch to a spinnerbait and laid dowm my jig today. Hind site is 20/20. I don't know who was in the BP or the Land of Lakes boat but they were fishing my used water all day, and they all came in better than I did. Out of 8 fish I had one keeper and it died due to being gut hooked from swalling a fluke. ( That's my best skipping lure)

Those guys earned that check today, bluebird skies and no wind up to about 11:00am. High muddy water with more cover than you could chose from. There was no top water action at all to let you know where the fish were , and there was no shade to fish anywhere. My club weighed probally 10 boats out of 40. The largest fish I saw today was 4.11.



Now I have to watch that on TV and know I fished the same water the same day and had an empty sack on the same water the same day.