FLW Championship Underway

FLW Outdoors - The FLW Championship is officially underway!  

The Missouri River near Bismarck is chock full of 2- and 3-pound walleyes. Obtaining a five-fish limit each day shouldn’t be a problem for most of the 54 pros in the field. But in order to obtain separation, a kicker will be needed. The most common patterns will include trolling crankbaits and jigging. Generally speaking, cool, stable weather is optimal for a strong bite as the walleyes put the fall feed bag on. In addition to finding quality fish, navigation on the Missouri is tricky – even though the river is up 10 feet from where it was last year. From the Garrison Dam to the South Dakota border is a maze of sand bars, stump fields and underwater hazards. Championship qualifiers will have to take extra caution and bring emergency equipment for the unexpected. Another thing to remember is that unlike the four qualifying events, weights will be cleared after day two. Walleye Tour anglers seemingly will have to manage their fish in order to capture the $150,000 first-place purse.

Here's the Walleye Central Preview:

FLW Walleye Tour Championship / Missouri River
Bismarck, ND Sept. 24th-27th, 2008
Preview Story by Juls

50 Pros from the Walleye Tour and each winner of the Walleye League Divisions (4) will compete this week for a chance at up to $150,000.00 in cash on the Pro side, and up to $20,000.00 on the Co Angler side.

Anglers can fish the Missouri River waters of North Dakota, but the river over the border in South Dakota is off limits.

Key Rules this week are:

* Each boat may possess eight Walleye, Sauger, or Saugeye and weigh their best five fish per day.
* There is a 14" minimum size limit.
* Culling or upgrading is not allowed.
* Contestants will be assessed an 8 ounce penalty for each non-releasable fish brought to the weigh-in.
* Contestants who are late for the official check-in will be assessed a one pound per minute penalty; contestants more than 15 minutes late will lose credit for that day's catch.
* The largest one day stringer will break ties after day 2. If a tie for the cut position remains, it will be broken by current point standings.

The format is slightly different for the championship than it is for the regular season events. Instead of everyone fishing all three days, and then cutting to the top ten on day 4, everyone will fish two days and the top ten will be determined after the weigh-in on day 2.
The top ten contestants will start their weights from zero again on day 3.
The Co Anglers will fish one last day, the Co Angler Champion is determined after that day's weigh-in.
On the last and final day, the Pros will be fishing by themselves, along with an observer (cameraman).
**Anglers who qualify out of Ranger Boats will fish out of Rangers during the final round and anglers who fish out of aluminum boats will fish out of G3 Boats during the final round.

Weather for the start of the tournament is:
Tonight: A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 1am. Patchy fog after 4am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly clear, with a low around 40. West wind 14 to 17 mph decreasing to between 6 and 9 mph. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph.

Wednesday: Patchy fog before 9am. Otherwise, sunny, with a high near 72. West wind at 11 mph becoming south.

Take off will be at 7:30 a.m. from the "Rifle Range" Launch.
Check in will be at 3:30 p.m. at the same location
The weigh in will start at 4:30 p.m. at the Bismarck Civic Center (http://www.bismarckciviccenter.com)

The consensus seems to be that the bite is slowing down from earlier this week, and with the storms that have passed through here the past couple of days, the creek arms are flowing dirty water into the river and making it a bit tougher too.

Competitors will be using several presentations this week, including but not limited to:

* Trolling with Leadcore or Fireline with crankbaits
* Live bait rigging
* Jigging with both live bait and artificials

I spoke with 10 anglers tonight, and asked them all the same two questions:
1. "What do you think it will take to make the cut this weekend?"
2. (Just for fun) "Other than yourself, who do you think will take home the big card board check with lots of zeros on it this Saturday?"

Look for those interviews to be posted in the morning. While several of the answers were very similar, there were some eye opening responses that shed a good light on what is happening on the river right now.

Even though the water levels were up from last year, the Corp of Engineers has been lowering the water levels little by little all week, so the anglers have that to contend with now too. Several Pros mentioned how they have hit sandbars this week, or saw others who had hit them, or got stranded on them, until they could shovel themselves out and get back on the water.

Most of the field will be going South tomorrow, as they have in the past for other events here. A handful may go North, but the word is, unless you know the river very well, it could be very hazardous to the boat and motors health to head that way.
Not only are there several sandbars in that direction, but there are more rocks to contend with also.

We hope you will join us tomorrow afternoon, as Walleye Central brings you LIVE Coverage from the Bismarck Civic Center. That's right folks! You can watch the weigh in LIVE, while chatting with your friends, and watching the Live Leader Board at http://www.liveleaderboard.com!

Click here for Live Video
(it's just a black screen until Juls cranks up the feed...so if you get there early...hang in there)

The webcast will begin the same time the weigh in starts. See you there!