It doesn’t move those fish to some-
where entirely different; they just hold
up in that deeper, scattered grass until
things return to normal.”
Interestingly, Schmitt was the only
angler in the top 10 that committed
exclusively to grass the entire tourna-
ment. That dedication earned Schmitt
his first FLW Tour victory.
“I’ve always wanted to win an FLW
Tour event on the Potomac River,”
Schmitt says. “But this is the next best
thing. I won on the Mississippi River,
and I couldn’t have done it without all
the river expertise I’ve learned from my
home waters. When it comes to grass
fishing in rivers, that Potomac has
taught me well.”
Schmitt is considered the Potomac River’s best stick, and his river expertise from the Potomac helped
him dial in on the Mississippi.
TOP FIVE
name
1. BRYAN SCHMITT
2. JOSHUA WEAVER
3. ANDY MORGAN
4. TODD AUTEN
5. LARRY NIXON
*Includes Ranger Cup
86
hometoWn
DEALE, MD
MACON, GA
DAYTON, TN
LAKE WYLIE, SC
BEE BRANCH, AR
WeIght
61-06
58-11
58-10
58-00
57-09
fIsh
20
20
20
20
20
WInnIngs
$125,000*
$30,700
$25,100
$20,000
$19,000
HERB WINS
CO-ANGLER TITLE
By Chad Love
Twenty-five-year-old Cole Herb
of Cedar Rapids,
Iowa, won the
co-angler
crown and
$20,000 at
the FLW Tour
event present-
ed by Evinrude
on the Mississippi
River with a two-day bag weighing
24 pounds, 11 ounces. Herb’s
weight edged out second-place
finisher Jeremiah Shaver’s 23-11
bag by one pound.
It was Herb’s first time fishing
an FLW Tour event as a co-angler,
and he won it by being versatile.
“I fished with [Madison, Miss.,
pro] Pete Ponds on day one
down at Stoddard,” says Herb. “I
caught my first fish on a spinner-
bait, my second and third on a
swimbait, and my fourth and fifth
on a shaky head.”
On day two Herb was paired
up with Bellevue, Ontario, pro
Curtis Richardson. “We started
out at the dam, where I caught
some shorts on a Strike King
KVD square-bill, but I caught my
first keepers in the Black River
on a Berkley Havoc ribbon-tail
worm.”
The key to finding fish, says
Herb, was looking for areas of
grass and current that had the
clearest water. “That’s what we
were keying in on both days,” he
says. “All our bites came in weeds
and current. It was all backwater,
but had main-channel current
flowing through it.”
It was an especially sweet win
for Herb, who is expecting his
second daughter with his wife,
Mackenzie, and their daughter,
Emersyn.
“This is pretty amazing,” says
Herb, who, when he’s not fishing,
works for a lead and asbestos
removal company. “We’ve got a
baby girl due in September, so
this is a big thing for us. She’s
24. I’m 25. It’s a big step for our
family.”
flWfIshIng.com I july 2017
before the action would slacken.
During slow periods Schmitt would
resort to a Riot Baits Riot Stick on a tiny
1/8-ounce Riot Baits T3 tungsten
weight. He would dead-stick the Riot
Stick around the sparser clumps, just
letting the current naturally “drift” the
bait into the clumps.
“The way the bass were relating to
that grass is exactly how they set up in
the grassy spawning bays and creeks in
the Potomac,” he says. “They spawn up
in the shallower, matted grass, but they
stage in the deeper, scattered stuff
waiting for the right conditions. It was
an almost identical deal. In my mind,
that high water on the Mississippi was
just like a big high tide on the Potomac.