5
ANTHONY GAGLIARDI | 51 LBS , 3 OZ
By Kyle Wood
64
photo by matt pace
A
nthony Gagliardi, the hometown
favorite, came into the Forrest
Wood Cup on Lake Murray look-
ing to notch not only another victory on
his home lake, but also to become the
first to win two Cup titles. He won his first
Cup at Murray in 2014 by sampling a lit-
tle bit of everything on the lake, from the
schooling bite to brush piles and even
some shallow topwater action. This time,
Gagliardi got tunnel vision on the school-
ing fish on the lower portion of Murray.
“I didn’t explore any shallow options
this time because in pre-practice the
offshore bite was so good you could
get bit even during overcast or rainy
days when you’d expect the shallow
bite to be good,” he says.
The only time Gagliardi deviated
from his schooling bite was on the final
day when he went into scramble mode
and ran up the river to hit 20 or so
brush piles before coming back down
the lake to target schoolers again and
ultimately finish his limit.
“I had more offshore stuff to fish
than I could have run the whole event,”
Gagliardi adds. “I should have run more
of it, but instead I’d stay in one spot for
30 to 45 minutes because they were
schooling so good. I just like fishing for
schoolers too much.”
FLWFISHING.COM I OCTOBER 2017