Scott Suggs Professional Bass Angler FLW Outdoors

Suggs, a local, won the 2007 Forrest Wood Cup here on the same type of pattern he's running. He got rattled on day 1 when a 90-minute fog delay put a wrench into his plans, but he said he was never rattled today. He just ran his stuff and stayed with it.

He did lose a good fish early this morning that would have helped tremendously. Other than that (and the dead-fish penalty), he's not sure why he came in so light today. Complete Story

Although it looked as if Scott Suggs was going to win the tournament trophy going away after two days of stellar fishing, the native of Bryant, Ark., suffered a setback in today’s competition after only managing to bring 10 pounds, 13 ounces to the scales at Friday’s weigh-in.

“I really didn’t stumble today,” said Suggs. “I got six keeper bites and lost a really good fish this morning. I fished my guts out today. But it just goes to show you how humbling this sport can be. At least I’ll have another chance to win this tomorrow. And you can’t ask for more than that.”

Per his usual strategy, Suggs targeted bass on standing timber in an effort to get an early limit. However, today he fell one fish short during the morning hours.

“I think that messed with my mind a little bit.”

However, when he proceeded to execute part two of his plan, throwing a crankbait on deep brush piles – a strategy that had proven successful the last two days – that’s when the wheels started to come off the previously unstoppable Suggs train. Complete Story

Photo: FLW Outdoors/Gary Mortenson

Patterns began to reveal themselves today at the Ouachita FLW Tour. Scott Suggs is working his trademark deep stuff and leads with back-to-back 17-pound-plus sacks.

Keith Monson moved up two spots to 2nd today on the strength of a 15-02 limit, and his 31-02 total puts him a little less than 4 pounds behind Suggs. Monson's fishing shallow.

And Jacob Powroznik weighed his second consecutive 15-pound bag and now sits in 3rd (up from 6th yesterday). He's also fishing shallow.

Overall the catch was light today and averaged around 8 pounds. That's largely because the shallow fish are extremely difficult to catch. They're up and around the flooded bushes, but in the ultra-clear water, they spook at the first sign of a boat. There are big fish up there – everyone's seen 20-pound bags – but getting them to bite is another story. Complete Story

After winning the 2007 Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita and becoming the first person to ever win a $1 million payday at a single bass-fishing event, it’s not entirely surprising that Scott Suggs of Bryant, Ark., is once again in the running for a tournament title on his home lake.

Using a total catch of 17 pounds, 11 ounces, Suggs continued his assault on the Lake Ouachita leaderboard, ending the first day of competition in third place overall.

“It’s always fun to come to Ouachita and to come home again,” said Suggs. “We lost about an hour and a half of fishing this morning (due to the fog delay) and that usually makes everyone’s bag look bad. But it worked out for me today.”

However, it wasn’t until about midday that Suggs’ mastery of Lake Ouachita became apparent. Complete Story