National Guard pro Brent Ehrler proudly displays his first-place check after winning the FLW Tour Chevy Open event at Lake Ouachita. (Photo by Gary Mortenson)

Ehrler wins FLW Tour’s Chevy Open on Lake

Ouachita

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – National Guard pro Brent Ehrler of Redlands, Calif., caught a five-bass limit weighing 11 pounds, 11 ounces Saturday to win $127,500 at the FLW Tour’s Chevy Open on Lake Ouachita with a four-day catch of 20 bass weighing 58-1.

The catch gave him the win by a 1-pound, 6-ounce margin over Folgers pro Scott Suggs of Bryant, Ark., who caught a total of 20 bass weighing 56-11 and earned $36,356.

“I didn’t think I had it today,” said Ehrler, who has won more than $1.5 million in FLW Outdoors events. “I really had a tough time. The water really dropped today and my hat’s off to the top five.

“I’m just so fortunate to be up here,” Ehrler added. “I’m shocked. I don’t know what to say.”

Ehrler said he began the tournament throwing topwater baits in the hopes of catching big fish early and then slowed down and used a shaky-head rig or a Senko to catch lethargic bass. He said he was using a Lucky Craft Gunfish 115 for his topwater fish.

“The second day I didn’t get any bites on topwater,” Ehrler said. “I started struggling on the outside stuff. I was fishing main lake. Finally, later in the day, I went up shallow and started looking around and started seeing a few fish and I caught one. Then I caught another one. I had a decent limit.”

Ehrler said his topwater bite held up on the third day of competition.

“They kept biting it and biting it and I made up my mind right then and there that’s all I was going to do the rest of the tournament was throw topwater,” Ehrler said. “All my big fish on the first day came on that.”

Ehrler said the other bait he relied on during the tournament was a Brian’s Bee Prop Bait. He said he threw the prop bait in the backs of pockets where bluegill were spawning. He said the prop bait was effective in calm water, but when the wind picked up or he wanted to cover water he switched back to the Gunfish.

Ehrler opened the tournament in 13th place Wednesday with five bass weighing 14-0. On Thursday he added another five bass weighing 13-11. He then caught five bass weighing 18-11 on Friday to make the crucial top-5 cut in first place. On Saturday he sealed his victory.

“I thought I needed the one big bite (to win),” Ehrler said. “I never had a good bite today — you know a 3- to 6-pound bite. I thought if I got one I could win the tournament, but I didn’t. I really didn’t think that I had a shot.”

Suggs said he approached the Chevy Open the same way he did when he won the Forrest Wood Cup in 2007.

“I ran out a lot of brim beds — the ones I knew people couldn’t find,” said Suggs. “A lot of the lake didn’t have grass in it, and I went and put green brush piles in it. I put them a lot shallower than people would normally put them and normally more (shallow) than I would put them.

“That’s what I got to running,” the hometown favorite added. “That’s how I caught my big bags this week.”

Suggs said he caught his limits early in 40 to 70 feet deep over timber on a Berkley Hollow Belly Swim Bait.

The remaining top-5 pros finished the tournament in:

National Guard pro Brent Ehrler proudly displays his first-place check after winning the FLW Tour Chevy Open event at Lake Ouachita. (Photo by Gary Mortenson)

Ehrler wins second FLW Tour event of 2010 season

California pro nets $127,500 payday, climbs to second place in AOY race

By Gary Mortenson - 29.May.2010

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Apparently Brent Ehrler wasn’t satisfied with just one FLW Tour victory this year. Bolstered by a four-day catch of 58 pounds, 1 ounce, Ehrler outdueled a talent-laden top-five field to capture the first-place trophy on Lake Ouachita and walk away with his second FLW Tour title of the 2010 season.

“I’m just so fortunate to be here,” said Ehrler. “I’m shocked. It’s the last thing I thought was going to happen.”

In addition to the win at Lake Ouachita, Ehrler also scored a victory this year at the FLW Tour event at Table Rock Lake. The win also pushed Ehrler’s career FLW Outdoors winnings to over $1.5 million.

While Ehrler now joins a select group of FLW Tour anglers who have won two titles in one season, his win was even more impressive given the fact that it came against David Dudley, the FLW Tour’s all-time leading money leader, and Scott Suggs, the 2007 Forrest Wood Cup champion and odds-on favorite to win the event.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Ehrler, who now boasts 23 top-10 finishes at FLW Outdoors events, a 2006 Forrest Wood Cup title and six top-10 FLW Tour finishes in the last three years alone. “I really didn’t think I had a chance to win this.”

Pro Brent Ehrler shows off part of his winning catch shortly before capturing the FLW Tour title on Lake OUachita.

After day two, it appeared that Ehrler wasn’t in any position to the win the tournament. With hometown hero and pre-tournament favorite Scott Suggs looking unstoppable, it seemed that everyone else was fishing for second place. But then two dramatic events transpired that would change the course of the entire tournament.

For starters, Suggs had a serious hiccup on day three – managing to only boat a little more than 10 pounds as opposed to the 17-pound stringers he had recorded the previous two days. But just as important, Ehrler finally figured out the puzzle that was Lake Ouachita.

"I finally figured something out at the end of day two,” said Ehrler. “I had caught a good limit earlier in the day and that freed me up to do some other things. I started throwing a top-water bait just to cover a lot of water and find some new areas. But the fish kept biting the top-water baits. In practice, I thought the top-water bite was done at 8 a.m. Then I realized, ‘I should be throwing this all day.’”

And that’s exactly what he did. Armed with Lucky Craft and Brian Bees top-water baits, as well as the occasional wacky-rigged Senko, Ehrler attacked shallow bays with his newfound arsenal. As a result, he was able to storm into the lead on day three on hold on for 1 ½-pouind victory in the finals.

However, now that he’s captured his second title of the year, he has another huge goal in mind.

“I really do want to win the angler of the year title,” said Ehrler, who now sits in second place in the overall standings, a mere 21 points behind fishing phenom Bryan Thrift of Shelby, N.C. “I’ve been close the last couple of years. So it would be a dream to win it this year.”

At this rate, for Brent Ehrler, it seems that anything is now possible.