Knapp finishes 8th in Wal-Mart FLW Series event
Uniontown professional bass angler Jason Knapp finished eighth this past weekend at the BP Eastern Division Wal-Mart FLW Series on Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. With his finish, Knapp earned $17,000 in the first series tournament of the year. During the four-day tournament, which ended Saturday, Knapp caught 18 fishes, weighing 40 pounds.
David Dudley, of Lynchburg, Va., won the tournament by hauling in 20 fishes, weighing 64 pounds. For his efforts, Dudley took home $125,000.
Knapp had led the tournament after the second round, pulling in 10 fishes, weighing 27 pounds and 13 ounces. However, over the final two days of the tournament, Dudley caught 10 fishes, weighing 38 pounds and 20 ounces.
The weather was a factor in the tournament as a strong cold front pushed across Florida on Thursday and combined with cloudy, windy weather to send pros scrambling to find fishable water. Strong northwestern winds churned up Lake Okeechobee and piled some 8 to 10 inches of muddy water in the southeastern corner of the lake, ruining many of the pros’ best fishing fish spots.
Knapp, the son of Ron and Patti Knapp of Uniontown, finished 18th last year at Lake Okeechobee to win $11,000. Overall, Knapp, who turned professional last year, has two tournament wins and eight top-10 finishes in his career. He finished 25th last year in the Wal-Mart FLW tour standings with 821 points and $23,750 in earnings.
His next outing will be at the $9.5 million Wal-Mart FLW Tour in Austin, Texas from Feb. 15-18. The tournament will feature 400 anglers from 37 states, Australia, Spain, Japan and Italy. The top 200 of the world’s best bass pro fishermen will compete for a top award of $125,000. Two hundred co-anglers will compete for a top prize of $25,000.
For more information about Knapp and the tour, check the www.flwoutdoors.com website.