GROVE READIES FOR COSTA FLW SERIES AT GRAND LAKE PRESENTED BY T-H MARINE
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GROVE, Okla. (Sept. 25, 2019) – The 2019 Costa Fishing League Worldwide (FLW) Series Southwestern Division will wrap up their season next week at Grand Lake, Oct. 3-5, with the Costa FLW Series at Grand Lake presented by T-H Marine. Hosted by the City of Grove, the three-day tournament will feature more than 180 of the best regional bass-fishing pros and co-anglers casting for a top prize of up to $85,000, including a brand new Ranger Z518L boat with a 200-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard in the pro division.
The event was originally scheduled to be held earlier this year, June 13-15, but tournament officials were forced to postpone the event due to extremely high water levels. Water levels are still between 2 and 3 feet higher than usual, but FLW Tour pro Sheldon Collings of Grove predicts that a lot of fish will be caught.
“The fish are definitely moving into their fall patterns, and the fishing has been pretty decent lately,” said Collings, who has five top-10 finishes on Grand Lake in FLW competition. “You can pretty much run down any transition-area bank and catch 2½-pounders all day long.
“I think we’ll see a lot of fish caught in this event and some really good bags – 15 to 17 pounds,” Collings continued. “We might see someone catch 20 pounds on the first day, but that would be really tough to back it up and do multiple days in a row.”
Collings predicted that anglers would be throwing lots of spinnerbaits, swimjigs, ChatterBaits, squarebill crankbaits, and flipping baits.
“The key is going to be finding the 3- and 4-pounders,” Collings said. “Someone could throw a Whopper Plopper all day and only get 7 or 8 bites, but they’ll likely be good ones. I predict the winner will be fishing in 6 to 10 feet, throwing a jig and a worm to the brush piles that everyone else is going over as they fish down the bank. It’s going to be a really good event, and we’re going to see tons of fish being caught.”
The Oklahoma pro went on to predict that the winner would bring 46 to 47 pounds to the scale over the three days of competition.
Anglers will take off from Wolf Creek Park, located at 963 N. 16th St. in Grove at 7:30 a.m. CDT each day of competition. The weigh-ins will be held each day at Wolf Creek Park beginning at 3:30 p.m. All takeoffs and weigh-ins are free and open to the public.
In Costa FLW Series regular-season competition, payouts are based on the number of participants competing in the event. At Grand Lake, pros will fish for a top prize of up to $85,000 including a brand new Ranger Z518L boat with a 200-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard if Ranger Cup qualified. Co-anglers will cast for a brand new Ranger Z175 boat with a 115-horsepower Evinrude or Mercury outboard, and $5,000 if Ranger Cup qualified.
The Costa FLW Series consists of five U.S. divisions – Central, Northern, Southeastern, Southwestern and Western – along with the International division. Each U.S. division consists of three regular-season tournaments with competitors vying for valuable points that could earn them the opportunity to compete in the season-ending Costa FLW Series Championship. The 2019 Costa FLW Series Championship is being held Oct. 31 – Nov. 2 on Lake Cumberland in Burnside, Kentucky.
For complete details and updated information visit FLWFishing.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow the Costa FLW Series on FLW’s social media outlets at Facebook, Twitter, Instagra
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