FLW Pro Circuit competitor Troy Morrow caught a 9-07 stringer on Saturday to win the Lake Norman Eastern Toyota Series with a 3-day total of 32-03. Morrow outdistanced runner-up Todd Walters by 4 ounces and earned $24,795.
Morrow spent his practice graphing humps, shoals and the deepest docks he could find. In all, he marked about 200 places that looked good. Each day during the tournament, Morrow hit between 30 and 40 places he had marked from practice and he rarely repeated water.
“In the old days I might only fish about 15 or 20 places per day because I felt like I had to fish so slow and thoroughly,” Morrow said. “But with (Garmin) LiveScope I’m much more efficient. I can fish double the number of spots because if they’re not there, spooky, or not acting right, I just move on. Like one thing I noticed immediately is if I caught a fish, a lot of the times the rest of the fish would leave. Knowing that kept me from wasting time on unproductive water.”
Morrow’s primary lure all week was a shaky-head with a Zoom Finesse Worm on a 3/16-ounce Gambler Giggy Head instead of a dropshot.
“They reacted to the shaky-head much more positively than the dropshot,” said Morrow. “I would watch them follow a dropshot down and they just wouldn’t run it down like they would a shaky-head. Sometimes they would even bite the shaky-head on the way down and generally the bigger fish were more interested in the shaky-head.”
He also threw a 5/8-ounce Southern Hook Southern Spin underspin with a Zoom Boot Tail Fluke to single rocks and stumps as deep as 30 feet. A Carolina rig also claimed a couple of weigh fish as well.
The win was Morrow's fifth FLW victory. He's won two Phoenix BFL Regional Championships and the All-American, but this is his first Toyota Series triumph.
“This feels good,” he said. “To come here and do my thing against these guys and win feels good. I’ve won at the BFL level several times, but a win at this level has been a long time coming.”
Here are the final totals for the Top 10:
1. Troy Morrow: 32-03
2. Todd Walters: 31-15
3. Bryan Thrift: 30-09
4. Martin Villa: 29-08
5. Jason Wilson: 28-15
6. David Williams: 27-11
7. Michael Stephens: 27-05
8. Cole Huskins: 27-02
9. Chris Baumgardner: 25-01
10. Cody Pike: 21-11
