By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

The home-lake jinx – a concept talked about so frequently in professional bass fishing circles during the first decade of the 21st century – has never affected Anthony Gagliardi. Give him a chance to compete in a tour-level event at Lake Murray and chances are real good that he'll win it.

The 45-year-old from Prosperity, S.C. notched his third victory on his home body of water in last week's MLF Bass Pro Tour derby. The latest of his five career tour-level triumphs was his first since winning the 2014 FLW Cup, also at Murray.

He rendered the Championship Round somewhat anticlimactic by establishing a big lead midway through the second period – a margin that was nearly impossible for this fellow competitors to overcome since the BPT switched to the heaviest-five scoring format for this year. His final margin over runner-up Ott DeFoe was 4-11.

"I'd kind of forgot what (winning) felt like," Gagliardi said. "My son, who's 13, had been reminding me all the time that it'd been a long time since I'd felt it.

"This one was more relaxing, I guess because the others were closer tournaments and having the ScoreTracker for this one, I knew what all the weights were. I had a lot of fun just catching fish and in a way I didn't have to do a lot of thinking – I never really had to make any adjustments."

Dropped the Hammer on 'Em

Of the 20 fish that Gagliardi weighed in during the event, 18 were caught on a dropshot rig on points in the 6- to 14-foot depth range. They were a mix of pre- and post-spawners.

The other two came off of beds in the Knockout Round, and they were good ones – a 5 3/4-pounder and a 4.

He thinks most of the fish he caught on the dropshot were keyed on eating blueback herring. The presence of stripers was a big part of his program.

"There was a lot of feeding activity going on where I was," he said. "You'd see the stripers breaking and some of the (largemouth) were traveling with them. I think some of the others were just random fish on certain places that were activated by the feeding activity."

He's fished for Murray's stripers during the wintertime for most of his life and is familiar with their habits. He knows that largemouth will frequently run with them, and the largemouth are usually easy to identify on forward-facing sonar because they're much more languid and less frenetic. The term he uses for the stripers' behavior is "spastic."

"When a big school of stripers gets close to the bank and you're throwng your bucktail (jig), there's a good chance you'll catch a largemouth with them. The stripers are like Mother Nature's HydroWave with the way they get them active."

For whatever reason, the stripers will rarely commit to a dropshot.

"I never had one bite it," he said. "I could throw into a school of eight or 10 of them and they'd be all around it as it was going down, but they wouldn't bite."

Big Bite Sealed It

Gagliardi pretty much nailed down the victory when he caught an 8-pounder during the second period of the Championship Round. He thinks it's probably one of the five biggest largemouths he's ever caught from the lake.

It came from an isolated rock in about 14 feet of water and was not visible on his electronics.

"I was so close to not catching it because I'd already gone past the rock and I saw it on the bottom left (of the screen). That gave me a 4- or 5-pound lead and I wasn't going to rest easy with that, but I knew it was pretty close to being a done deal if I could just finish it out."

When asked to identify his key strategic decision during the event, he pointed to a move during the second day of the Qualifying Round.

"I had a bad second period and I was in about 20th place. I'd caught some on the dropshot early in the day and when that slowed down I moved to the bank looking for spawners and I didn't find anything. I was in the back of a pocket and the wind was blowing and I told myself I needed to go back out and finish the day on the herring fish or I might not make the Knockout Round.

"I went back to the main lake and it was calm. I was still headed toward the herring points and I caught a good one on the dropshot deal, then I turned and went in a different direction in a section of the lake where I've caught a lot of fish over the years. I sat the boat down and started fishing, and I started catching them and I ended up making it easily."

Gear Notes

> Dropshot gear: 7' medium-action Level spinning rod, unnamed 2500-size spinning reel, 10-pound Gamma Torque braid (main line), 12-foot leader (Gamma 100% Fluorocarbon Leader Material), 1/4-ounce tungsten teardrop weight, 4/0 dropshot hook, unnamed 7-inch finesse worm (morning dawn).