Wesley Strader got off to a sterling start in the Walmart FLW Tour season last weekend on Lake Tohopekaliga in Florida.
Fresh off a top-10 finish in the 2014 tour standings and sporting new sponsorship, the professional angler from Spring City, Tenn., finished third at "Toho" with 74 pounds, 11 ounces of bass for four days. That got him $25,000.
J.T. Kenney of Palm Bay, Fla., was the winner with 76-0, and Scott Canterbury of Springville, Ala., was second at 75-5 in what turned out to be a close finish for the top three. Strader beat the fourth-place finisher by more than seven pounds.
He trailed Kenney by nearly 20 pounds after the first two days but had the best total of the top 20 who hit the lake again Saturday and followed that with a 20-7 haul that trailed only Canterbury's 21-10 when the top 10 concluded the tournament Sunday.
"That second day kept me from winning it," Strader said Wednesday about his 14-7 total on Friday. "But overall it was a good week."
He has had mixed results on Toho before, he acknowledged.
"The first time I went there I did fairly decent, and the second time I did OK," he recalled, "but the third time I didn't fare too well. A cold front came in that week and messed things up."
The tour moves to Lewis Smith Lake in Alabama for the last weekend of this month, and Strader will be trying to solidify his status near the top of the points standings. Other area anglers will be trying to improve theirs.
Marshall Deakins of Dunlap was 19th at Toho with 38 pounds for three days as he began his first year in FLW's top series. Richard Peek of Centre, Ala., was 42nd, and 2013 and 2014 Angler of the Year Andy Morgan was 52nd with fellow Dayton resident Michael Neal tied for 66th.
Gary Runyon of Decatur, Tenn., was 48th among the co-anglers.
Strader's new primary sponsor is Hellas Construction, which is based in Austin, Texas, and specializes in sports facilities such as turf fields, tracks and tennis courts. Hellas installed the field for the Dallas Cowboys' stadium, among others.
"It's a big-time outfit," Strader said. "But I think this is their first venture into fishing."
He's also supported by Don Ledford Auto Park of Athens, Tenn.
The Walmart FLW Tour comes to Lake Chickamauga on June 11.
Another area resident who started well in Florida in a Fishing League Worldwide series was Hensley Powell of Whitwell, who was eighth in the second-tier Rayovac FLW Series Southeastern Division tournament on Lake Okeechobee. He caught 43 pounds, 9 ounces in the Jan. 22-24 event and finished one spot ahead of well-known Okeechobee guide Scott Martin.
Powell was only five pounds from fourth place and two pounds from fifth. His prize was $6,000.
"That was the first time I've ever seen Okeechobee, but I always wanted to go down there," said Powell, 38, who works four days a week for Southern Champion Tray in Chattanooga and is "usually on the water Friday through Sunday."
"That was an experience to fish there. It's very different from Tennessee River-style."
The next Rayovac Southeastern tournament is next week on Lake Guntersville, one of Powell's "home lakes" along with Nickajack and Chickamauga. Local knowledge may not be much help this time, however, with all the transitioning going on with so much rain and open floodgates.
Robbie Dickerson of Pelham, Tenn., who provides Powell's main sponsorship through Benchmark Tool & Machine, told him to pick the Bassmaster Open or Rayovac FLW series, and Powell picked the latter once he saw the 2015 schedule.
"This is the first time I've ever fished Rayovac, but I've fished everything around here you can fish," said Powell, who has been the Chattanooga Bass Association and Tennessee ABA East Division points winner and was the Tennessee Valley angler of the year two times in a row. He almost won the Alabama Bass Trail last year.
He regularly takes clients out to learn how to use their electronic fishing aids, and Dickerson happened to be one of those. As they got to know each other, Dickerson offered to pay Powell's entry fees and provide him with a boat and a truck for a season on tour.
"That's been a blessing to me," said Powell, who admits to thinking about going full-time into fishing someday.
"From what I know of Hensley, he's a great guy, a wholesome, Christian guy who has a good background with his family," Dickerson said. "I'm in the position with my company that I can afford to help people, and I felt he was worth investing in. The only thing holding him up from fishing professionally is the funding, and I wanted to do my part to hold him up in that."
Other Powell sponsors are Punisher Lures, DJ's Marine Electronics, Cashion Rods, GCR's Crankbaits and Lake Fork Tackle Rod Sox.
Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.