Photo bt P Moore

LONGVIEW, Texas – Team Star brite won Elimination Match 1 of the Builders FirstSource Qualifier Presented by Berkley by a margin of 6 pounds, 14 ounces over Team Ferguson. 

Alton Jones, Dave Lefebre and Brent Chapman of Team Star brite combined to catch 51 bass for a total weight of 77 pounds, 4 ounces. Hot on their heels was Stephen Browning, Anthony Gagliardi and Keith Poche of Team Ferguson, who posted 43 bass for a combined weight of 70-7. Meanwhile, Alton Jones Jr., Britt Myers, and Nick LeBrun of Team Kubota missed the elimination line with 34 bass weighing 55-14.

Check out some of the day’s highlights in this video, and watch the General Tire Team Series Builders FirstSource Qualifier Presented by Berkley action unfold on Outdoor Channel as six two-hour original episodes each Saturday from 2-4 p.m. EDT. The full television schedule can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com/tv-schedule.

Watch Video

Anthony Gagliardi started Level Rods a few years ago and it was a labor of love. Being an angler first, he found that his time was limited on the rod building portion of his portfolio but didn’t want to see it go away or minimized so he worked with Matthew Lewis at Monster Fish Outdoors to purchase it. They revitalized the brand and today Level is part of the Monster Fish Outdoors arsenal.

To showcase these rods further we worked with Matthew and Monster Fish Outdoors to give you a chance to win a Level OGX 7′ Casting rod in this giveaway.

The Level 7′ OGX medium casting rod offers a range of flexibility and handles lighter baits with precision, yet is powerful enough for great hooksets.  These rods are very lightweight and perform well with spinnerbaits, lipless crankbaits, and smaller squarebills or diving crankbaits, They also fish soft plastics well when paired with lighter weights and lines. They are handcrafted in the USA and anyone would be proud to own one.

Features include:

Power – Medium
Action – Fast
Lure Rating – 3/16 – 1/2 oz.
Line Rating – 8 – 14 lb.
Custom-shaped high-density EVA grips

You had better sign up for this one.

This giveaway ends January 16, 2024. Seven winners. Good luck.

If you are having trouble entering through the form below, click here to enter: Monster Fish Outdoors Level OGX Rod Giveaway

Gagliardi’s 8-pounder on the final day proved to be the difference-maker. Photo by Garrick Dixon.

APRIL 13, 2023 • DAVE LANDAHL • BASS PRO TOUR Lake Murray didn’t disappoint when the Bass Pro Tour visited South Carolina for Fox Rent A Car Stage Three Presented by Mercury, with plenty of big bass to go around. And though it wasn’t the biggest bass of the event – second to Andy Montgomery’s 8-pound, 8-ounce beast – local pro Anthony Gagliardi’s 8-pound catch during the Championship Round helped seal the deal and bring home his first Bass Pro Tour victory.

It’s well known that Gagliardi is a wizard on Lake Murray; he had claimed Forrest Wood Cup and FLW Tour wins (and racked up more than $700,000 in winnings) on his home lake prior to Stage Three. Gagliardi fished similar areas as the rest of the field, but had a little variation to his approach to supplement his decades of knowledge on his home waters. 

“I fished a way I’d never fished before, on this lake, at this time of the year,” Gagliardi said. “It made all the difference and allowed me to win the tournament. The way I was fishing on Murray was all new to me.”

Gagliardi’s new approach to familiar waters

Gagliardi’s discovery of a new way to fish for Lake Murray bass wasn’t a brand-new technique – he simply used a drop-shot rig with morning-dawn-colored worm to do the majority of his damage. But, the way he applied that technique was new to him.

“During practice, I went up shallow and fished a couple of the herring spawning area points I fished at a Pro Circuit event I finished second at (in 2021),” Gagliardi said. “I fished like everyone else was fishing for them – jerkbait, soft jerkbait, swimbait. I caught some at about six or eight of the points, but the quality wasn’t what I needed to win. It gave me some pause. I was concerned, but not overly concerned.”

Gagliardi’s initial exploration of herring points in practice didn’t impress him, so he also spent some time sight fishing – also with mediocre results, partly due to the amount of pressure being exerted on bedding fish by both recreational anglers and Bass Pro Tour competitors

“I knew I needed something else to give me an advantage,” Gagliardi said.

Out came a drop-shot and shaky head. Neither of those two techniques are new to Lake Murray, but the subtle change in where Gagliardi fished them is where he made his money.

“I decided to move out deeper,” Gagliardi said simply. “I caught some in the 6- to 12-foot range that were good quality. I’ve never done that before on this lake when fishing herring points. I didn’t realize making that change would be how I’d win the event.”

Developing as the week went on

As the event started, Gagliardi explored all three options; rotating between sight fishing, shallow herring points and fishing deeper off herring points. But, he gradually started to confirm that he was catching better-quality fish working slightly away from the bank.

“Typically, bigger bags of bass are caught shallow on Murray this time of the year,” Gagliardi pointed out. “I started shallow on the first day but then kept going to the deeper, more productive water. It’s not a technique I knew to use here at this time of the year, I kind of stumbled into it.”

Gagliardi would locate bass using his electronics and would scan the surface for fish busting on bait. 

“I’d position myself slightly deeper off a point,” Gagliardi said. “If I saw a group of fish out deeper, I’d throw at them. The stripers were more scattered out, not on the obvious tips of the points. I believe the stripers would actually trigger some of the bass to feed. Instead of wasting time unhooking stripers using a jerkbait or swimbait, I went with the drop-shot. Stripers will follow it, but usually won’t hit it. I knew I’d just catch bass.”

Gagliardi commonly fishes drop-shots and shaky heads shallow as well, particularly when the herring bite slows down and he needs a bite or two. But he observed the stripers’ reaction to the finesse worms and figured it made sense to stick with that approach in the deeper water. Once he dialed in the deeper-water approach, he’d hold his boat in 8 to 10 feet of water and “point hop,” scanning a point and fishing if he spotted bass. 

“Toward the end of the event, I just fished points,” Gagliardi said. “I’d fish riprap points, rocky points, I was even fishing points that had zero activity up shallow. I probably had 50 points, all within a couple of miles of each other in the mid-lake area. Nobody else was fishing them. Everyone else was fishing shallow.

“When you have 80 guys who all know the same things, and locals know the same shallow bite information, the lake gets pretty small. I wasn’t competing with anyone for water.”

Just like buying doughnuts, you want to be the first to get to the fresh stuff (with no pressure, if possible). By stumbling into a new pattern, Gagliardi afforded himself fresh fish daily. 

“I could fish for at least a whole period each day in areas I hadn’t fished before,” he said. “You could tell the difference between fresh and already fished ones. If I returned for a second time, fishing was not nearly as good. In the last two-thirds of the Championship Round, I fished all new water. I really had fun fishing at this event.”

Photo by Dixon Major League Fishing

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Anthony Gagliardi started the Championship Round of Fox Rent A Car Stage Three Presented by Mercury in fifth place, less than 3 pounds behind the leading pro. That morning, he was faced with a big decision – continue the pattern he used to earn a spot in the Championship Round or scrap it and fish the herring spawn on Lake Murray. 

After looking at the weather, Gagliardi decided to continue fishing using his electronics and a drop-shot, targeting fish that other pros were overlooking. Listen to the South Carolina pro detail how he put together a limit of 26-13 on the final day of Stage Three for another big win on Lake Murray.

Watch Video

APRIL 7, 2023 • TYLER BRINKS • BASS PRO TOUR COLUMBIA, S.C. – Coming into Fox Rent A Car Stage Three Presented by Mercury, just about everyone with even a passing interest in tournament bass fishing had Anthony Gagliardi on their radar as a favorite to win.

He lives on the lake in Prosperity, South Carolina, and has had great success on his home waters (to the tune of $730,000 winnings in MLF tournaments alone). On Championship Day – when it mattered most – Gagliardi didn’t disappoint, claiming a dominant win with a two-day total of 47 pounds, 12 ounces to eclipse runner-up Ott DeFoe by 4-11.

Gagliardi’s 26-13 on the final day was the best five-fish bag on the week and was emphasized by an 8-pounder he caught a few minutes before noon to claim the win in his hometown.

How Gagliardi did it

Much of the talk throughout the tournament was centered around spawning – either bedding bass or bass eating spawning herring. Gagliardi sampled a bit of both, but generally did something against the grain and relied on a drop-shot rig for his winning bass this week.

“I had a decent practice, but was also a little disappointed,” he admitted. “I had found a way to catch fish with a drop-shot but never felt like I’d found the winning fish. It was a consistent bite, but I didn’t think I could catch big enough fish to win. But, the bite kept improving every day.”

Gagliardi opened the event by posting 17-12 and backed it up with 17-8 the next day. That was good for a ninth-place finish in Group A to advance to the Knockout Round, where he totaled 20-15 to settle fifth (2-8 behind leader Jeff Sprague).

But, local favorite the saved his best for the final day, highlighted by his 8-0 (the biggest bass of the event), Gagliardi added a 5-12, 4-12, 4-6, and 3-15 for his impressive limit.

Gagliardi wasn’t sold on his “advantage”

With his stellar résumé on the Lake Murray – which includes a FLW Tour win in 2006 and a Forrest Wood Cup title in 2014 to go with a runner-up spot at the 2021 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit tournament – you’d think that Gagliardi’s local knowledge was a significant factor. While it undoubtedly helped some, Gagliardi’s willingness to try something different than everyone else was the difference-maker.

“This time of year, a lot of the advantage is taken away because the bulk of the bass are shallow,” he said. “It’s a clear lake and everyone can see them on beds. Having some experience here helped a little, but some of the points I was fishing, I’d never really fished before. I’d fished the areas, but not those specific spots.”

Instead of visibly targeting fish busting on herring as many did, Gagliardi ran points in 8 to 12 feet of water and fished quickly. He focused on places where largemouth bass and stripers gathered to feed on herring, but found a way to target them when they were not visibly feeding on the surface.

“I was fishing staging points and places they would use to ambush herring, but stayed out a little deeper,” he said. “Instead of the typical fluke and topwater baits that we all use for herring spawn, I went with a drop-shot. I was looking for fish on my Garmin LiveScope and there were a lot of stripers around. I cast to stripers all week because every now and then you’d catch a nice bass out of there. Plus, the stripers won’t bite a drop-shot like they will other baits.”

His drop-shot rig wasn’t anything secret – a simple morning dawn 6-inch straight-tail finesse worm – but it worked to the tune of $100,000.

“It wasn’t fancy,” Gagliardi said of his winning pattern. “I just point-hopped with it all day and rolled with it. I did catch a few sight fish earlier in the week to help me advance, but that drop-shot was the main deal for me all week.”

A win for the hometown

The final period brought stiff winds, steady rain, and a drastic drop in air temperature. Still, people stuck around the ramp at Dreher Island State Park to congratulate Gagliardi on his win, making the victory even sweeter.

“It means a lot to win here in front of all my family and friends,” he said. “I’ll take a win anywhere, but it’s special to win one where you’re from. To have the support of my family, friends, and the community here means a lot to me.”

That weather that rolled in also helped him secure the win. 

“That front this afternoon played into my favor because I had already built my lead,” Gagliaridi said. “It made it more difficult for those guys to fish effectively and catch up. What an awesome feeling this is; it all came together perfectly. You always want to have a good showing at your home lake and I was able to do that.”

View Gallery