Third-place finisher Anthony Gagliardi holds up his biggest bass from day four on Beaver Lake. One of the few anglers who played the smallmouth game this week was Anthony Gagliardi. He stayed true to that pattern this week without throwing much of the A-rig at all. The Chevy pro did catch two key fish on the rig today in the last 10 minutes, upgrading him to a 15-pound, 8-ounce total for the day and moving his cumulative weight up to 57-1.

“I bounced back and forth between my smallmouth places and pockets with largemouth where I could cast an Alabama rig today,” said Gagliardi, a Prosperity, S.C., resident. “I only caught seven keepers today. Two of those came at the very end of the day when I ran back near Prairie Creek to some dirtier water and caught my 5-pounder.”

Gagliardi noticed that the further towards the dam he went, the smaller the smallmouth got for him. As a result, he elected to fish between the Starkey Marine area and Rambo Creek to find the larger smallies.

“I was pretty surprised today when I found a largemouth on bed. I went up shallow just to look around a bit and there was one sitting on bed. That was the only fish I caught off bed, but it was just so windy I couldn’t stick with it today.”

The main key for the Chevy pro this week was using 5- to 6-pound test Gamma fluorocarbon line. His smallmouth areas received a ton of pressure, yet he still was able to get quality bites. When it was calm enough to fish finesse, Gagliardi would throw a Buckeye Spot Remover jig with a finesse worm to coax his fish into biting. Another tactic he employed was using a 3-inch paddle-tail grub on a jig. He said that was very vital to his catch ratio by having that open hook on the jig.

A hefty $30,000 check was awarded to Gagliardi for his efforts this week.