Gagliardi said he'd hoped to leave his first spot today with a couple keepers. He wound up taking a limit by 8:15.

"I lost a couple 4-pounders so I had a chance to better myself a little bit," he said. "I left everything, but I still have a feeling I can get some more bites in there."

He said his long history on Murray isn't a hindrance this week.

"I'm not fishing any memories," he said. "I'm fishing stuff that's been good recently, either from pre-practice or earlier this week. I'm fishing stuff that has or had fish on it. I have a lot of those places. I fished in a lot of different areas of the lake and I skipped over some spots."

After boxing that early limit, he bounced around the lake trying to identify other spots that he could pick over tomorrow.

"I never really came across a place like that where it was happening," he added. "It's probably going to be really key for me to get some quality bites early on." Read more