Garrett Howard of Riverside, Calif., lead the 168-angler field at the 2015 US Open on Lake Mead on day one with a five-bass limit weighing 12.13 pounds on a tough first day in the prestigous western championship.
“I made a long run this morning and really found the quality of fish to be a little bit better than I had in practice,” Howard said. “I had seen some really good fish swimming around, but I couldn’t get any of them to bite. I think that the wind got some of those better quality fish biting today.”
His AAA partner; Cher Vang who leads the co-angler side with the exact same weight, helped settle the nerves by putting three small keepers in the boat early.
“It was nice to have those fish early to relax us, but we were able to cover a lot of water and cull them out before we made the run to weigh-in. I need the skies to be sunny for things to continue as they are, but I feel pretty good about tomorrow.”
Arizona pro Kevin Caruso was second with 11.21 pounds.
“My son and I found a place in practice a long way from takeoff, but our day didn’t start off as we expected,” he said. “My son left early after catching a couple of small fish, but the fish turned off. I waited them out and had my limit by around 10 a.m. I didn’t get the afternoon bite I had expected to improve with, so we’ll see how it develops tomorrow.”
Arizona pro Roy Hawk was third with 10.68 pounds, fourth was Philip Roesener of Longdale, Nev., who weighed 10.17 pounds, and Guy Savidan of Norco, Calif. was fifth with 10.15 pounds.
On the AAA side, Vang, from Chico, Calif. leads with 12.13 pounds, second place is Mikey Reynolds from Overgaard, Ariz. with 11.21 pounds. The third place AAA angler was David Foreman of Queens Creek, Ariz., who weighed 10.68 pounds. He was followed in fourth place by Mike Taylor of Sonora, Calif. with 10.17 pounds and Raymond, Tak of Los Angeles, Calif. was fifth with 10.15 pounds.
The Pro Big Bass of the day went to Savidan with his 3.85-pound kicker and the AA Big Bass went to Jose Silva of Las Vegas with his 3.47-pounder.
