When reigning Forrest Wood Cup Champion Anthony Gagliardi saw the weather forecast next week for Lake Ouachita in Arkansas he did not flinch.

“The first day of the tournament they are calling for 102 degrees, so it’s gong to be hot,” Gagliardi said as he prepared to leave Prosperity Friday morning for the drive to Arkansas and his 11^th Forrest Wood Cup as a pro angler. “It’s been hot and the bite has been pretty tough, but that is to be expected any time you go to a reservoir in the middle of August.”

Hot weather, hot water temperatures and a slow bite are all part of the championship game, he said.

“We’ve grown accustomed to that.”

Gagliardi learned a hard lesson in the 2008 Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Murray, not far from his back door in Prosperity, S.C. He was on enough fish, he thought, to win the cup, but when those fish went away he had no backup plan and he finished 48^th. He has not made that same mistake again and he does not plan to at Ouachita next week either.

“I think you will see a mixture of patterns similar to what it was like at Lake Murray last year,” he said. “Some guys will concentrate shallow and some will concentrate deep – and some guys will try to do a little of both.”

That, he said, will be his plan going in.

“I don’t think I could do just one. I think I will need a combination of patterns – both shallow and deep.”

Gagliardi won a cool half a million dollars with his Forrest Wood Cup win on Lake Murray last year, but it has not changed his approach to fishing – or to life.

“I still have pretty much the same approach to fishing each event,” he said. “I did not go out and buy a yacht or a beach house. It’s been the same old stuff around the house for me.”

While $500,000 is a lot of money, he said, it did not set him up for life, although it did allow him not to worry too much about financial matters for the foreseeable future.

So, he decided to do something about the long term himself. He founded his own rod company – Level Rods (http://www.levelfishingrods.com) in Prosperity.

“I’ve put a lot of time and energy into that between tournaments. I started the company from the ground up. I designed all the actions I want on my rods, built samples myself and assembled rods I could go out and test personally. There are a lot of rod companies, but very few are owned and operated by a professional angler. Very few have their hand in it like I do.”

On the website, Gagliardi describes what sets Level Rods apart from others:

“Most Level Rods have 12 guides plus the tip top. This has a huge impact on how a rod fishes. It reduces line contact on the blank which leads to longer and smoother casts. It also distributes the load from the line more evenly across the blank, allowing the rod to realize the blank’s true potential.  The guides are smaller than traditional guides yet larger than micros, therefore combining the benefits of both.

“Comfort is a characteristic I feel many rod manufacturers overlook. It doesn’t matter how well a rod can perform, if its not comfortable, its not going to be enjoyable to fish with; so I designed grip/handle combinations that gave ultimate feel and comfort.”

Gagliardi, who has two top 15s in FLW Tour tournaments this year, is ranked 16^th in the Angler of the Year standings. He did not qualify for the 2011 Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita, but he finished 9^th in the 2007 Cup on the lake.

Don’t count him out in his second try on the lake. Back-to-back Cup wins are not out of the question.

“I feel good about it this year,” he said. “I have some confidence going in and I am absolutely looking forward to it.

 

2015 Forrest Wood Cup

Aug 20-23, 2015

Lake Ouachita

Brady Mountain Resort & Marina

www.flwoutdoors.com