Anthony Gagliardi’s win in the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Murray last Sunday culminated the most incredible “zero to hero” story ever written in professional bass fishing history. It was so incredible his 6-year-old daughter, Laken, woke up Monday morning and asked, “Did Daddy still win the tournament?”

The story itself has been written so many times this year that it is well-known to anyone who is a fan of bass fishing. Gagliardi started the 2014 FLW Tour season with a big fat Zero, after being disqualified in the season opener on Lake Okeechobee in January.

Once he realized he had broken a rule that had just been changed for this year, Gagliardi reported himself and took his punishment. Then he set out to try to correct it. The goal was to qualify for the 2014 Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Murray, right out the back door from his Prosperity, S.C., home.

It was a tough season and no one really gave him much of a chance to come back in just five tournaments from such a terrible start. But, he forged ahead, determined to do all he could to make the championship on his home lake.

Slowly he fished his way back into contention, aided by a great start in early March in the second tournament of the season at Lake Hartwell, also in South Carolina, where he finished 7th. In late March he finished 30th at Sam Rayburn, then had another top echelon finish with 13th place on Beaver Lake.

By then he had begun to climb up the points standings. He finished 46th at Pickwick in June, then had his worst finish of the year – 48th place – a month later at Kentucky Lake.

“My last two tournaments were not great, but I did not have a really bad tournament this year,” Gagliardi said. “All in all, it was a fantastic year, considering all the pressure I put on myself.”

Although the Chevy pro did not make the cut at Kentucky Lake, he learned he had slipped into the Cup by the slightest of margins when total points for the year were calculated. His 37th place in the standings was literally just enough to get in.

“I was next to the last guy in. One point or maybe two less and I would have been out,” he said.

Now all he had to do was figure out how to win on Lake Murray in August. Bass fishing gets so tough on the Midlands South Carolina lake this time of year a lot of locals claim they don’t bother to take their boats off the trailer until cooler weather comes in September.

He also reflected on the poor showing he had in the first Forrest Wood Cup held on Lake Murray in 2008. Gagliardi was on fish, possibly enough fish to win, in the 2008 Cup, but he made a fatal mistake. He had no backup plan and his fish disappeared after heavy rains brought the lake up and scattered his schooling fish. After weighing a limit at over 10 pounds the first day, he managed only two bass the second day, giving him a two-day total of seven fish at 12 pounds, 6 ounces, far short of what was needed to make the cut to the second round.

“If I had made it past the second day I think I could have done pretty good, but I did not have anything to fall back on,” he said.

When the 2014 schedule was announced a year ago and he saw the Forrest Wood Cup was returning to lake Murray, he began making plans in case he made the Cup.

“I don’t have a lot of experience on Lake Murray this time of year. It’s hot and there is not a lot of fun fishing going on,” Gagliardi said. “But last summer I did fish a little bit in preparation for this event. I did not fish all that hard. I just wanted to get an idea of what things might be like, just to stay in tune with the lake.”

This time, he devised a couple of different backup plans to fall back on in case his primary pattern did not produce what he needed to win.

His primary strategy, as in 2008, was to target schooling fish in the lower lake. His first fall-back was to fish shallow grass points in the lower lake and his second back-up was to make the run to the Saluda River at the top of the lake and fish shallow brush. All three played a role.

“I was planning to fish the shallow grass areas the first morning, then move offshore and fish the deeper water. It was not going to be my dominant pattern, but it ended up being dominant the first day,” Gagliardi said.

On the first day Gagliardi caught his limit on two shallow grass points in the back of a creek in the lower end of the lake, throwing a 5-inch Scaled Sardine-colored Basstrix Paddle Tail Swimbait on a 1/4-ounce and 3/8-ounce Buckeye Lures Swimbait Head.

“It was more like a place you would catch them on in April or May when the herring spawn is on, not the kind of place you’d normally catch them on this time of year,” Gagliardi said. “That place was really smoking that morning. But, even though I had a good bag and was in the top 10, I was disappointed. I had lost three or four really good fish.”

On the second day the lower lake spots had fizzled out. He had only three small keepers and he knew he had to make a big move if he was to stay in contention. His decision to run up to the Saluda River proved to be golden.

He Texas-rigged a plum-apple 10-inch Zoom Ol’ Monster Worm, which produced his best fish of the tournament – a 5 1/2-pound largemouth – out of the shallow cover. Although he only weighed four fish the second day, Gagliardi had a two-day total of 23 pounds, 5 ounces, good enough for 7th place, and moved into the tournament’s second round.

On the third day he started out again in the lower lake, but he knew he needed a good kicker fish to go with the four keepers he had in the live well, so he ran back up to the Saluda and threw that big worm in the shallow brush again. This trip produced a 5-pounder and a 3-pounder, and he weighed in his heaviest stringer of the tournament that day at 13 pounds, 15 ounce.

Gagliardi was in third place going into the championship round on Sunday, which featured the top 10 anglers in the tournament.

“At one of the places I fished on the third day it seemed that the fish might have been schooling early in the morning, so I decided to start there on Sunday,” he said.

When he got to the lower lake area the fish were already schooling and he caught a limit, throwing a Yamamoto D Shad soft plastic jerkbait. Then he culled one of his smaller fish with a better fish off another spot.

He made another run up the Saluda, hoping to add a 4- or 5-pounder and cement the win, but the shallow brush was unproductive. In the end, it did not matter.

Gagliardi weighed a limit on Sunday at 13 pounds, 14 ounces, boosting his tournament total to 51 pounds, 2 ounces, enough by just one ounce to beat runner-up Scott Canterbury of Springville, Ala., for the Forrest Wood Cup title.

It was a storybook finish to the most incredible comeback ever recorded in professional tournament fishing.

Yes, Laken, Daddy still won the tournament and his story will be an inspiration to tournament anglers for years to come.