FLW Contributed

The first tournament of the 20th anniversary season of the Walmart FLW Tour, the most competitive Tour in professional bass-fishing, kicks off March 5-8 with the Walmart FLW Tour at Lake Toho presented by Mercury. Hosted by Experience Kissimmee and the Osceola County Department of Tourism, the tournament will feature 154 of the world’s best bass-fishing professionals and co-anglers casting for top awards of up to $125,000 cash in the pro division and up to $25,000 cash in the co-angler division.
Local angler William Kemp of Scotland Neck, N.C., will be one of the 154 anglers competing on the FLW Tour this season. Kemp is fishing his first rookie season on the FLW Tour after a successful season in the Rayovac FLW Series Northern Division where he finished the season ranked No. 8.

One of the anglers competing against Kemp is 18-year FLW Tour veteran Terry Segraves, who lives near Lake Toho and is considered an early favorite.

“I think that the timing of this tournament is going to be perfect,” said Segraves. “It’s cold right now, but the warm weather is expected to return in the next few weeks. With the expected sunshine and the full moon, the fish are going to pop. There really isn’t going to be much of a local advantage; we’re going to see a lot of really big fish.

“The weather conditions are going to be a huge determining factor for the winning weights,” Segraves went on to say. “If the weather is nice, I think you’ll need to catch an average of 20 pounds through the first two days just to make the top-20 cut and fish the weekend. This tournament has the potential to set some new records.”

In FLW Tour competition, anglers are also vying for valuable points in hopes of qualifying for the 2015 Forrest Wood Cup, the world championship of bass fishing. The 2015 Forrest Wood Cup will be in Hot Springs, Arkansas, Aug. 20-23 on Lake Ouachita and is hosted by Visit Hot Springs. The Forrest Wood Cup Champion could win as much as $500,000 – professional bass-fishing’s richest prize.