Rose Wins FLW Tour on Lake Travis

February 19, 2017  by FLW Communications

JONESTOWN, Texas – General Tire pro Mark Rose of West Memphis, Arkansas, brought a five-bass limit weighing 14 pounds, 9 ounces to the scale Sunday to win $125,000 at the FLW Tour at Lake Travis presented by Quaker State. Rose’s four-day total of 20 bass weighing 59-2 was enough to edge second-place angler Bryan Thrift of Shelby, North Carolina, by a mere 12 ounces.

With his victory, Rose became the first angler in FLW Tour history to win back-to-back FLW Tour events after winning the season-opening FLW Tour event at Lake Guntersville just two weeks ago. Rose and Thrift were also in first and second place heading into the final day on Guntersville before Rose emerged the victor and Thrift runner-up, setting the stage for a highly-anticipated rematch Sunday on Lake Travis.

“I’m just blown away right now – I’m speechless,” said Rose, who has earned more than $250,000 in FLW Tour winnings in the past 15 days. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, and so has Bryan (Thrift). I think he is the best angler in the world, I really do. I had to give everything I had out there.”

Rose primarily split his day between deep, offshore areas in the morning, and shallow docks in the afternoon. He said one of his deep stops, which was near a boat ramp, produced some of his biggest fish throughout the week.

“It’s the same area that I caught fish from when the Tour last visited Lake Travis in 2007,” said Rose. “I caught them on a rough spot with a big lip in 5 feet of water. Now the water is 40 feet higher and there are big trees growing out on the end of the lip.”

Rose said he used two baits to wrangle his bass out of the trees – a 3/4- and 1-ounce Strike King football-head jig with a green-pumpkin-colored Strike King Rage Craw trailer, and a 6-inch shad-colored paddle tail swimbait paired with a 1-ounce Strike King Squadron Swimbait Head.

“Those two lures caught my two biggest fish today,” said Rose. “The jig was my most productive bait throughout the week. I used it to really get down into the trees. If the bass were up over the trees, I used the swimbait.”

Around noon Sunday, Rose said he decided to work through an array of shallow isolated docks off the main lake.

“I used a Strike King Rage Bug with a 5/16-ounce tungsten weight,” said Rose. “I probably flipped 30 docks and culled two fish late in the day.”

Rose said he credits the instincts he’s developed over his 19-year career for helping him get his win.

“Ten years ago I would’ve stayed deep and tried to catch another big one from the ramp,” said Rose. “But today, it wasn’t going to happen, and I had to trust that. I needed to leave and go catch a few that made a difference. I’m thankful for everything – very thankful.”

Rose wins at FLW Tour Lake Guntersville

February 5, 2017  by FLW Communications / Photo From FLWOutdoors.com

GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. – General Tire pro Mark Rose of West Memphis, Arkansas, caught five bass Sunday weighing 18 pounds, 3 ounces to win $125,000 at the FLW Tour at Lake Guntersville. Rose’s four-day total of 20 bass weighing 79-11 gave him a 15-ounce margin of victory of second-place angler Bryan Thrift of Shelby, North Carolina.

“I knew I had found one little special area, back in Browns Creek,” said Rose, who earned his seventh career win on the Tennessee River in FLW competition. “I just had that gut feeling that it would be special. Nobody else was back there and when I went there on the first day nobody came within a mile of it. I fished other areas, some grass, but all 20 of the bass that I weighed in came out of Browns Creek.

“I figured out a bait that they were just swallowing – an old Strike King Flat Side crankbait, part of their custom shop,” Rose said. “I was using the chartreuse and brown and a shad color. I just switched to the shad today – I made one cast with it and caught my last fish, a 5-pounder. That was at 3:15 and I had to check in by 3:30.

“I fished slow, and just keyed in on rock. I didn’t even make a cast under the bridges. I knew that there were a lot of scattered big fish up and down the rip rap and I’d let everybody else fight on the pilings.”

Rose and Thrift had found themselves in a similar situation at the 2014 FLW Tour at Sam Rayburn Reservoir. In that event Rose held a 2-pound, 14-ounce lead over Thrift heading into the final day of competition, but lost when the North Carolina pro caught 17 pounds to overtake Rose and win the $125,000. Sunday at Lake Guntersville, Rose caught enough to hold off the hard-charging Thrift.

“Any time Bryan Thrift is in the top 10, it’s going to be close,” Rose said. “I felt like I slipped up the last day and lost that Rayburn event. This one, I made Thrift have to beat me. If you want to win you’re going to have to beat the best, and he’s one of them.”

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