But, with the first FLW Tour Open starting on Lake Okeechobee next Thursday, Gagliardi has been getting his equipment – and himself – prepared for the 10-tournament FLW season that is just about to get underway.

”I am standing in my boat, cleaning things up and organizing things,” he said. “After an off-season of neglect, it takes a couple of days to get things back in working order.”

He is leaving Friday for Okeechobee and, while he was reluctant to leave his family, that is the nature of the beast for a professional fisherman – and he was anxious to get back on the water and get the season underway.

“I finished 15^th at Okeechobee last year and that was a good tournament to start the year off,” said Gagliardi who was the FLW Tour Angler of the Year in 2006. He finished 15^th in the points last year, earning $35,788 in prize winnings.

“I will fish the 10 FLW events this year and that is a pretty good plate full. It pretty much takes all my time. During the off-season I’ve been able to spend all day with my family. Once the season starts it will be hard to leave for a week or 10 days at a time, but that is something I have to do to pursue this profession,” he said.

Fishing for a living, he said, has been a little tougher with the down economy, with both the fishing business and fishermen hit pretty hard in the last year or two.

“I’ve been pretty fortunate to be able to stay in the game. I’m fairly satisfied with where I am going into the new year sponsor-wise. I’ve got a new rod sponsor, Cashion Fishing Rods, and I am excited about that, so I feel really good going into the new year.”

In the February tournament on Okeechobee last year Gagliardi caught most of his fish sight fishing and he expects that will be a major factor again this year. Local anglers say the fishing has remained phenomenal ever since the FLW Open on Okeechobee last year – and those fish are grown even bigger. Water temperatures have remained consistent, with no cold fronts to slow the spring migration to shallow water so most anticipate the bass spawn to be cranking into high gear by next week.

“Fishing should be wide open with a lot of different patterns working,” Gagliardi said. “I’ve heard there has been a strong flipping bite for quite a while and there should be a shallow water swim bait bite like always this time of year.”

With the lake, up, he added, anglers should be able to spread out more and not have to share areas with competing anglers as much.

“I will most likely focus on sight fishing next week,” he said, “but if I hear there is a pretty strong bite doing something else I will spend some time with that, too.”

The main thing with sight fishing is not to focus on identifying individual fish during practice, he said, but to locate areas where fish are concentrated.

“The majority of the fish I catch in tournaments are fish I find on tournament day. First and foremost, you have to be in the right area,” he said.

During practice Gagliardi said he will divide the lake into thirds, then fish the south end one day and the middle part the second day.

“After the second day I may spend the last day on the north end, or if I feel really good about one of those areas the first two days I might spend the third day there,” he said. “Then if it is not all I think it needs to be I will spend one day in each area, then go back during the tournament. Ideally you would like to pull into a place where they are and spend three days fine-tuning your strategy, but most of the time the fine tuning comes during the tournament.”

Gagliardi said most of the fish will probably be caught flipping, on a swim bait or sight fishing.

“There might be some open water fish caught next week, but with the water up like it is there is an awful lot of grass to fish. Those fish like to get up in that clear water up in the grass and they will be moving in to spawn.”

 

FLW Tour 2012

Feb 9-12, 2012

Lake Okeechobee

Roland Martin Marina & Resort

www.flwoutdoors.com