It may be his rookie year but Odenville’s Scott Canterbury fished like a veteran over the weekend finishing runner-up in the $1 million Wal-Mart FLW Tour event on Lewis Smith Lake. For his efforts, Canterbury won $50,000. It was his second event to compete in and his first year on the tour.Canterbury caught a final-round total of 10 bass weighing 24 pounds and 5 ounces to claim second place.
Team Duracell pro Michael Bennett of Roseville, Calif., caught a final-round total of 10 bass weighing 27 pounds, 8 ounces to win top honors and $125,000.
“Every fish I weighed all week was a spotted bass,” said Bennett, who has now won more than $396,000 in FLW Outdoors events. “I couldn’t ask for a more perfect site for a tournament.”
Bennett said he grew up catching Alabama spotted bass in California, and that experience paid off for him during the Lewis Smith Lake tournament. Bennett said he targeted bass near docks on main points during the tournament and threw a green-pumpkin Berkley Gulp Sinking Minnow rigged wacky-style to catch nine of his 10 keepers during the last two days of competition.
“It’s unbelievable to do this in front of my hometown,” Canterbury said. “I want to make numerous Top 10s, and I don’t want this to be my only one this year. I said all year long if I could have a choice of what tournament to make the Top 10 in, it would be Smith Lake just so I could weigh in at Birmingham in front of all the people I know.”
Canterbury said he was blessed enough to do extremely well.
“I got enough bites, they were quality bites and good enough to put in the boat,” Canterbury said. “I caught all the bites I had. Everything turned out extremely well for me.”
Canterbury said he has been fishing since he was a young lad when he went fishing with his father and uncles.
“As a young boy, I did not realize how much money was involved in the sport and back then, there wasn’t,” he said. “My lifelong dream was to be a professional angler. To actually accomplish it is a dream come true.”
Canterbury, 31, actually grew up in Moody and graduated from Moody High School in 1994. He and his family have lived in Odenville the past eight years.
Canterbury is reading for the next tournament, which takes place April 24 on Lake Norman in Charlotte, NC. Practice rounds start April 19.
