Day 4, the first day of the FINTASTIC4 started with dark skies over Lake McConaughy as lightning, rain, hail, and winds moved in.

Unfortunately, this meant our anglers had to wait out the storm and delay our starting time for three and a half hours!

After a spectacular lightning storm, we could finally start to fish. Usually, a storm isn’t a great time to start fishing after, but the show must go on! The skies cleared, and Jeremy Zimmerman was the first to get to work! Zimmerman was trolling spinnerbaits, a common bass fishing bait, through submerged trees. This tactic skyrocketed Jeremy to the top of the leaderboard, where he quickly put over 15 pounds of quality fish in the net! Jeremy was fishing against Joe Okada. Joe kept the rod-in-hand in search of those heart-pounding strikes these fish are famous for. Unfortunately, Joe was unable to connect on a Lake McConaughy walleye today.

PWS BRACKET newcomer Bryan Bell made another appearance today as he squared off against Mike Hanson. Bryan’s program this week mainly consisted of trolling spinnerbaits, like Zimmerman, over submerged trees. Both Bryan and Jeremy deploy this technique to hopefully avoid snagging their bait in the trees as they coax these McConaughy walleyes into eating them. We lost count, but Bryan’s trolling has him losing many spinnerbaits in the trees. However, we are sure Bryan will think it’s worth it if he keeps advancing. Bryan was able to strike first against Mike Hanson today with a legal three-plus pound walleye! Mike Hanson has been consistent all week, but his search and destroy technique failed on him today as we got reports of his fish being on the move. These fast-moving fish made it hard for him to target and get a bite.

One of the more exciting matches of the day came from two of the hottest sticks from the tournament so far, Randy Gaines and Robert Blosser. Robert Blosser did receive some exciting news as he gained a nephew during this week. Robert’s brother and fellow PWS Angler, Josh, and his wife welcomed a new and healthy baby boy into the world this week!

Despite Robert’s great news, the fishing was not so great for him as he and Randy got off to a slow start and entered DINKFEST. As the day went on, Robert was able to find a cooperative fish that he could give a hookset. Unfortunately for him, the fish came unpinned right as Robert went for the net to keep his scores at zeros as the day progressed. Not until about 20 minutes of regulation time Robert was able to catch his first walleye of the day, which weighed 4lbs.-7oz. Robert’s one and only fish was not enough to best Gaines.

Tournament hot-hand Randy Gaines joined Robert in a slow start. Pulling the same Salmo Hornets, Randy’s were not firing initially, and he went deeper into DINKFEST. Then just like a light switch, Randy connected with two fish back-to-back to bring his DINKFEST Weight up to 8lbs.-14oz. Randy moves on once again to fish head-2-head for the Event 5 Championship against Bryan Bell!