"This is overwhelming. Just making this tournament was overwhelming. And now you hit me with this."

The top 10 pros at the Walmart FLW Walleye Tour Championship had another factor to contend with on the last day of the tournament: local anglers. All week long the pros and their co-anglers had the Missouri River pretty much to themselves. But not on Saturday, which for the average working stiff is the day to go fishing. But the pros didn’t mind sharing the water, even if it meant getting bumped off a good spot. “Everybody that went by waved at me and gave me the thumbs-up sign,” said Tom Keenan , an angler who refuses to crowd locals who are on a spot. “That was really great. A lot of the places we go the locals look at us like we're catching all their fish. But not here.”
Robert B. Blosser , a third-year pro, surprised many observers at the tournament by finishing second. But perhaps it isn’t such a surprise, cheap plane tickets seeing who Blosser learned from. His father, Robert Blosser Sr. is a bass pro who taught his son how to catch salmon and walleyes as well as bass. But somewhere along the line Robert Jr. gravitated toward walleyes. “I love bass fishing, but it’s a one-rod Charlie sport,” Blosser said. “There are so many ways to fish walleyes: trolling, jigging, casting cranks, hand-lining, pulling leadcore. They’re so much smarter than bass. How many times can you flip to a spot and miss that bass, and he’ll come back and hit it again and again? Walleyes won’t come back and hit a bait. Fishing them is a mental chess game. They’re always in transition. Day to day, you have to change your game plan. The mental preparation you need to fish walleyes is amazing. They can go from 2 feet to 20 feet in 24 hours. Bass seldom do that. Don’t get me wrong, I love catching smallies. But deep down, I’m a walleye guy.”
Blosser got a real surprise at the weigh-in when his father showed up via a charter flight cheap plane tickets from Wisconsin. It was an emotional moment for father and son, who hugged on the stage when Robert Sr. was introduced to the crowd by FLW emcee Charlie Evans . And Blosser wasn’t the only angler whose mentor was in the crowd. Sitting 10 rows back from center stage was Mr. Walleye, Gary Roach , who took Todd Frank under his wing several years ago and watched him develop cheap plane tickets into the kind of pro who was capable of placing third at this year's championship. Don't be surprised if the oldest pro in competitive walleye fishing competes in a few more tournaments next year.
“This is overwhelming. Just making this tournament was overwhelming. And now you hit me with this.” – second-place finisher Robert B. Blosser, upon learning his father, Robert Sr., had chartered a plane to come to Saturday’s weigh-in.