Many pros, including several locals who have fished Beaver for years, noted they had never seen the lake so muddy, especially towards the lower end near the dam.

And while some may have been taken a back by its color, Lucky Craft pro Joe Thomas of Milford, Ohio, wanted to turn back flips in elation.

"I was tickled to death to see water that color for a change," Thomas exclaimed. "What a relief!"

Thomas honed his fishing skills in BASS events in the 1980s when it seemed water across the U.S. was muddier and spinnerbaits and jigs ruled the tournament fishing scene.

"Man, this week was a total throw back to the good old days when we clobbered fish over the head with big spinnerbaits and jigs instead of teasing them into biting with finesse stuff," he said. "It was definitely an old school kind of week."

With so much confidence in fishing dirty water, it should come as no surprise that Thomas led his Lucky Craft team members out of Rogers, Ark., with a 24th-place finish worth $12,000.

His two-day total of 20 pounds, 5 ounces consisted of a 9-pound, 7-ounce catch on day one and a 10-pound, 14-ounce catch on day two. The improvement on day two came thanks to a 4-1/2-pound kicker largemouth.

"I felt like my old self again this week in these high, muddy conditions," Thomas said. "I fought my way through the flooded stuff until I found some flooded grass along a hard bank and bingo - there were the fish."

"The spinnerbait has a big, gold turtle-back blade on it that provides a lot of thump," he said. "And I was mostly swimming the jig instead of working it on the bottom. It seemed like the fish really wanted something moving or ‘swimming’ instead of sitting on the bottom."

Thomas’ advice for anyone facing such flooded conditions is to get to the bank. Beaver was about 8 feet above normal pool, and the shoreline was in essence moved back into the woods.

"The whole idea is to get to the new shoreline," he suggested. "When a lake floods and gets muddy like Beaver, bass want to get shallow and orient to the ‘new’ shoreline. Sometimes that means fighting your way up through the flooded woods to get to that shoreline. I fished less than 3 feet deep all week."

Gagliardi is focused on the prize at the end of the year: making the Forrest Wood Cup.

Now the South Carolina pro, who hails from Lake Murray - site of the 2008 Forrest Wood Cup - sits in 6th overall in the FLW points race.

When asked about making a possible run at the 2008 FLW Tour Angler of the Year from his current position - 55 points back - Gagliardi keeps the Forrest Wood Cup berth close to his vest.

"I want to mathematically lock up my Forrest Wood Cup berth after the next stop at Ft. Loudoun-Tellico lakes," Gagliardi said. "The last event of the year is Detroit on Lake Erie and that’s a place where bad things can happen if the weather gets bad. So it would relieve a lot of stress if I could finish high enough at Loudoun to move up into the top 5 with a virtual lock on the Cup Berth. That way I wouldn’t be so worried going into Detroit."

On day one, he caught three keepers on the Pointer before heading down the lake.

"There was one little point where a few fish were coming up breaking in the muddy water," Gagliardi said. "It was an early morning deal, and it worked better the first day when we had some rain, clouds and wind."

From there he went to the clearer water with the Twitch Worm.

"The Twitch Worm is basically like a floating worm, and I was fishing it Texas-rigged and weightless around bushes in the lower end," Gagliardi said. "It’s basically the same way we fish on Murray in the spring when the water is high; skip a floating worm around bushes."

Gagliardi, however, endured quite a bit of frustration with the floater due to lost fish around the bushes.

"I’d watch the fish come up, eat the worm and take it down, and I’d lose them because they were wrapped up in so much flooded stuff," he said. "I even went to braided line to get a better hook set on them, but they still came off."

Each of Gagliardi’s two competition days were saved by the fact that he ran back towards weigh-in with about 15 minutes left and managed to cull up with decent flipping fish on a Tabu jig.

"The first day I pulled into a place I had never even fished before and caught a really nice spotted bass that helped me cull up," he said. "The second day I pulled in that same spot with about 20 minutes left and caught two bass that helped me. After that, I started to wish I had left myself a little more time to really work that stretch a bit better."

Still, Gagliardi has no regrets about his finish as he remains right on track to have a shot at the $1 million in August.

Brent Ehrler of Redlands, Calif., scored the 54th spot at the Wal-Mart Open worth $10,000 with a two-day total of 17 pounds, 5 ounces.

Ehrler missed two days of practice at Beaver Lake due to fishing the FLW Western Series on Lake Mead the week before where he finished fourth.

With just two days to adapt to a completely different Beaver Lake than he was used to fishing in years past, the former Forrest Wood Cup winner had to go "memory" fishing the first day of the tournament.

"I didn’t really get on anything during practice, so I just ran to areas where I’ve caught them in the past on a shakey head, and that was not happening at all," explained Ehrler who caught just 7 pounds on day one. "So the second day, I went fishing like it was another day of practice; I fished all new water up in the muddy section of the lake. That’s not like me to do that because it’s so risky. But I had nothing else to fall back on."

It turned out to be a good decision for Ehrler as he bagged 10 pounds, 5 ounces the second day, thanks in large part to a big 4-pound spotted bass.

"I learned a tremendous amount on day two - not just about the lake when it’s muddy, but also about taking some risks in fishing new water," he said. "I started the day with a spinnerbait, but the fish would just roll on it. So I switched to a jig with a Chigger Craw on the back and started swimming it. I began catching non-keepers on the jig, and that made me stay with it. I kept thinking if these little 10-inchers will bite this big jig, certainly bigger fish will. A few minutes later I caught that huge spotted bass."

As the day developed, Ehrler learned he needed to ignore the flooded trees and bushes on the outside and get to the bank for the bigger fish.

"In certain places there were flooded fields of what I call fennel grass, and that was the key," he said. "The fish were definitely relating to that inside flooded bank grass."

"In all, it was a neat tournament because normally the largemouths on Beaver are hard to catch due to the clear water," he added. "But with all that mud, it pushed them to the bank, and the colored water made them a lot more catchable.

Like Ehrler, Bolivar had a limited practice due to fishing the Lake Mead FLW Series in the West. But what caught him off-guard the most was not knowing exactly how well Beaver Lake was fishing.

"I came in with 8 pounds, 7 ounces the first day, and based on past Beaver Lake tournaments, I thought that was pretty good," Bolivar said. "Last year 8-1/2 pounds after the first day was like 30th place. I had no idea that high, muddy water would make the fish bite so well. I was shocked at how many 10-pound bags were caught - I just couldn’t believe it; my little 8-7 left me in 92nd after day one, and I was devastated."

What bothered Bolivar most about his misjudgment was that he left fish biting on day one to save them for day two.

"I caught them pretty quick that first morning," he said. "I found this bluff that I could parallel with a spinnerbait, and they were eating it up. I caught a limit and culled a few times. But once I got to 8-1/2 pounds, I figured I was off to a good start and I pulled off them. If I had known it was going to take 10 pounds just to sniff 50th place after day one, I would have stayed in there and burned them up."

And Bolivar’s efforts to "save" his fish for day two proved in vane as his hot spot died on day two.

"The first day we had all that weather: clouds and rain, and those fish were up feeding on that bluff," he said "But day two, it slicked off and got sunny, and they were gone. Leaving those fish when they were biting like that on the first day was a huge mistake. I think I could have culled up a couple more pounds there, easy."

Bolivar now sits in 55th in the yearly standings - right on the bubble for the Forrest Wood Cup with two tournaments to go.

Yamamoto chose to combat the high water by focusing on vertical rock bluffs.

He was pitching his own Yamamoto craw (black with blue pinchers) right up to the bluffs.

"I fished the bluffs instead of the bushes," Yamamoto said. "I kept the boat tight to the bank and pitched a Texas-rigged 4-inch craw right to the rock and worked the first 3 or 4 feet of water out in front of the bluffs."

"I really blew my chances of doing well in the tournament on day one when I lost a big 6-pound bass," he added. "After that opportunity, I never got another quality bite."

"There’s really not much to report on with my finish," chuckled King after the tournament. "The lake was high and muddy and obviously the dominant bite was up in that muddy water, and I didn’t fish that way during the event."

Instead, King chose to focus his efforts in the clearer water portions of the lake by swimming a firecracker grub on 8-pound test line.

"I tried to fish in that muddy water a couple of days of practice, but it just didn’t work for me," he said. "It was probably a mental thing for me more than anything, but I preferred the clear water. Those fish were not just everywhere in the mud. They grouped up in small bunches, and you had to really spend the time to find them.

"I did have one decent day of practice in the clear water swimming the grub and fishing a lead-head worm, so that’s where I chose to fish, but it just didn’t pan out in the tournament."