OVBA angler earns berth in fishing tournament

A member of the Columbiana-based Ohio Valley Bass Anglers is on the brink of his biggest and most exciting fishing tournament ever, and he’s fully prepared to fish for the win.

Blaine Bucy, who has been a competitor in the Ohio Valley Bass Anglers club since 2001, earned a co-angler berth in the prestigious FLW Forrest Wood Cup championship tournament. The four-day competition begins Thursday and concludes Sunday.

Bucy’s thrill is magnified 10 times over by the fact the Cup will be contested on his home waters, Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers – the Ohio, Monongahela and Allegheny.

As a co-angler, Bucy will ride shotgun with the full-time pro anglers who also qualified and fish from their back decks for one of bass fishing’s major championships. Having earned his spot many months ago, he has had plenty of time to think about his game plan and plot out a winning strategy.

“I know what I’m going to do. I know what I’m going to throw. I just hope I draw the right pros,” Bucy, 57, of Wellsburg, W.Va., said last week from his hotel room in Zanesville. He’s working there on a section of a cross-country pipeline, running heavy equipment out of Operating Engineers 132’s hall in Wheeling, W.Va.

His hopes are set on drawing Takahiro Omori, the Japanese pro who moved to Texas to pursue his pro bass career, or Mike Iaconelli of New Jersey. Both are former Bassmaster Classic champions, and Iaconelli nearly won the Classic several years ago in Pittsburgh.

Bucy may be a co-angler, but he will bring more Ohio River experience to the Cup championship than most of the other qualifiers.

“It’s my home water,” he said. “I live just 25 miles from the portion of the river that we’ll be fishing, and to be in a tournament of this magnitude so close to home is unbelievable. I still can hardly believe I’m in it.”

Bucy made it to the Cup the hard way. As a co-angler, he has nothing to say about where his pros fish or how they position their boats during the course of the FLW Series BP Eastern Division season. He is relegated to fishing water that the pro, in theory, has already combed.

“I just went fishing and was fortunate that I had some pretty good draws [pairings],” he said. He finished seventh in the BP Eastern Division points for co-anglers and advanced to the East-West Fishoff, where he finished 20th to earn his spot in the Cup.

As a back-deck competitor, Bucy has adopted a finesse style of fishing.

“I basically throw two baits — a Strike King Bitsy Tube and a 4-inch Yum Dinger — and sometimes I use the Mizmo tube,” he said. “They work for me wherever we go — from Lake Champlain in Vermont to Amistad and Falcon in Texas.

He’s quick to credit his club mates in Ohio Valley Bass Anglers. They hold their meetings in Columbiana and compete on waters from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.

“Everybody in the club is great. I’ve been fortunate to hook up with guys like Tony Holzer of East Palestine and Greg Hromiko of Columbiana,” Bucy said. Hromiko is one of his sponsors, through his Riverfish Custom Rods company.

“I really appreciate what I’ve learned in Ohio Valley. It’s helped me hone my skills, having fished behind guys from the back decks for their boats.”

He has additional stars in his eyes, as well. “I’m just two tournaments away from possibly qualifying for the Bassmaster Classic. I earned a spot on the Ohio team to compete in the BASS Federation Nation’s Northern Divisional on Escanaba Bay up in northern Michigan.”

Bucy is no stranger to big-time fishing success. He has qualified for the FLW Northern Stren Series championship and finished third in the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament on Alabama’s Lake Guntersville in 2006.

Watch for his name high in the standings starting Thursday at the Cup weigh-ins at Mellon Arena.

To learn more about Bucy and to read his tournament blog, visit www.riverfishcustomrods.com.

jack@innismaggiore.com