Cliff Wins US OPEN Again!  | | Bill Mays-WonBass | BassFan.com - Pirch, one of just a few Arizona anglers to ever sustain a career at the pro level, remains most successful in the west, with now two U.S. Open victories and a Western FLW Series win to his credit. His previous U.S. Open win came in 2007. "It's just exciting," Pirch said shortly after the unofficial results were posted. "Coming in today, I didn't even really expect to win. But boy, what a blessing. "To the western guys, the U.S. Open is like the Super Bowl of the West. It's a big deal for us western guys. There's this big divide between Texas and the West, where guys either stay to the east or west. This event is the western guys and like I said, I'm pretty excited. It hasn't even really hit me yet. I thought I'd probably move up a few spots, but I really didn't expect to win." The U.S. Open features a shared-weight format where the co-angler and pro combine their five best. Pirch got help from his co-angler today, he said, and there wasn't a single fish or moment he can point to that clinched it for him. Instead, "every fish really counted," he said. "I caught a big one pretty early, but really I was just trying to make what I could out of it. I had several things go wrong with losing some fish over the last couple of days, and I thought, 'Well, that'll probably be the difference.' I'm amazed that (11 pounds) held out today." Interestingly, Pirch said his focus leading up to this week had been on the Forrest Wood Cup. He fishes the FLW Outdoors National Guard team, and the Cup offers a $500,000-plus payout. But that changed when he arrived in Las Vegas for the U.S. Open, which he noted had always been a good event for him. "When you're from the West, you can't miss the U.S. Open. I always come out and try to support it. I want to be here and support it." He described his pattern as "total junk-fishing." He caught fish on a worm, topwater, crankbait, spinnerbait, jig and Texas-rig. He yanked a few fish out of the Vegas Wash, but concentrated mainly on the lower basin. "I was just kind of running around and finding grass pockets and rock shade," he said. He was awarded $40,000 cash plus a fully rigged Nitro boat. full details of his winning pattern will be posted soon.
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