Catching a little over 7 pounds on day 1 was not the start defending Forrest Wood Cup champion Jacob Wheeler was hoping to get off to last week at the Red River. Many competitors, him included, thought a 12-pound per-day average would be the benchmark to contend for victory. Starting 5 pounds behind the pace was quite a hole to dig out of.
It's becoming apparent that no matter how long the odds or how large the deficit, it's hard to bet against the 22-year-old from Indianapolis.
Wheeler answered with three straight bags of 13-07 or better to pull off an incredible rally that saw him go from 40th on day 1 to 2nd at the end, falling 4 pounds shy of capturing a second straight Cup.
"I put myself behind the 8-ball on day 1 and I did everything right and made all the right adjustments," he said. "I capitalized on every single bite that I had. That was the big thing. I had to do that to make it happen. I couldn't have done any better.
"I started to understand when those fish started to bite. I left them the first day. I went there first thing and spent 2 or 3 hours in those areas and never got those bites. I was trying to figure out what was going and then I realized they bite later as the water warms up."
On day 1, he was hoping to capitalize on the morning bite that had been pretty solid in practice, especially in the backwaters. When he got to his first area, it was a slow go.
"I didn't get any bites for 2 hours on a frog or the Trigger X Flutter Worm," he said. "I was like, 'What's going on here?' I caught a couple small ones on the worm just in the pad holes."
From there, he moved out to the river and caught 30 keepers, but nothing of any size.
On day 2, he changed up his timing, opting to target river fish first and then move into the backwaters. He flipped up a 9-pound limit on a Trigger X Goo Bug, then went to a different backwater than he had on the first day.
"I was the only boat in there and I must've caught 40 keepers," he said. "I stayed in there the whole day and culled everything I caught on the river on the frog and Flutter Worm. It just took me a day to figure it out. The fish were set up differently and it made them bite differently."
While he would've like to have been the first two-time Cup winner in history, he's not sure if his areas would've held up for 4 days had he caught a big bag on day 1.
"There were so few fish in a lot of those places that I'm not sure I could've caught them those last 3 days if I leaned on them on day 1," he said. "We all had to catch them on day 4 to have a chance and Randall did. He caught them and hat's off to him. He deserves it. Losing by 4 pounds is a lot easier to swallow than 4 ounces."
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