James Biggs had only fished one other tournament in Florida before last week’s Lake Toho FLW Tour. His 108th-place finish at Lake Okeechobee to kick off the 2013 season was his first taste of pro fishing at the highest level and left him scratching his head when it came to fishing in the Sunshine State.
The firefighter who hails from Euless, Texas, was just hoping to hold his own and not get swallowed up again at Toho. He did more than that: He averaged better than 15 pounds a day to finish 11th with 46-05 and cash a $12,000 check.
“Honestly, if I made a top 50 I was going feel fantastic about it,” he said. “That was my first time fishing Toho and just my second time in Florida. My first time down there was not a good experience, so to turn it around and do well, it was awesome.”
He had to borrow a boat for part of practice as his boat encountered mechanical problems. He tried punching mats and flipping reeds in practice to try to locate fish that had moved in to spawn, but caught mostly males.
“With the full moon coming along with the sunny days, I knew there was a chance the bucks would turn into females come Thursday so I tried to find as many reeds as I could,” he said. “I didn’t catch anything over 3 1/2 pounds in practice, but I wasn’t concerned. I shook a lot off and thought 12 pounds a day would get me a Top-50 check. That sounded good considering my finish at Okeechobee.”
On day 1, he made a switch from a bladed jig and went back to flipping around a 25-yard area of reeds and his first keeper was a 7-04.
“I just did laps around it,” he said. “We fished it from all different angles. They were on beds, but I couldn’t see them.”
He also targeted current-oriented fish with a silent square-bill crankbait as a supplemental pattern.
“I know I couldn’t win that way, but it was a great way to catch a few extra fish,” he said. “I focused on culverts in canals. I must’ve fished 40 or more of them and found three holding fish. It was a secondary pattern that turned into a blessing when the conditions got cloudy. I was able to switch gears and stay consistent.”
Other than a couple lost fish, there’s not much he would’ve changed about the decisions he made during the event.
“I feel like I fished as well as I could on my limited time and history in Florida,” he said.
The Big Bite Lookback, which focuses on the angler who's first out of the final cut at each tour-level event, is brought to you by the great folks at Big Bite Baits.
