Ott DeFoe went into the Angler of the Year Championship at Sturgeon Bay a mere three points and three positions in the points standings out of a Bassmaster Classic berth.
Yet, he was as relaxed as he can ever remember being for a tournament.
“It was the most unpressured tournament I’ve fished all year,” he said. “The night before the second day, I don’t think I re-rigged any rods or retied any baits. I’ve never done that before in my life. I just gave it to God’s hands and figured if I ‘m supposed to be in the booth at the Classic or fishing it, I left it up to Him.”
While a higher power may have intervened on DeFoe’s behalf, he did his part on the water, catching progressively bigger stringers each day en route to a 6th-place finish and a 13-spot jump in the points standings that secured his fifth straight Classic trip.
It was the single-biggest move in the standings by any of the 50 competitors at the AOY event.
“I’m surprised with as tight as the points were that there wasn’t much as flip flopping,” DeFoe said. “I have to say I’m happy that it worked out the way it did. With as much as there was on the line, I’m glad I was in the position of not being in because I didn’t have anything to lose by being there. I felt like I was given a second chance by being there.”
After a challenging practice that saw him max out at six keeper bites on the first day, DeFoe headed north toward Sisters Bay to start the event. He had two places where he’d caught fish on the final day of practice that were within 100 yards of each other.
“I fished around all over that corner and caught nothing,” he said. “It went from 5 feet to 25 and flattened out, so I moved out a little bit.”
The deeper water produced a slew of small fish, but he managed to catch keepers mixed in after moving around some more and wound up with 11-11 to start the event.
“I knew it wouldn’t be terrible, but I didn’t expect it to put me in the middle of the pack,” he said. “I expected 14 to be in the middle.”
He had a better morning amid better conditions on day 2. By 10:30, he had the majority of his weight and caught a 3 1/2- and a 4-pounder later to cap off his 15-00 stringer that moved him into 18th.
“Seeing how tough it was on day 1 and knowing I’d caught a good bit more I was feeling good about it and it was going the way I needed it to,” he said.
After catching most of his fish on a dropshot over the first 2 days, he switched to a swimbait after boating his first two keepers – a 3 and 4-pounder – on day 3. The 2 1/2-pounder that ate this swimbait gave him roughly 10 pounds, but he sensed that was the fish that clinched the Classic berth for him.
“I didn’t look at (BASSTrakk) and I didn’t have a number in my head of what I needed to catch, but I felt like I was in after that third one,” he said.
He bounced around and eventually ran back into Sturgeon Bay and stopped on the bridges near the ramp where several other competitors had been filling their livewells.
He added a 4-pounder and topped it all off with a 4 1/2-pounder (his biggest of the tournament) on his last pitch with a dropshot off an area that Chris Lane had just left.
“It was my fifth fish and I said, ‘I’m not making another cast,’” he said.
The Sunline Strong Performer, which focuses ons the angler who makes the most significant single-day move in the standings at each tour-level event, is brought to you by the great people at Sunline.
