Todd Faircloth has competed in four Bassmaster Elite Series events at Oneida Lake, and has turned in solid finishes in three of those outings. His lone bomb came at the worst possible time – when he was leading the 2008 Angler of the Year (AOY) race and only Oneida stood between him and the game's most coveted prize.
He ended up 93rd in the event and watched Kevin VanDam walk away with the title – the first of four straight for KVD – following a rather pedestrian 38th-place finish.
"It was probably the most important tournament of my career at that time, and I had one of the worst, if not the worst, tournaments I've ever had," Faircloth said. "I can't disregard it, but what I've done is try to look back and learn from that experience and take something from it."
The reason for his downfall is no mystery to him.
"I got too dialed in on one deal. We'd just come from Erie where we'd been catching smallmouth out deep, and the first day of practice at Oneida I found a big school of them out deep.
"It was one of my better practices of that year – I had three or four schools that I thought I could catch 13 to 16 pounds off of. I was catching them off the bottom, and then they suspended, I guess because they were bait-oriented. They just disappeared."
He'll go there this time in the No. 3 slot in the AOY chase – 20 points behind leader Brent Chapman in the revamped, 1-point-per-place format. It's not the prime position he was in back in '08, but he has a shot at the crown if Chapman opens a gate and he can step through ahead of 2nd-place Ott DeFoe, whom he trails by 7 points.
One thing's for sure: He won't be reliant on a single pattern at a venue that offers such a great variety of ways to catch quality fish.
"You always need a backup plan at these kind of deals," he said. "I think I have a better understanding now of how those fish relate to certain types of cover, and it seems like for the guys who win, largemouths play some kind of role. My mindset going up there is I'm going to spend some time looking for the green ones."
