Velvick Wormed, Trapped The Big 'O'

Byron Velvick didn't exactly dominate the recent Bassmaster Elite Series Wildcard Qualifier, but he did lead the event each day, and he won by a 1-12 margin.

The Californian-turned-Texan started with the high heat on day 1, when he sacked a 21-05 limit. He tapered off the next day with an 8-pound limit, but rallied on day 3 when he tanked 11-00.

It was the two-time U.S. Open champ's first significant victory since 2000. Although he didn't win a dime in this no-entry-fee, no-payout event, he did achieve his primary goal – he secured his berth in the 2008 Elite Series and hence stabilized his career.

He said he took the event more seriously than any in a long while, and all that preparation paid off.

Here's how he won it.

Practice

Velvick didn't want to spend a year in the minor leagues to requalify for the Elite Series, so after the season's final event at Toho, he immediately began to focus on the Wildcard. Prior to the cut-off, he pre-practiced the lake.

He wanted to begin patterning fish in the pre-practice, but an equal goal, he said, was to learn navigation. Lake Okeechobee's 3 1/2 feet low – a very significant change for the shallow, dishpan lake. He'd heard a lot of stories about torn lower units, ruined hulls, and more. With his career on the line, he wanted to learn to avoid all that. "That gave an idea of how to run the lake," he said of his pre-practice.

Once official practice began, he started to search for fish and focused on pre-spawners. "They have spawning on their mind already," he noted. "This lake is ready to pop with the next couple of full moons, so the bite was majorly pre-spawn. What I was looking for and keying on were staging areas where the fish were moving in from the main lake.

"They were moving toward areas where they wanted to spawn, but the water wasn't there to get into the famous spawning areas like Bay Bottom and Monkey Box. So the males were milling around on real shallow ledges near flats and grassy spawning bays. The big females were relating to something, usually wood, a little deeper."

He added that the lake is now full of wood from the hurricanes, and "that's really the only cover there is. It seems like there's not a blade of grass in the main lake. There's just a lot of wood and empty space."

He settled on several areas to fish for the event. Some were on the south end, but his primary areas were nearer the launch. He had one spot in a canal, near a bridge, with big females on wood, another spot with average-size males on a flat, and one more spot where he could catch limit-fish on a ledge.

He'd actually located the big-female spot in pre-practice, but hadn't been able to get on it during official practice due to local crappie boats. He knew he had to get there early for a shot at it, so he decided to start there right away on day 1.

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 21-05
> Day 2: 5, 08-03
> Day 3: 5, 11-00
> Total = 15, 40-08

Velvick started day 1 on his big females and caught several good fish before the crappie boats showed up.

"Then I pulled off and started covering the flats," he said. "I was moving around, working a subtle ledge, and filled out my limit. I culled out a few fish and came in with 21 pounds. That was just the perfect day. I was really focused on what exactly was going on."

Day 2 developed into a much different story. When he arrived at his big-fish spot in the morning, a crappie boat was already there and right on top of his fish.

"They said they'd been there since 3:00 in the morning – I hadn't seen them before," he noted. "They went on to start regaling me with stories of the tournament-winning bass they were catching on this pile of trees. They said, 'Boy, you're right on target casting here.'"

Velvick tried to work the trees – he cast around their bobbers – to no avail. "I was just sick, really – it really went against me," he said. "I moved around that area, trying to get other angles on other pieces of wood. Keith Phillips (who finished 2nd) was fishing the left side of the canal, and he thanked those crappie fishermen for moving those fish over to him. He caught a 7 and two 3s."

Velvick was fishless at 11:00. That's when he abandoned ship and caught his limit on the flats.

He was the leader by 11 ounces heading into day 3, and first thing in the morning, he headed to his big-fish spot again. He saw Phillips there, and began to rib him. Philips, the night before, told BassFan he was going to win. Velvick read that article and called out Phillips.

Velvick yelled over, "Hey, I read on BassFan how you're going to smoke me today."

To which Phillips said: "Yeah, I read BassFan too, so I now you're gunning for me. It's Saturday, and those crappie boats are going to be all over you today."

The good news, Velvick said, was there were no crappie boats in the canal. The bad news was he worked the area for 2 hours and never got a bite. Then the crappie boats showed up, and it was time to change.

So Velvick said he "went to a little safety spot" where he could worm up a limit. He had his limit at 11:30, and then began what he described as a "battle between ego and common sense." He had several areas in the south end where he felt he could catch a kicker. But that was 20 to 25 miles away. And given Okeechobee's low water, that was risky.

"You're always thinking about winning," he noted. "I could make that run, but I just didn't want to get out there and have something go wrong. The danger was very real. I could have a mechanical failure, I could blow a prop out, I could hit an alligator. That would take out your whole career."

He decided against the run, and immediately felt remorse. He thought he'd "chickened out." But in the end, it was the right call. Phillips only caught 9-13 on his backup stuff, compared to Velvick's 11-00, and it was all over.

Winning Gear Notes

> Wood gear (big worms): 7'6" medium-action Rogue Swimbait Jr. rod, Okuma 200A casting reel, 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, Gambler Swim Head, 10" Berkley Power Worm (green-pumpkin/purple/red-flake) and 10" Gambler Ribbontail worm (redbug).

> The Gambler Swim Head, Velvick said, is new and still in the prototype stage. He had only two of them, and estimated their weights to be 1/8- and 1/4-ounce. "It's like a shakey-head on steroids," he noted.

> When the wind stopped blowing on his wood, he downsized to 12- and 10-pound line.

> Flats gear (lipless cranks): 7'1" medium-action Rogue rod ("It has real soft tip – it's a lure-heaver."), Okuma 200A casting reel, 15-pound Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, River2Sea Tungsten Vibe (firetiger) and Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap (gold).

> He noted that Rick Clunn turned him onto the gold color for Florida.

> Long casts with the lipless cranks were key. Because of the low water, fish were very boat-shy, he said, and most would hit on the first few initial cranks of a cast.

> Ledge gear (regular worms): 7' medium-heavy Rogue rod, Abu Garcia Revo casting reel, Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 1/0 Owner hook, 1/8-ounce River2Sea tungsten weight, Gambler Sweebo worm (black).

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – "I think it was that, with the help of (my fiancé) Mary, I stayed focused. We both talked about really staying focused in this tournament – both of us having our phones off and just fishing. She was 9th (as a co-angler) going into the last day. She supported me the whole way and I was focused. The main, driving thing that made it work for me was that. To go through the things we've gone through recently was tough."

> Performance edge – "That would be have to be the line. Every single rod I threw had Trilene 100% fluorocarbon on it. I'm telling you, that's very strong line, and you can feel the fish breathe. I'm a worm fisherman going back to the old-school days, and I was feeling every rock and piece of wood down there. And these fish didn't break off. They were coming out of junk and getting wrapped up, and I was hooking gar, but the only bait I broke off was on a gator that swam off with one of my Tungsten Vibes."

Notable

> Velvick's only other BASS win was the 2000 California (Clear Lake) Invitational. His winning weight from that event still stands as the BASS all-time heaviest 3-day weight record.

> Prior to the event he and Delgado made national headlines after they appeared on a special edition of TV's The Bachelor (where they originally met). After the show, she allegedly punched Velvick in the mouth, and was arrested. About that incident, Velvick said: "It's just something that happened, but at the same time, here we are together. Obviously, she wouldn't have come to the tournament if things weren't on the mend."

> His boat wrap advertises Amistad Lake Resort, which he owns.

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