Sticking To The Plan Will Be Key For Lane

By Todd Ceisner
Special to BassFan

You could almost hear Bobby Lane smiling through the phone.

He had just weighed in on day 1 of the Okeechobee Southeastern EverStart and his 18-04 sack was good enough for 4th place. It was, after all, his first day of competitive fishing of 2012, and there's nothing like a good start to get the positive mojo going.

While he eventually faded to 11th in the final standings, on this day, the Florida pro was content to focus on the season full of tomorrows that lay ahead.

"Some other guys can go 5 months without fishing and never look at their boat or truck, but I wasn’t raised that way and neither was (my brother) Chris, so I think it’s everything to be near the top on a lake that you know well," he said. "Regardless of how it ends, it felt so good to weigh in and walk to the truck and say, ‘Wow, what a great start to the year.’

“It’s everything to me. I’m a die-hard, true bass fisherman. I live it and breathe it and I’d do it every day if I had to, but I have kids and a wife so I can’t. It felt so great when I weighed in today even though it wasn’t a B.A.S.S. tournament. Just to be near the top and among the leaders of the event at the first tournament of the year and get some of that well-needed exposure, it feels like I’m starting off right again and I’m catching them the way I like."

Sharper Focus

A noted shallow-water expert, Lane is focused on refining everything in his arsenal, an approach he hopes will yield big results. (Note: It appears to be working, as he and partner Gerald Brown won last week's PAA Tour Team Challenge at Lake Toho.) Last year, he put together a solid season on the Elite Series, netting two Top 10s, including a 2nd at Pickwick, en route to a 23rd-place finish in the Toyota Tundra B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year (AOY) race.

Formulating a gameplan and sticking to it has made a big difference, he says.

"The more I put my head down and do what I like to do, it seems like by the end of the day, if I stick with it and don’t get all discombobulated and pick up something I’m not comfortable with, I will have an opportunity or two or three that day to really do well in the tournament," he said. "The more I stick with a program like that, the better off I’ve been lately.”

It's been an internal struggle he's battled since turning pro back in 2005.

“When I fished FLW stuff for 3 years, there was a 2- to 3-year stretch when the shakey-head was (introduced) and everybody was catching good fish and big ones and winning tournaments and making checks," he said. "I got into that and it was probably the best thing for me, even though I didn’t do well in a lot of tournaments. I learned how to fish that bait and other different finesse-style baits.

"I struggled for a few years, but when I came to the Elites, I came with the mindset that I’m well-rounded now and if I need to go that route I can do it to scrape out a limit or I can fish the way I like to fish to try catch a few bigger fish and then I have a backup plan if I need it. Over the years, I’m becoming a much more rounded fisherman and I have confidence in everything that I do now, whereas a few years ago I was breaking line or losing fish or using the wrong shakey-heads or worms.”

Two-Lane Highway

While Bobby was knocking around the Top-10 at Okeechobee last weekend, a couple hours to the north his younger brother Chris was busy pacing the field at the Harris Chain Bassmaster Southern Open, earning a provisional berth in the 2013 Bassmaster Classic with a convincing victory.

Next month, they'll fish their second Classic together as competitors, making them the first set of brothers to compete in multiple Classics together. Chris punched his ticket with a 12th-place finish in last year's AOY standings.

“It was good to see him back near the top," Bobby said. "He’s a great fisherman and he had a struggle for a couple years when he didn’t make the Classic. It was good to see him to do well. He’s a great fisherman and he puts a lot of pressure on himself to do well and whatever he did last year to get over the hump that he needed to climb, it sounds like he’s over it.”

Which should make the on-the-water competition that much more interesting to watch this year.

“Anymore, we’re very competitive," Bobby said. "We look out for each other, of course. I’d take an arm off if I had to to save him, but it comes down to who’s going to win Angler of the Year one year – is it going to be me or Chris. There’s a big paycheck at the end and it’s a lot of money and we both have families to support now. I have three young kids and he’s got four young kids so you can’t really say, ‘Hey buddy, go here and you’ll catch ‘em.’ What we will do is if one of us makes the cut or if one of us is struggling, we’ll make sure the other one has what he needs.

“We’re very competitive, but we fish very similarly so we’ve never had to worry about competing against each other too much,” he added. “I find my fish and he finds his fish. Most of the time, we’ll see each other throughout the day, but we’ll be fishing a mile or 2 apart. It’s kind of weird because we’ll be fishing the exact same style. It’d have been great if he’d have been from California or New York, except we were both raised in Florida so we both grew up doing everything together. So as time has passed, we fish basically the same, so we can’t benefit one another.”

Seeing Red

Next month’s Classic at the Red River will mark Lane’s fifth straight appearance in bass fishing’s Super Bowl. He didn’t take a scouting trip this year as he’s going to utilize the official practice days and the information he gleaned from the 2009 Classic to build his strategy, but he agrees with other qualifiers' viewpoints that several known areas will likely be where the fish – and competitors – are stacked up.

“I'm trying to get away from catching five fish just to take to the weigh-in. I need to focus more on what's it going to take to win,” he said. “The more I do that, the better things have gotten. I have to fish for big ones. You have to fish for the fish you know can win the tournament and get away from 2-pounders."

He has two Top-10 finishes in the Classic, including a 9th-place showing last year at the Louisiana Delta. He knows a victory at the Red would be huge for his career.

“It means everything when I take the stage the first day and all the way to the last day, I hope, to look out in the crowd and find my family that travel from everywhere and see them standing up as I'm up there on that enormous stage while my truck and boat are being driven around the arena,” he said. “Words can't explain what an angler has to achieve to get to that point and to make five in a row is a feat unto itself and I feel honored and blessed to be there every year so far.

“I want to take advantage of it because you might have a year or 2 where something happens and you might not make the Classic. I want to go down in the books one year as one of the legends of the sport and to say that I won a Bassmaster Classic or Angler of the Year. Those are the guys that people remember. Yes, it's a feat to get there, but it's that extra step you have to take and get a little luck on your side and you hope it shows up at the Classic. That's the one to win. Nobody will ever forget who wins the Classic.”

Notable

> Lane added Sebile to his list of sponsors recently. "I'm loving their Flatt Shads and I'm starting to throw a lot of their topwater plugs," he said. "He (Patrick Sebile) makes some outstanding hooks. I've been using them in my swimbaits down here in Florida and I absolutely love his hooks with the weighted system. They're very sharp and strong and don't bend, even with braid. It's a neat deal. I'm stoked about it."

> About the recently announced ban of Alabama Rigs in the Elite Series, Lane said, "We could go on about this stuff forever and it really doesn't bother me one way or another. It's banned and you know what, I'm for it. I couldn't care less. If it wasn't banned, I'd have a whole slew of them ready in my boat anytime I thought I was on a school of fish. It would be an advantage to anybody and a disadvantage, so what does it matter?"