Murray Winning Pattern
Roumbanis' Maverick Move Paid Big Dividends At Murray

Photo: ESPN Outdoors Fred Roumbanis abandoned everything he did in practice and and came up with an off-beat pattern to win the Murray Bassmaster Elite Series.

"This is the best thing that ever happened to me in fishing," said the easy-going California native who now resides in Oklahoma. "I went from 'Oh, my gosh, nothing's working' to making a major adjustment that ended up being the right decision.

"I was able to put myself in a position to do something that I'm very good at doing. As soon as I found it, I thought right then that I could win the tournament."

The 29-year-old abandoned the blueback herring that just about everyone else in the 109-angler field was obsessed with and got onto a bedding-bluegill bite way up the Little Saluda River. He caught most of his fish on a topwater frog – a bait he mastered while cutting his tournament-angling teeth at the California Delta – and a wakebait that he designed.

He caught a rock-solid 17-14 sack on the final day to finish with a 4-day total of 66-13, and topped runner-up Steve Kennedy by 1-09.

Here's how he did it.

Practice

Roumbanis practiced the same way everybody else did – he ran a bunch of points looking for the spawning bluebacks that would let him know there'd be bass in the vicinity. It was working out for him, too – he was having no trouble getting the bass to bite a big Osprey swimbait.

He was down near the dam on the final practice day when he made a rather curious discovery – an 8-pounder sitting on a bed. He dropped a Senko down there, and the fish made an upward move toward the bait.

He decided he'd try to catch that fish first thing on day 1, and that idea led indirectly to the discovery of the pattern that would take him to victory.

Competition Day 1

> Day 1: 5, 15-04

Roumbanis headed back to the bed near the dam to begin the tournament, but it turned out to be a long, unproductive run.

"It was hard to find it in the waves (the result of 20-plus mph winds)," he said. "And when I finally did find it, the fish wasn't there."

Now he had a big problem.

"I was already in a late flight and I knew there would be boats on all the schooling fish. I pulled in on one point, but another competitor basically came in and cut me off, so I got out of there.

"I went zig-zagging up the lake looking around, but there was a boat on every spot where I wanted to go. I had the devastating feeling that this wasn't working and that I'd missed my opportunity to get off to a good start."

He did have one last-gasp option left – he'd gotten a couple of frog bites up the Little Saluda during practice.

"I ran up there and just kept going farther and farther, past the place I'd pre-fished, and found a spot that looked really good. I caught one right away and it was only a 12-incher, but I still felt good about it. Then I caught a 3-pounder, and after that I started catching them any way I wanted to."

Murray was several feet above full pool, which flooded the willow bushes and other vegetation in a lot of the pockets. The bushes and lily pads harbored insects, and the bluegill were sitting underneath, feeding on the bugs.

The bass, in turn, were in there feeding on the bluegill.

Photo: ESPN Outdoors Roumbanis said he probably had "10 days worth of water" all to himself.

He'd had prior experience with bass feeding on bluegill and knew the bite would get better as the day wore on. He was right – he caught a 5-09 and his co-angler boated a 5-04 between 1 and 1:30.

"The thing about where I was fishing is I knew it would be a consistent bite, no matter what the weather did. But throwing a frog, you have to keep up your confidence in it. I was keying in on getting one bite an hour."

His 15-04 bag left him in 17th place. He'd salvaged the day and laid the foundation to move up from there.

Competition Days 2-4

> Day 2: 5, 13-02
> Day 3: 5, 20-09
> Day 4: 5, 17-14
> Total = 20, 66-13

On day 2, Roumbanis started mixing in the Roumba – the wakebait he designed for Ima Lures of Japan – with the frog. The Roumba was effective in places where the vegetation was more sparse.

There were two brief windows during the morning when the bite was red-hot – when he first arrived, and at about 10:00. Then the action would die off until about 1:00. From then on was the best period of the day.

He caught a quick limit the second day, which gave him time to look for more water. He explored two other branches of the Little Saluda.

"I probably had 10 days worth of water – all to myself," he said. "It just blew me away."

His bag was more than 2 pounds lighter than on day 1, but he gained two places in the standings.

He rocketed to the top of the leaderboard on day 3 with his best bag of the tournament and the second-best of the event (Kennedy weighed 22-04 the same day). He caught a limit in the first half-hour that included a 5-pounder, and he bumped it up little by little over the remainder of the day.

He took a 7-ounce lead into day 4, and did his best not to think about it.

"That's a lot to swallow – being in the lead for $100,000. I decided to just go fishing and have fun and let the day bring whatever it was going to bring. I was really relaxed."

He missed a few quality bites, but caught the most important one – a 6-13 that took big-bass honors. It had slurped the frog off the surface and gotten pinned against some vegetation, and he didn't know it was even a bass until he'd physically touched it while trying to extricate it from the weeds.

"The wind made some of the spots hard to fish, and I could've picked up a flipping stick at any time and probably caught five times as many fish, but I didn't think that was the way to catch the big ones.

"And some of those I missed, I don't think they hit it with their mouth open. They'd come up and smash it, but it was like they were just trying to knock it away."

Pattern Notes

He threw the frog into the vegetation and brought it out with quick, erratic skips, and then let it pause at the edge. Once it was in open water, he just walked it steadily.

With the Roumba, he held his rod high and retrieved it slowly. "I'd just keep it waking real good."

Photo: Elite Bass Roumbanis' primary bait was a Snag Proof Bobby's Perfect Frog in his namesake color – Fred's frog.

> Frog gear: 7'3" heavy-action American Eagle Roumbastic frog stick, Abu Garcia Revo STX casting reel (7.4:1 ratio), 50-pound Power Pro braided line, Snag Proof Bobby's Perfect Frog (Fred's frog).

> He said the Fred's frog color's orange throat made it ideal to fish for bass that were feeding on bluegill. The color is available only at EliteBass.com.

> Wakebait gear: 7'4" medium-action American Eagle Roumbastic swimbait rod, same reel (6.4:1 ratio), 15-pound P-Line CXX (moss green), Ima Lures Roumba (perch).

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – "Being able to make the adjustment on the first day of the tournament, and just change my entire gameplan and run with it."

> Performance edge – "My Triton boat and Mercury outboard. I needed their reliability to get me that far up the lake and get me back safe."