Tough Tour Season
Lefebre Got Caught Up In The Swimbait Craze

Photo: BassFan The 2008 season was Dave Lefebre's worst-ever on the FLW Tour – by far.

He fished extremely well on the Eastern FLW Series (he ended up 4th in the Angler of the Year race) and in the Northern Strens (2nd), and he was the runner-up to Michael Bennett at the Forrest Wood Cup. But he stunk it up on the FLW Tour – after 5 consecutive years of Top 40 points finishes, he plummeted all the way to 120th.

So, just what was his problem on the Tour this year? More than anything, it was too much freedom. His Cup berth was already in the bag, courtesy of the Series East/West Fish-Off at Lake Amistad, and his experience at that event caused him to become infatuated with swimbaits.

He started throwing them all the time, and they just didn't produce like they had in Texas.

"For the first three (Tour events), that was all I did," he said. "My co-anglers were zeroing – it was just a terrible three-tournament stretch. Then I realized that, Hey, I'm doing this for a living and I need to make some checks, so I kind of snapped out of it.

"I spent a fortune on those things and what I learned is that when the fish are biting, that's when you throw the swimbait. I need to wait for that window to present itself when the birds are chirping and I'm catching a lot of little ones because that probably means the fish are feeding. Those Western guys who throw them a lot, they've gotten to see how the fish react to them under different conditions and they know which colors to use when and things like that. It's a lot harder trying to figure it all out on your own."

Sluggish Start

Lefebre started off the Tour season with a 167th-place finish at Florida's Lake Toho. It got better from there, but not a whole lot – at least not right away.

He logged a 91st at Lewis Smith and a 159th at Norman before his swimbait passion cooled off. By that time, he was mired in 162nd place in the AOY race.

His 69th at the next stop at Beaver was his best of the regular campaign. That was an oddity in itself, considering that in previous years the Wal-Mart Open had always been his Achilles' heel.

"If I'd known going into the year that Beaver would be as good as it was going to get, I'd have been scared to death," he said.

And despite how well he fished on the two other FLW circuits, he didn't achieve his ultimate goal (pre-qualification for the 2009 Cup) in either. He was edged out by Mike Iaconelli for the Northern Stren berth at the championship event and was outdueled by Californian Zack Thompson in his head-to-head matchup at the Series Fish-Off.

Next year's Cup will take place at the Three Rivers of Pittsburgh – a fishery that he's intimately familiar with. The launch is just a 90-minute drive from his home in Union City.

If he wants to capitalize on that homefield advantage, he'll have to go back to posting consistently solid finishes on the Tour – that's the only route to Pittsburgh that's still open to him.

Photo: BassFan Lefebre was the runner-up at this year's Forrest Wood Cup, and next year the event will be held on a fishery he knows extremely well.

"That's one of the things I've added to my arsenal over the last couple of years because you just couldn't overlook the finesse bite. But next year, I think you could go out without a spinning rod in your boat and still have a phenomenal year. Spinning rods are for Erie."

Bigger Bags this Time

Lefebre guarantees that next year's Cup won't be a repeat of the 2005 Bassmaster Classic, which Kevin VanDam won with a meager 12-15 total over 3 days.

"It's going to be way better," he said. "Tournaments there are always lower-weight (events), but never like that. That was just the way it happened that year – there was a huge flood in the spring that killed everything. If they'd have held it there the year after, the weights would've been normal.

"There'll be a ton of water so you can get away from people and there's lots of fish, and everybody will be fishing for one or two key bites. But instead of 4- or 5-pounders, they'll be 2 1/2- or 3-pounders.

"But it's still a million-dollar prize, and somebody's going to win it."

Notable

> Lefebre plans to fish the Tour, the Eastern Series and the Professional Anglers Association (PAA) events next year. "I'm trying to cut back because last year we were only home for about 5 weeks the entire year. Next year, the way (the events) are gapped is nice – there'll be several breaks where I can go home. I wish the schedule was like that every year."

> Tabu Tackle, the company he co-owns with a handful of other tour pros, recently launched a new finesse bait called the Whiptail worm. For a look at it, click here.