Another 17 Carries Duckett To Win, Classic Berth

By BassFan Staff

Boyd’s back.

Coming off a season he would consider the basement of his fishing career in 2011, Boyd Duckett took the elevator to the penthouse today to close out 2012 and grabbed a ticket to next year’s Bassmaster Classic on the way.

Facing a deficit of nearly 2 1/2 pounds after 3 days of the Oneida Lake Bassmaster Elite Series, Duckett caught 17-00 today – the only angler to crack 17 twice this week– and it was just enough to overtake Randy Howell for the victory.

Duckett’s 4-day total of 62-06 was 6 ounces better than Howell, who weighed in just four fish today as his quest for his second career Elite win fell short.

It’s Duckett’s fourth career title and first since the 2007 Lake Dardanelle Elite major.

“I came up here to try to make the Classic. I don’t know if I’m happier about that or winning,” Duckett said this afternoon as the buzz of the New York State Fair droned on in the background.

Scott Rook held onto 3rd by catching 15-04 to finish with 60-07, but it might not have been enough to clinch a Classic berth. Takahiro Omori fished his way into the Classic this week with a 4th-place effort he capped off with a 14-00 sack that pushed his total to 57-04. Ott DeFoe jumped from 7th to 5th behind a 13-07 catch today that gave him 56-14. It’s his fourth Top-5 finish in his last 10 events, counting this year’s Classic.

Newly crowned Angler of the Year Brent Chapman held down 6th place with 56-10, giving him four finishes in the Top 6 this season.

Here’s how the leaderboard looked when it was over:

1. Boyd Duckett: 62-06
2. Randy Howell: 62-00
3. Scott Rook: 60-07
4. Takahiro Omori: 57-04
5. Ott DeFoe: 56-14
6. Brent Chapman: 56-10
7. Nate Wellman: 56-07
8. Jason Quinn: 55-10
9. Terry Scroggins: 52-12
10. John Crews: 49-08
11. Fletcher Shryock: 48-11
12. Bernie Schultz: 44-03

While there are still two Bassmaster Opens left, the snapshot of the field for next year’s Classic came into focus this week. As of right now, the Top 31 in AOY points are assured of trips to Grand Lake in February because several in the top 28 were double qualifiers. Aside from Duckett and Omori, Tommy Biffle (38th to 27th) and Jason Quinn (44th to 30th) fished their way in this week.

Assuming Chris Lane fishes the final Southern Open at Smith Lake in October and Chapman competes in the final Central Open at Ft. Gibson Lake next month, two additional spots will open up as both anglers would then be considered triple qualifiers (Lane won this year’s Classic, the Harris Chain Southern Open and finished 14th in Elite Series points, while Chapman won the Lewisville Lake Southern Open, the Toledo Bend Elite Series and is this year’s AOY).

Those additional spots would go to Mike McClelland and Jared Linter, who are 32nd and 33rd, respectively, in points. Rook finished 34th, one point behind Lintner.

Falling out of the qualifying window at Oneida were Rick Clunn (29th to 36th) and Jeff Kriet (26th to 38th).

Oneida was a different lake this week than most had remembered. The water level was down and the quantity of bites never approached previous catch rates. Shifting winds – it blew hard from the south this morning – also forced anglers to have alternative areas to go to since the fish reacted differently or patterns just shut down entirely when the conditions changed.

In the end, as expected, the largemouth bite prevailed over the smallmouth even though the latter still played a big role in many top finishers’ performances.

With the season complete, the Top 8 anglers in the AOY standings will shift gears in a few weeks to All-Star mode when the Toyota Trucks All-Star Week gets under way on Sept. 20 at Lake Shelbyville.

Drought conditions in central Illinois have prompted local officials to close Decatur Lake, which was supposed to host the All-Star Finals on Sept. 28-29. According to a B.A.S.S. communications official, nearby Clinton Lake has been deemed off limits to the competitors in the event it’s chosen as an alternate location.

Quite A Month For Duckett

> Day 4: 5, 17-00 (20, 62-06)

Duckett and his wife, Jennifer, welcomed their sixth child (between them) into the world earlier this month – a boy named Eli. That alone is enough to keep a man’s mind occupied and throw his sleep cycle into chaos.

But Duckett has taken it in stride and this week managed to unlock an area that was full of largemouth and close to some plan-B smallmouth to come through with the win.

He went out today having to make up a decent-sized deficit on Howell considering how close the weights were across the Top 12 heading into the final day. His morning was slower than normal as the smallmouth he’d been keying on weren’t schooling, so that took away his topwater bite.

“It was just kind of dead,” he said.

Then he made a color change in the Berkley PowerBait Hollow Belly swimbait he was throwing and immediately caught a 4 1/4-pound largemouth, which stood up as the big fish of the day among the finalists.

“They started eating that and that gave me some confidence,” he said. “I figured I needed one quality bite like that because there were a lot of big smallmouth in the area that you can cull up to 14 or 14 1/2 with, but to get up to 16, 17 pounds, you have to catch a big one.”

Not knowing how Howell was doing – Duckett fished a small a bay on the south side of the lake all week – he knew he would likely have to weigh close to his day-2 total of 17-11 to have a chance at the win.

“I figured I needed 17 to have a shot,” he said. “And then there was no guarantee because if Randy caught another 15, he’d beat me. He stumbled and he opened the door and I caught them. Seventeen’s a big bag.”

After a miserable 2011 season, Duckett, who recently sold his lucrative tank-leasing business and was heavily involved in the development of Major League Fishing, re-committed himself to the sport with the hope he could regain the edge that allowed him to qualify for five straight Classics from 2007 (when he won) to 2011.

“We worked hard this year to get back,” he said. “I had a lot of good fishing days. I had some great tournaments this year, really, really good tournaments – better than this one. We’re all keyed up on results and consistent tournament angling is not about the weight in the boat. It’s about how you fish all day and what you do with what you have to work with. I had some great tournaments this year and that’s exciting for me.”

Details of his winning pattern, as well as those of the other top finishers, will be published soon.

2nd: Howell Hurting

> Day 4: 4, 14-04 (19, 62-00)

One after another, fans and fellow competitors approached Howell as he sat in the shade behind the stage following the weigh-ins today. They offered a hand and told him “good job,” again and again.

As nice as it was, the gestures were a weak elixir for the pain he was feeling after not being able to close out the victory he so desperately wanted to come on the heels of his close friend Chapman’s AOY triumph on Saturday.

“I’m going to look back for the rest of my life now and try to figure out what I could’ve done just to catch one little keeper,” he said. “It’s so easy to catch one little, 12-inch largemouth on the bank anywhere. But I stayed with the pattern where I knew there were big fish and I thought in the last minute, I was going to pull it out.”

He never had the fifth fish on, but he did have a couple close calls that certainly would’ve given him the win.

“I had a big one blow up my Pop-R today and I missed him, but I don’t think I did anything wrong,” he added. “I just think he didn’t get it. I jerked it away from him, but I don’t think he’d have gotten it anyway. I had one more swirl on a Pop-R and I had a couple more tap the swimbait this morning, but they didn’t eat it. I could feel them nipping at it, but they’d just never eat it.”

After finishing day 3 on a stretch of offshore grass flipping for largemouth, he went to the area again today, but sensed he should’ve moved there sooner.

“The one mistake I probably made was not going to that largemouth area early enough,” he said. “I had a gut feeling that I should’ve left where I was probably 45 minutes before I did. I thought the wind was still blowing too hard, but when I got over there the wind had laid down and I was able to fish better than I thought I’d be able to.”

3rd: Rook Stayed Put

> Day 4: 5, 15-04 (20, 60-07)

It was more of the same for Rook today. Same area. Same pattern. And darn near the same weight he brought in the first 3 days.

He closed out his limit around 11 o'clock this morning with a 3 1/2-pounder, but trusted the smallmouth area he was fishing enough that he didn’t go hunting for a kicker largemouth.

While this was his third Top-12 cut of the season and third Top-8 finish, he wasn’t able to overcome three finishes of 77th or worse in his bid to make next year’s Classic.

“I did what I needed to do, but so did some of the other guys,” he said. “Alton (Jones) and Ish (Monroe) fell out (of the Top 28) so that bumped two people out. I’m probably going to be first or second man out.”

4th: Omori Surges Into Classic

> Day 4: 5, 14-00 (20, 57-04)

The south wind turned off Omori’s best area today so he had to run to new water. It produced eight bites, seven of which made it in to the boat.

This was his fifth Elite Series event at Oneida so he had plenty of options to choose from.

“I’ve fished here a lot so I have a lot of waypoints to run to,” he said.

While the 14 pounds he caught didn’t come close to matching the 18-13 he caught on day 3 to make the final cut, it solidified his place in next year’s Classic.

5th: DeFoe Didn’t Flinch

> Day 4: 5, 13-07 (20, 56-14)

With the AOY already decided, DeFoe went out today hoping to just slide up the standings. While he caught his second-smallest stringer of the event, he jumped two spots in the season finale to close out a phenomenal sophomore season on the Elite Series.

“Today should’ve been equal to what the last 2 days have been,” he said in reference to the 15-plus pound days. “I had the chances today to have what I had, but it just didn’t work out.”

Notable

> Day 4 stats: 12 anglers, 7 limits, 2 fours, 1 three, 1 two, 1 one.

Final Standings

1. Boyd Duckett -- Demopolis, AL -- 20, 62-06 -- 97 -- $108,700
Day 1: 5, 13-11 -- Day 2: 5, 17-11 -- Day 3: 5, 14-00 -- Day 4: 5, 17-00

2. Randy Howell -- Springville, AL -- 19, 62-00 -- 96 -- $50,000
Day 1: 5, 15-12 -- Day 2: 5, 16-06 -- Day 3: 5, 15-10 -- Day 4: 4, 14-04

3. Scott Rook -- Little Rock, AR -- 20, 60-07 -- 95 -- $27,300
Day 1: 5, 15-07 -- Day 2: 5, 15-09 -- Day 3: 5, 14-03 -- Day 4: 5, 15-04

4. Takahiro Omori -- Emory, TX -- 20, 57-04 -- 94 -- $25,775
Day 1: 5, 12-08 -- Day 2: 5, 11-15 -- Day 3: 5, 18-13 -- Day 4: 5, 14-00

5. Ott DeFoe -- Knoxville, TN -- 20, 56-14 -- 93 -- $64,000
Day 1: 5, 12-05 -- Day 2: 5, 15-05 -- Day 3: 5, 15-13 -- Day 4: 5, 13-07

6. Brent Chapman -- Lake Quivira, KS -- 20, 56-10 -- 92 -- $113,500
Day 1: 5, 16-12 -- Day 2: 5, 13-12 -- Day 3: 5, 13-07 -- Day 4: 5, 12-11

7. Nate Wellman -- Newaygo, MI -- 20, 56-07 -- 91 -- $23,800
Day 1: 5, 12-08 -- Day 2: 5, 17-01 -- Day 3: 5, 13-13 -- Day 4: 5, 13-01

8. Jason Quinn -- Lake Wylie, SC -- 20, 55-10 -- 90 -- $20,200
Day 1: 5, 13-02 -- Day 2: 5, 16-11 -- Day 3: 5, 14-07 -- Day 4: 5, 11-06

9. Terry Scroggins -- San Mateo, FL -- 19, 52-12 -- 89 -- $48,250
Day 1: 5, 15-00 -- Day 2: 5, 15-01 -- Day 3: 5, 14-07 -- Day 4: 4, 08-04

10. John Crews -- Salem, VA -- 18, 49-08 -- 88 -- $22,100
Day 1: 5, 12-11 -- Day 2: 5, 15-06 -- Day 3: 5, 15-00 -- Day 4: 3, 06-07

11. Fletcher Shryock -- Newcomerstown, OH -- 17, 48-11 -- 87 -- $11,000
Day 1: 5, 14-06 -- Day 2: 5, 13-09 -- Day 3: 5, 15-08 -- Day 4: 2, 05-04

12. Bernie Schultz -- Gainesville, FL -- 16, 44-03 -- 86 -- $10,500
Day 1: 5, 14-13 -- Day 2: 5, 12-02 -- Day 3: 5, 15-07 -- Day 4: 1, 01-13