By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

If the Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship at Minnesota's Mille Lacs Lake were a regular-season Elite Series derby, Seth Feider likely would've cracked the Century Club catching nothing but smallmouths.

As a bronzeback fishery, that lake is epic – perhaps the best there is, anywhere. And Feider obviously knows it extremely well.

The second-year pro from Bloomington, Minn. amassed a 76-05 total over 3 days to notch his first B.A.S.S. victory. As the angler with the most local knowledge in the field of 50 competitors and riding the momentum of a runner-up showing just a week earlier in the regular-season finale at the Mississippi River, he sat atop everybody's list of favorites for Mille Lacs' debut on the national scene.

He delivered. Big-time.

The 31-year-old took over the lead on day 2, then buried the rest of the field with a 26-02 stringer on the final day. His winning margin over 2nd-place finisher Brent Ehrler was 6 1/2 pounds.

As the last man into the field, he needed to win and have all sorts of weird things happen in order to move inside the Top 39 on the points list and gain a berth in next year's Classic. The second part of that equation didn't play out, but his late-season rally brought him a lot of recognition that will play well with sponsors and a big dose of momentum to carry into 2017.

Here are some of the specifics of how he approached his favorite lake last week.

Practice

Most of Feider's preparation for the AOY Championship occurred a year ago, when he spent 2 solid weeks there (it's a 1 1/2-hour drive from his home) after it was announced as the season-ending venue.

"I pretty much got all of my homework done last fall," he said. "I came back a couple times during the spring, but it was a way different deal. The first time they were on beds and the second time there was a mayfly hatching going on and I caught everything on a hair jig."

He skipped the initial day of official practice to compete in a team tournament at Lake Minnetonka. He and his partner finished 6th, but he thinks they could've done better had he not spent much of the day on the phone doing interviews about his Mississippi River heroics and his prospects for Mille Lacs.

He spent a couple hours on Mille Lacs on the second practice day, but departed quickly when he noticed a couple of fellow Elite pros bird-dogging him. He did some photo stuff for Bassmaster Magazine the next day, but called it quits after that without checking any potential fishing locales.

"It took me until halfway through the first (competition) day to figure things out. I started on some areas where they'd been ganged up last fall, but they weren't there.

"After that, I kind of went back to summer fishing. They were close to the areas where I'd expected to find them, but not on exactly the same spots."

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 25-08
> Day 2: 5, 24-11
> Day 3: 5, 26-02
> Total = 15, 76-05

Feider wasn't flustered when the fish were not in the locations he'd anticipated on day 1. He was confident that he'd connect with them at some point over the 8-hour span, and that occurred in the early afternoon.

He caught two quality specimens on a dropshot (the only bait he employed during the event) and spent the rest of his time graphing for congregations of smallmouth that he could exploit on day 2. His sack left him in 2nd places – 15 ounces behind leader Takahiro Omori.

He weighed fish from six different places during the derby. He found his most productive stop on day 2 – a point that featured four large boulders in the 20-foot depth range.

"The rocks were truck-size or at least half that and you had to fish all four sides of them," he said. "They were each about 10 yards apart.

"When the sun was shining they'd be on the shady side and when it was cloudy they'd be on the windy side. Most of the fish I couldn't see (on his electronics) because they were tucked so tight to the boulders. They were right where the boulder hit the bottom."

He pulled two quality fish from that locale on day 2, when he established a lead of more than 1 1/2 pounds. He stayed there from 8 a.m. until noon on the final day and amassed his entire bag.

Extreme patience was the key to getting bites, as oftentimes the fish would stare at his offering for several minutes before committing.

"A lot of them were really hard to catch," he said. "Those big fish are so fat and lazy and it's not like they have to eat your bait or go hungry – there's a live crawfish every 12 inches on the bottom. I think a lot of the bites are defensive just because they've gotten tired of looking at it.

One that I actually saw took me 5 minutes to catch. I dropped my bait down there and let it sit there and shook it a little, and then I was about to reel up when I saw it move toward it a little bit on the screen. About a minute later, it bit.

"The little ones would bite as soon as you dropped the bait down and clicked the bail. The longer they took to catch, the bigger they were."

Winning Gear Notes

> Dropshot gear: 7' medium-light Daiwa Steez AGS spinning rod, Daiwa Exist 3012 spinning reel, 10-pound Sufix 832 braid (main line), 6-pound Sufix 100% Fluorocarbon Invisiline (leader), size 2 VMC Neko hook, unnamed 4" soft stickbait (natual shad), 1/2-ounce VMC tungsten cylindrical dropshot weight.

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – "Just the confidence I have from knowing the lake. Things change almost daily, but I could run around knowing what I needed to look for."

> Performance edge – "That VMC Neko hook is so awesome – it sticks everything. I think I lost two fish the whole tournament."

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