Roumbanis, Lane, Monroe Shift Focus To 2017

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

When the dust settled at the Mille Lacs Lake Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year event, three Bassmaster Classic berths changed hands between anglers working their way up the points standings and those who slipped out of contention to be at Lake Conroe next March.

With no real drama surrounding the race for AOY and tournament winner Seth Feider needing several anglers to falter badly to improve his Classic hopes, the real focus became the tightly-bunched group of anglers in the 30s and low 40s in points.

While some anglers jockeyed for position further up the points standings in an effort to earn more AOY bonus money, those near the 39th-place cut line were sweating every ounce – and for good reason. When it was over, positions 36th through 42nd were separated by 11 points. Andy Montgomery wound up 39th, two points behind Randy Howell and one point ahead of Ish Monroe, who is currently the first man outside the Classic cut.

Monroe was one of three competitors who dropped below the cut line as a result of his finish at Mille Lacs. Fred Roumbanis and 2012 Classic winner Chris Lane were the others. Brent Ehrler, Boyd Duckett and Howell were the three who capitalized and worked their way into the Classic by virtue of their Mille Lacs showings.

For Roumbanis, Monroe and Lane, there were various reasons for their drop. Lane pointed to an accumulation of mistakes made over the course of the season. Monroe didn’t feel he was mentally sharp enough and Roumbanis blamed a heat-of-the-moment decision on day 2 at Mille Lacs for his 11-spot descent.

Following is a closer look at how each of them saw their Classic hopes slip away.

Snap Decision Cost Roumbanis

“Nobody was weighing in a 1-pounder there.”

Those words will haunt Fred Roumbanis for a while, at least for the duration of this offseason as he mulls the what-ifs and coulda-beens of the 2016 season.

The veteran pro, who had surgery on his left elbow (dominant arm) shortly before the season, rallied back from three finishes of 75th or lower in the first four events to find himself 31st in points heading to Mille Lacs. He was coming off a Top-20 finish at the Mississippi River the previous week to strengthen his grip on a Classic berth.

A good swimbait bite on the north end of the lake on day 1 of the AOY event netted him 16-14, which put him in 39th place. The following day, he went to an offshore spot, but Seth Feider’s gallery of spectators was sitting on the spot he wanted to fish.

“I caught some small fish where I was at and the water was calm,” he said. “I was going to run back to my swimbait area and on the way I stopped to check my livewell. There was plenty of water, but there was a 1-pounder that was upside down. When I reached in, he snapped out of it.”

Still, it had him worried, enough that he stopped again on his trip across the lake and threw the fish back because he didn’t want to risk it dying and incurring a penalty. His first bite back on his swimbait spot was a 4 1/2-pounder, but that wound up being his last fish of the day. He came in with just four fish and dropped to 48th on the leaderboard.

He rebounded with an 18-01 limit on the final day, but coming in a fish light spelled doom for his Classic hopes as he wound up 47th, which pushed him down 11 positions in the points to 42nd, three points below the cutoff. In the end, a 2-pounder would've been worth five spots and five points.

“I’m going to have live with it and deal with it,” he said about his decision to release that fish on day 2. “At the moment, it felt like the right thing to do. I had to do it. I was on a fishery where nobody is weighing in a 1-pounder.”

He hasn’t abandoned all hope of getting into his fifth career Classic. He intends to fish both of the remaining Central Opens at the Red River and Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana. A victory at either would put him in the Classic field.

If not, he’ll be back in 2017 with a renewed fired to compete.

“My arm’s fully healed now and I’m going to work twice as hard next year,” he said. “It just shows you how good the competition is now. It’s not dominated by a few anymore.”

Monroe Not Holding His Breath

Monroe is more than ready to hit the blue water of the Pacific and close the book on the 2016 Elite Series season. It was full of ups (he took 3rd at Toledo Bend) and downs (97th at Wheeler along with three missed checks and a 43rd at Mille Lacs to slip out of the Classic). Ultimately, the stumble at Mille Lacs cost him eight spots in the points. Had he caught 6 more ounces there, he’d be the last man in instead of the first man out.

While he’s the first one below the current cutoff – by one point – he’s not going to sit around with his fingers crossed hoping that he’ll get in if an already-qualified competitor wins one of the remaining Opens, thereby triggering another position in the points to get into the Classic.

He opted to not compete at the Lake Champlain Northern Open this week despite a track record of success there.

“I’m over it and ready to go home and spend some time saltwater fishing,” he said. “I put all of it on my own shoulders. I want to be in for the sake of my sponsors because of the effort and energy they put into everything. I don’t want to get in by default. I want be in because I went out and caught ‘em. It’s not even a thought about getting in.”

Among the sources of his frustration about how his season unfolded centered around the deterioration of respect among fellow anglers, Elite Series competitors and locals included.

“My frustration is with the way things have become in this sport,” he said. “From the information train that anglers roll upon to the disregard and disrespect from locals who watch guys fish and then fish their stuff. It’s completely my fault why I didn’t make the Classic, but it didn’t help that every bank I’d go to there was a local who’s on the bank who’d move in when I got to that bank.

“We’re just asking for one week on your lake to show you how you can catch em’ better. It’s getting worse and worse every single year.”

He wouldn’t have changed anything about how he fished at the AOY championship other than not letting the distractions get to him.

“I still blame myself for not putting every fish in the boat,” he said. “At same time, there’s frustration when you pull up on an end of some reeds and a guy fishing offshore sees you and pulls in on other end of those reeds and fishes toward you. It was the mental part of that that got to me.”

And it’s the mental part of the sport that he intends to improve at before next season kicks off in Florida.

“I’m looking forward to next year and camping with my girlfriend,” he said. “I’m not dwelling on the past and I’m going to take the time saltwater fishing to figure out what it takes to get over that mental block of people fishing around me. I’ve never been that guy to fish around other people or be on the info train, but knowing that it’s going on, I have to figure out how to get over that.”

Lane Puzzled by Mille Lacs

Lane likened his season to being on the losing end in an election – he was grateful for all of the support he received, but disappointed he couldn’t deliver the outcome he wanted.

“You feel like you let people down,” he said. “Is it frustrating and upsetting? Yes, but at the same time, I’m thankful and blessed to have had the last five or six years I’ve had. I’m not going to let this one year or missed Classic bring me down and I will use it as fuel going into 2017.”

After missing the first three cuts of the season, he climbed up into 32nd in points following the Potomac River, but a 75th at the Mississippi River and a 38th at Mille Lacs knocked him back to 44th, seven points out of qualifying for his seventh career Classic.

“The frustrating part was being way into the Classic going into the last two events and dropping out at the very end,” he said. “All of the worst-case scenarios came true, like three guys behind me finishing in the Top 3. I got my butt kicked and it doesn’t feel good.”

Adding to the disappointment was being at a fishery like Mille Lacs and catching quality fish left and right, but being unable to tap into the bigger fish that seemingly everyone else was catching. His best stringer was the 19-05 he caught on day 3.

“It’s an awesome fishery,” he said. “I wouldn’t say I underestimated it, but it was hard to go through 50 fish a day and not catch a 20-pound bag. That was the frustrating part. To me, it was mentally tough to fish a tournament on that body because if you’re not catching 22 pounds or more, you’re down where I was.

“It reminded me a lot of Guntersville in that it’s an excellent lake and beautiful and a fun place to fish, but you have to have a completely different mindset when it comes to a tournament on that lake.”

His first cut of the season came at Wheeler Lake, but a 2-pound penalty for making a cast with six fish in his livewell cost him five positions on the final leaderboard, and ultimately five points in the AOY race. He also cited other mistakes that wound up costing him points.

“They were self-inflicted things,” he said. “There were other mistakes throughout the year that cost me points here and there, but I don’t look at it as coming down to the last two events. I look at the sum of all those things that happened throughout the year and not being fully prepared every cast at every event.”

He’s hoping his brother, Arnie, can qualify for the Classic through the B.A.S.S. Nation championship, which would put two Lane brothers in the Classic for the sixth straight year. Bobby finished 19th in points and is headed to Lake Conroe next March. In the meantime, Chris is going to focus on what’s ahead and not dwell on the past.

“Looking at next year’s schedule, if there was ever a schedule I could hand-pick this would be one of them,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of mental work and preparation to do in the offseason to be ready for the season.”