While Tim Horton fished jigs, tubes, and crankbaits to whoop up on the rest of the Bassmaster Elite Series contenders en route to a smashing win at Lake Champlain, other top finishers enjoyed explosive action on frogs and other topwater lures. All of the Top 5 made the run south to the Ticonderoga area to fish grass, and they all relied on the lake's largemouths, which are less-abundant but larger on average than the smallmouths.
2nd: Skeet Reese
> Day 1: 5, 16-04
> Day 2: 5, 16-13
> Day 3: 5, 17-08
> Day 4: 5, 20-04
> Total = 20, 70-13
Skeet Reese improved his weight every day. He fished 50 to 60 miles south of the launch site.
"I was fishing grasslines in 4 to 8 feet of water," he said. "The fish were keying on alewives, so I was running the (Lucky Craft) BDS3 through the grass. Some would hit in open water, and some when you ripped it out of the grass.
"Where I thought I'd catch them from practice didn't work," he noted. "Then, there were storms and they were just choking a (Lucky Craft) Gunfish topwater. I thought the tournament would be won in the first 2 hours of the day on top."
But he had only three fish at noon on day 1, so he ran to an area where he'd gottone one bite in practice. He used the Gunfish to scrape up 15 pounds.
"On day 2, I started in my first area and gota small limit, and then ran to a secondary area. I started cranking since the wind was blowing, and caught 40 to 50 fish. I culled everything. I think I used only one fish (throughout the tournament) from the first area I started on the first 3 days.
"I didn't know what I'd found until day 3, and I started hurting them pretty good. I was just hoping I had enough to make it to (the Top 12) and start on them first thing the last day."
He did, and he camped there to cull up to the biggest bag of the last day and jump up to finish in 2nd place, two spots better than he needed to overtake Kevin VanDam in the Angler of the Year (AOY) race.
> Topwater gear: 7' medium-action Lamiglas SR705R rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX reel, 30-pound Spiderwire Ultracast braided line, Lucky Craft Gunfish 115 (chartreuse shad).
> Crankbait gear: Same rod, reel, and line, Lucky Craft BDS3 crankbait (lavender shad).
Main factor in his success – "The bait. The Lucky Craft BDS3 imitated the alewife well, and the Spiderwire Ultracast was a big factor, since I was ripping it from the grass and you just can't pop it loose with mono."
Performance edge – "The whole combination of the bait, rod, reel, line and presentation."
Steve Kennedy had a blast catching all of his weigh-in fish on a frog.
3rd: Steve Kennedy
> Day 1: 5, 21-06
> Day 2: 5, 17-14
> Day 3: 5, 15-05
> Day 4: 5, 14-04
> Total = 20, 68-13
Steve Kennedy fished "Dean's little frog" (the Spro BronzEye frog that Dean Rojas designed) and had so much fun he couldn't put it down.
"I caught every fish I weighed on it," he said. "I knew last year they bit a black and blue jig real good, but I wanted to show them something different. I used a black frog, but I changed out the legs with some blue skirt material."
He committed to fishing for largemouth, because "the times I'd fished for smallmouth here I got burned. I'm committed to going south now every time we come back, no matter what, if I can at all get there."
Coming in, he expected to catch fish in 8 to 10 feet of water on outside milfoil lines, but he never found a good school.
"They were bunched up, and if you found them you could do well, but just fishing you wouldn't do too good," he noted. "I found one stretch where I got seven to eight bites. Then I went further south with the big weight, flipping in the (water) chestnuts.
"I could get bites, but I couldn't get them out, and I'm sure some were pike. I finally threw a frog in a hole and a bass came through and got it. That's what I did on day 2 and got my really big bites."
He started in the chestnuts on day 1.
"I caught 17 or 18 pounds from there, and then got a big one or two in the milfoil," he said. "On day 2 I went to the chestnuts, and they were cutting it."
He caught some fish in places that hadn't been harvested yet, but by day 3, "they'd pretty much finished it off." He didn't get any big bites there, but caught three key fish in the milfoil.
The last day he stayed in the milfoil, and missed at least three big bites. He didn't have any regrets, though.
"It was so much fun," he said. "My hands are shredded."
> Frog gear: 7' heavy-action Kistler Magnesium TS 7' Jig and Toad Special rod, Shimano Curado casting reel, 65-pound unnamed braided line (he upgraded from 50-pound after he lost four good baits to pike and a big bass broke him off), Spro BronzEye frog (black, and he changed out the "legs" to blue).
Main factor in his success – "The black frog with the blue tail I put on it. I got bit on a black and blue jig, but I'm sure some were pike. With the frog on top you can tell pike from bass most of the time, and they'd take that color well. I think bigger fish would hit on top generally."
Performance edge – "The bait, mostly, and the rod I was using were well set up for what I was doing. I felt like the rod had a little bit slower action, that let them get the bait better."
Tommy Biffle caught most of his fish on grasslines, but also pulled a few from the reeds.
4th: Tommy Biffle
> Day 1: 5, 15-14
> Day 2: 5, 17-00
> Day 3: 5, 16-09
> Day 4: 5, 19-04
> Total = 20, 68-11
Tommy Biffle went south on 3 of the 4 tournament days, electing to fish closer on the third day – a decision he later regretted.
The first 2 days he fished a Spro BronzEye frog over the grass mats for most of his weight, mixing in a few flipping fish he caught on a jig from isolated clumps along the weakly-defined outside grassline.
The third day when, the wind was at its worst, he favored his bad back and went north.
"I caught them flipping, on the edges of grass and clumps," he said. "And I was flipping reeds some. The reeds were real shallow against the bank, and there wasn't much of it.
"Most of my weight in the tournament came from the grass, and some from reeds. All 16-08 on day 3 were shallow flipping fish."
He noted that the fish he found in practice pretty much stayed where they were all week.
> Frog gear: 7'6" extra-heavy Quantum Tommy Biffle signature series flipping stick, Quantum PT Tour Edition casting reel (7:1 ratio), 65-pound SpiderWire braided line, Spro BronzEye frog (unnamed size and color).
> Flipping gear: Same rod, reel, and line as frog, 5/16-ounce Tru-Tungsten weight with Tru-Tungsten Smart Peg, 4/0 Reaction Innovations BMF hook, Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver (California 420 or black neon).
> Alternate Flipping gear: 7'6" Quantum frog rod, same reel, same line, 1/2-ounce Lunker Lure Rattleback jig, Gene Larew Biffle Craw trailer (black/blue).
Main factor in his success – "Just having my daughter, who just graduated from college, here fishing with me in practice. We had fun, and it was relaxing. We got on the frog bite mainly because I wanted her to catch fish. It was so easy in practice that she'd throw back if either of us missed one, and catch it."
Performance edge – "It was my signature series rod and the SpiderWire braid and the fast reel. The rod is so stiff that I could pull in a 3- to 4-pound bass and 30 pounds of grass with that setup."
All of Cliff Pace's fish came from extremely shallow water.
5th: Cliff Pace
> Day 1: 5, 15-00
> Day 2: 5, 16-00
> Day 3: 5, 18-00
> Day 4: 5, 18-02
> Total = 20, 67-02
Cliff Pace recorded oddly even weights until the last day, when 2 ounces crept in there somehow. He noted that he caught fish several ways in practice, but they all had one thing in common: "dirt shallow" water.
"I fished extremely shallow water, less than 2 feet deep," he said. "It was along the shoreline, in areas that were on the back side of big mats of vegetation. It was so shallow that most guys didn't fish there and I had it all to myself. I could fish new water each day that hadn't been disturbed.
"That let me look for new places every day and enabled me to do better each day. I was fishing over milfoil mostly, but it was better where other grass like eelgrass or reeds were mixed in."
His bait choices were determined by the texture of the surface.
"When it was rougher I'd throw a Zara Spook for more noise, but when it got calm I threw a Lucky Craft Gunfish. I mixed in a couple of frogs too, and changed out between them for the same reason. The V&M Bayou Bullfrog and Zoom Horny Toad were for rougher water and the Stanley Ribbit was for calm water.
"I caught a few on a V&M tube flipping the grass too," he added. "I just fished what the conditions allowed me."
Like the others in the Top 5, he made the run south.
> Topwater gear: 7' medium-heavy Castaway XP3 7' rod, Shimano Curado casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 15-pound clear Berkley Trilene Big Game monofilament line, Lucky Craft Gunfish (shell white) or Heddon Zara Spook (custom-painted shimmer blue by Buckeye Lures).
> Frog gear: 7'3" extra-heavy Castaway XP3 Grassmaster Braid rod, same reel, 65-pound Spiderwire Stealth braided line, V&M Frog Hook (shank-weighted with screw-on nose anchor), Zoom Horny Toad, Stanley Ribbit, or V&M Bayou Bullfrog (all white).
> Tube gear: Same rod, reel and line as toads, 3/8-ounce Tru-Tungsten weight (black), 5/0 Gamakatsu Superline EWG hook, V&M tube (green pumpkin).
Main factor in his success – "The conditions and the lake suited me. The wind not blowing allowed me to go south, and since I didn't put anything together on the north end, that was key."
Performance edge – "My Skeeter boat. I've been running the Skeeter for years and I'm comfortable with it to make the long run and not worry. I think getting to run our own boats every day next year will improve safety, since we're used to how our own boats handle."
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