The recent Toho Bassmaster Elite Series offered the worst fishing of the tour's 11-event regular season. Several pros blanked at least 1 day, and it took only about 12 pounds to make the day-2 Top 50 cut.
Add daytime temperatures in the mid-90s to the mix, and conditions were nothing short of miserable.
Which is why Ben Matsubu astonished the field – and everyone in attendance – when he slapped a 25-pound limit on the scales.
With that day-4 super-sack, he blew away the competition by more than 14 pounds to earn his first tour-level victory.
Here's how he did it.
Practice
Matsubu tasted victory in Florida 10 months prior, when he won the Elite Series Wildcard Qualifier at the Harris Chain last November. But his Toho experience was limited to the post-spawn period.
As practice began, he decided to concentrate his efforts on Toho, rather than other connected lakes in the Kissimmee Chain.
The first day of practice, he caught 14 pounds near the launch on a light Carolina-rig. But he reasoned that it was still summertime, was still hot, and the fish would likely be in the open-water, main-lake grass.
He searched a massive main-lake grass area and found four spots where the submerged grass extended about 30 yards out to form a point. Two of them he found with his Humminbird Side Imaging unit, which he recently purchased at Bass Pro Shops. The other two he found with his Lowrance unit.
He noted: "With Side Imaging, you can find the position of grass and so much cool stuff – I pretty much owe (winning) to that."
Of note is that he found the eventual winning spot in the last 25 minutes of practice, but at the time, it didn't seem like anything special.
"I didn't think the spot was that good, so I gave it to Tak," he said, in reference to Takahiro Omori, who needed several good fish to make the Bassmaster Classic.
Matsubu also had a few mats where he could get bites on a Lucky Craft RC 1.5 crankbait, as well as flipping.
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 16-01
> Day 2: 5, 07-10
> Day 3: 5, 17-08
> Day 4: 5, 25-05
> Total = 20, 66-08
Matsubu caught his first good fish from a grass point with the crankbait. He caught a 4-pounder, then a 3 and a 2 1/2 from a different grass point.
After that, he went and flipped, caught a 4 and a 3, but ran out of fish and went to check on Omori. As he talked with Omori, he caught a 2 1/2-pounder on a worm, and that was the end of his day.
On day 2, he started on the spot Omori was fishing and got waxed by his co-angler Mary Delgado. She caught 14-07 on an RC 1.5 he gave her, while he mustered just 7-10.
On day 3, he shared the spot with Omori again. He had a big day with 17-10, which moved him up to 2nd, while Omori struggled and caught just 3-06.
"(Omori) was throwing too heavy of a weight on his Carolina-rig," Matsubu said. "They wanted something light."
But Matsubu didn't know that right away. His partner Harry Potts, who'd caught 20-plus pounds the day before, was throwing a Carolina-rig and catching them. That's what clued Matsubu into making a switch.
On the final day, Matsubu threw the RC 1.5 for the first hour, then went to the Carolina-rig. He rotated through seven clumps of grass and his four grass points.
Matsubu said fishing slowly with a light Carolina-rig was a huge key to winning.
"I went to one of the furthest ones that I'd caught 14 pounds off and right away caught a 5," he said. "I went about 10 more yards and caught a 5 1/2, then went 10 more feet and caught a 1-pounder. Then I went back to where I caught the first 5-pounder and caught another 2-pounder."
He then went 2 hours without another bite.
"I went to the other far end of the grass patch," he noted. "When I popped (my bait) off the grass a big one just hit it."
That fished weighed 8-13. Game over.
Winning Pattern Notes
About his winning area, Matsubu said: "It was pretty much dead-out in the middle of the lake (Toho). There was a mat of grass in the middle of the lake that was probably 300 yards wide, and about a mile and a half long. It was a huge, huge mat.
"But the fish were sitting on the (grass) points. A lot of the other guys bypassed them – they didn't realize what was out there. But with Humminbird Side Imaging, I could see the points underwater."
He caught most of his fish in 6 1/2 to 7 feet of water, but the big key, he added, was that his best spots were on a 6-inch drop to deeper water, adjacent to a grass point. The bottom was primarily a shell-bed.
Winning Gear Notes
> Crankbait gear: 7'5" medium-action Powell cranking rod, Shimano Curado Super-Free casting reel, 14-pound Gary Yamamoto Sugoi fluorocarbon line, Lucky Craft RC 1.5 square-bill crankbait (green-perch and chartreuse/shad).
> Carolina-rig gear: 7' medium-heavy Powell rod, Shimano Curado casting reel, 16-pound Sugoi, 4/0 Roboworm ReBarb hook, 1/4-ounce Kanji X-Metal tungsten weight, "generic" junebug worm.
> He said he bought the worm several years ago at a Toho-area tackle shop. "I paid $3.50 for 50 of them 3 years ago. It's a knock-off of a trick worm, but it doesn't float."
The Bottom Line
> Main factor in his success – "Running out of those flipping fish (on day 1). I felt they were pretty good size, but when (they ran out), I decided to go back out to the (winning area) where I knew I could get bit. Also fishing slow. They wanted it slow . Those fish wouldn't touch a Carolina-rig unless it was just barely moving."
> Performance edge – "That light Carolina rig."
Notable
> The win moved Matsubu up 17 spots in the BASS Angler of the Year race and he finished 57th. He qualified for this year's Elite Series through the Wildcard Qualifier last year, but isn't yet positive he'll fish the 2008 Elite Series. "I've got until Oct. 22 to decide, so right now, I'm just going to take it easy for a couple of weeks and see," he noted. "I'm still employed by Gary Yamamoto, so it's really up to Gary."
> He was born in Oregon, but now makes his home in Hemphill, Texas, where a Gary Yamamoto Pro Shop is located.
> Along with Top 12 finishers Aaron Martens and Bradley Hallman, he also had a lot of local traffic in his area the final day. "They gave me the space I needed," he noted.
