Magical Ledge Carried Lane To First Tour-Level Triumph

How does a self-described bank-beater from Florida win a ledge-fishing tournament over some of the best deep-water bass anglers in the world? He just has to be in the right place at the right time.

While most of the field bounced from one ledge to the next, Bobby Lane exploited a single mussel bar to take the top prize at the Kentucky Lake Bassmaster Elite Series. It surrendered enormous early-morning sacks over the first 3 days and gave him enough weight on a difficult day 4 to claim his first tour-level victory by a comfortable margin.

He took the lead on day 1 with a sack that was just 2 ounces shy of 30 pounds, and he never relinquished it. He carried an advantage of nearly 9 pounds into the final day, and his 97-09 total bested runner-up Kevin Van Dam by 5 1/2 pounds.

Here's how he did it.

Practice

To say that Lane stumbled into his hot spot isn't much of an exaggeration. He discovered it on the final practice day.

"On the first (practice) day I pulled up on a deal and caught two 5-pounders on back-to-back casts, so I left and ran around some more, but I didn't find anything else," he said. "On the second day I went south, way past that first place, and found two spots that had decent fish. I caught a couple of 4-pounders and I was starting to feel a little better.

"On the third day I started on the spot I'd found the first day, thinking I'd just fish it for 10 minutes to make sure they were still there. I stayed for an hour and didn't catch a keeper."

He turned south again and found a nice-looking ledge with some hydrilla and caught a couple of keepers. Just up from there the river channel made a couple of swings, and he noticed some quality fish feeding on a school of shad.

"I made two casts and caught a (5-pounder) and a 4. That turned out to be the place.

"I threw a crankbait around in there and the (mussel) shells felt real good. I knew that crankbaits are the deal at this time of year, and that you can usually catch some on big worms off ledges."

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 29-14
> Day 2: 5, 24-09
> Day 3: 5, 26-03
> Day 4: 5, 16-15
> Total = 20, 97-09

Twelve casts were all Lane needed on day 1 to put nearly 30 pounds in the boat. His bag included one fish that was nearly 8 pounds and one that was almost 7.

He ran around a bit after that, checking some of the stuff he'd found in practice and looking for new possibilities. He hooked a few decent keepers, but found nothing to rival his main area. When the initial weigh-in had concluded, he had a 1-03 lead over VanDam.

He caught a 6-pounder and a 5 early on day 2, but then his crankbait action halted. He switched to a Berkley PowerBait Saltwater Mullet swimbait and was right back in business.

"I'd seen the size of the (shad) those fish where schooling on and they were huge – like 6 to 10 inches. I had that swimbait tied on and figured I might as well try to match the hatch.

"Normally when you do something like that you don't catch anything, but on my first cast I got a 7-pounder. Then I threw it out again and lost a 7-pounder. After that, my next three casts were all in the 5-pound range."

He went into day 3 with a 4-pound lead and it was more of the same. He had his 26 pounds in less than an hour, and then just sat on the spot the rest of the day. His bag boosted his advantage to 8 3/4 pounds.

Trouble finally arrived on day 4. It started with a fog delay that held the field at the launch for more than 2 hours. When he arrived at his spot, bringing 60 or 70 spectator boats with him to join the 50 or so that were already there, he discovered that the Tennessee Valley Authority was pulling no current and there was no wind.

He made 10 or 15 casts with the swimbait, to no avail. He switched to the crankbait and caught a couple of short fish, and then went to a Berkley PowerWorm and boated a couple more dinks.

He finally caught a small keeper, and then another about 20 minutes later. He went another half-hour without a bite, and then caught two more ordinary keepers.

He left the spot and caught two more keepers from other ledges, finishing his limit and culling once. He then went back to the honey hole and got no bites in about 20 minutes.

He left again, only to return one last time when the wind picked up a little shortly after 2:00.

"I knew I had to go back once more because I knew there wouldn't be a lot of boats around and there wouldn't be much traffic, and that'd be the time to catch one. At 2:30 I hung a 5-09 on a crankbait that had one hook in its nose."

He said goodbye to the spot 15 minutes later in order to visit a ledge near the launch prior to the 3:30 check-in. That place produced a 3-pounder that replaced a 2.

He was feeling a lot better than he had been 2 hours earlier, but couldn't shake the idea that the win might've slipped away.

"Everything was going through my head. It wasn't until everybody else had weighed in and I found out I only needed 12 pounds that I knew I had won."

Winning Pattern Notes

> The top of Lane's ledge was about 7 feet under the surface and he positioned his boat in about 15 feet of water. "The longer the casts that I made, the better," he said. "I tried to stay off the school as far as I could."

> He had three waypoints marked on the ledge within a 20-yard stretch, and the middle one produced the biggest fish. He discovered that when he caught the 8-pounder on day 1.

Winning Gear Notes

> Crankbait gear: 7'4" medium-heavy All Star rod, Abu Garcia Revo Winch casting reel (5.4:1 ratio), 12-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon line, Norman DD22 (splatter bass) or Bomber Fat Free Shad (citruse).

> Swimbait gear: 7'9" heavy-action Fenwick rod, Abu Garcia Revo SX casting reel, 17-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, Berkley PowerBait Saltwater Mullet (dorado or watermelon pearl).

> Worm gear: 7'1" heavy-action All Star rod, Abu Garcia Revo SX reel, 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 3/4-ounce Tru-Tungsten weight, 5/0 Owner worm hook, 10" Berkley PowerWorm (plum).

> He also caught one keeper with the PowerWorm on a Carolina rig.

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – "Finding the place where the river channel made a swing over that mussel bar. The way it was shaped, it had current coming over the top of that bar, and that's what held those fish there and kept them coming."

> Performance edge – "Definitely everything came into play, but my Humminbird (depthfinder) and the Navionics chip made it simple to find the kind of areas I needed without doing a lot of homework. You can eliminate a lot of water with that setup."

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