Dave Lefebre will be as much of a local as anybody competing in the Forrest Wood Cup at the Three Rivers in Pittsburgh this week, but it's not like he's been waiting for this event with baited breath ever since the location was announced.

He felt he really couldn't afford to get all jacked up in anticipation of it before he'd qualified to fish, and that didn't happen until the final regular-season FLW Tour event at Champlain a couple of weeks ago. Only then could the Union City, Pa. resident finally exhale.



He narrowly missed out on early qualification via both the 2008 Northern Strens and the Eastern FLW Series. But he put together an extremely solid Tour campaign – especially the second half, as he finished no lower than 28th in the last three events. He ended up 7th in the Angler of the Year (AOY) race, his second-best showing in 7 seasons on the circuit and a darn sight better than the 120th he posted last year.

"Right now it's more like a big 'whew' than anything," he said. "I feel blessed to be there. I wasn't getting excited all year because I didn't want to set myself up for a big disappointment when I didn't know if I was going to make it.

"Pre-fishing, talking to people – I never got into that. I'm treating it like any other tournament, and the only difference is this one is so close to home. The closest we've ever been was 5 hours away, and this one is 2 hours. In a way, that's unbelievable."

It's Been Awhile

Lefebre planned to go into the official 4-day practice session, which began Saturday, with a completely blank slate. He's extremely familiar with the layout of the fishery, but he hadn't actually cast a line into its waters in a decade.

"It doesn't seem like that long, but I was figuring it up the other day and that's what it's been," he said. "The river changes from year to year anyway and the area I always used to fish (a couple of locks up the Monongahela) has been put off-limits for some reason. Under normal circumstances, I'd have been up the Mon for sure.

"If I have any advantage, it's in understanding those fish from fishing for them back in the club days. I know what I'm looking for, but with my old holes being mostly off-limits, the other stuff that I do know is probably different by now – there've been so many floods and things that change everything around. I'll cover all the legal water in my 4 days and just start over."

He never went to the Three Rivers to fun-fish – there were more productive locales close to home. But he went down there for tournaments at least a few times a year, and sometimes as many as half a dozen.

"I did fairly well. I can't remember the exact stats, but I've won tournaments there and led state tournaments that I ended up not winning.

"My biggest fear was getting eaten by the 'lock monster' – we were always getting held up by the barges. There were several tournaments that either me or friends of mine would've won if we would've gotten back to the weigh-in on time. But we'd get back to the launch and everybody would be packing up to leave.

"That's something you have to deal with because the barges get priority," he continued. "We probably got locked out more times than we actually weighed in. They've set up some lock times for us, but I won't believe it until I see it."

Better than '05

Lefebre predicts that weights for the Cup will be higher than those compiled at the 2005 Bassmaster Classic, which Kevin VanDam won with an average of just over 4 pounds a day. He throws one disclaimer in there, though, due to the recent rains that have pounded the area.

"Under normal circumstances, I'd say for sure it won't be as bad as '05, but the rain could change everything," he said. "There should be several limits and I wouldn't be totally surprised to see a 10-pound bag.

"I'm thinking it'll take between 8 1/2 and 10 pounds (over 2 days) to make the Top 10, and to win it, at least 7 pounds a day. The big fish are wildcards and all you need is one of those bites. A 2 1/2-pounder is huge and I'm pretty sure we'll see something over 3 pounds."

He said the fishing on the Three Rivers is up and down from year to year, and '05 was an exceptionally poor year. This year has been no great shakes, but it's been better than some.

"The one other thing is I think our field might be a little bit stronger based on the type of fishermen in the tournament than that Classic field was. There are more guys in our tournament who are used to fishing for 12-inch bass.

"When you combine those two reasons, I think this tournament will be a little more exciting than that one was."

Notable

> It'll be a thrill for Lefebre to have his parents and his maternal grandparents, Wayne and Dorothy Altimus, in the crowd. "My grandparents are in their 80s, and they were real instrumental in me being where I'm at. They've never been able to come to one of these before. It'll be fun to look down and see them while I'm holding up a couple of little tiny fish."

> His bad Tour season last year dropped him all the way to 145th in the BassFan World Rankings, but he's worked his way back up to No. 66.