Lane Relied On Current, Series Of Deep Ledges

Russ Lane's tournament experience on Lake Jordan is so extensive that a lot of people would've been surprised if he hadn't won the first leg of Toyota Trucks Championship Week. But as anyone who's followed pro bass fishing for very long is well aware, coming through when saddled with the "hometown favorite" tag can be one of the most difficult tasks in the game.

Lane bagged 32-03 over the weekend to win the opening portion of the Bassmaster Elite Series post-season. He went into the event in a four-way tie for 9th place in the adjusted Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year (AOY) standings, but now sits in 2nd – just 5 points behind leader Skeet Reese. The battle will conclude this weekend on the Alabama River, another fishery with which he's intimately familiar.

His 17-pound sack was the best of day 1, and he followed that up with a little more than 15 pounds on a wild day 2 that saw him lose a rod-and-reel combo to a 4 1/2-pound spotted bass that had come to the surface meekly, but turned real nasty once it realized that it was about to leave the water and feel the hot, humid Alabama air.

His total bested runner-up Aaron Martens by 3 ounces after Martens incurred 2 pounds worth of dead-fish penalties for the event and made the agonizing decision to throw back several other quality fish that were struggling in his livewell on day 2.

Here's how he did it.

Practice

Despite his vast knowledge of Jordan, the 2 official practice days turned out to be very important for Lane.

"It was good that I did practice hard," he said, "because I fished a lot of places that I thought I'd definitely catch them on and they really weren't on them very well at all. I ended up finding them on three places that I never knew about, and one of those wound up being my best place for the tournament."

He focused on ledges along the main river channel that featured subtle drops and gravel and/or rock on the edges. Fifteen to 18 feet was the magic depth and he could catch them on a deep-running crankbait, a big worm and a football jig.

He ended up pinning down five locales that fit the bill.

"They were all within 2 miles of each other, so it was a pretty good setup. Kevin (VanDam) was in that area too and a couple of the places he was fishing I'd found, but he stayed on those places."

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 17-00
> Day 2: 5, 15-03
> Total = 10, 32-03

The current-generation schedule played a big role in Lane's gameplan for each of the tournament days. Alabama Power was slated to pull water starting at 11:00 each day, and the utility company stuck to that timetable.

He knew he could catch numbers of spots once the water started moving, so he spent the morning hours on a hunt for big largemouths. He boxed a green one that went 4-12 during the first hour on day 1, then went through 22 fish between 11:00 and 3:00 to work his way up to his day-best stringer.

He started day 2 in the same place where he'd caught the big one the previous morning, but had little confidence that he'd meet with the same success. He was right, so he relocated to the face of the Mitchell dam and started cranking parallel to the wall.

He got hung up on a log and had to jerk and pull for a while in order to free his bait. Once it came loose, a quality fish grabbed it, but that was the one that ended up pulling his American Rodsmiths/Abu Garcia Revo outfit into the lake when it saw what was above the surface.

He didn't have a single fish in the well when he moved to his limit places at 10:30. He caught two keepers right off the bat and had almost all of his weight within an hour, with the final fish being the biggest (4-02).

He knew he'd had a decent day, but he wasn't sure if he'd done enough to hang on for the victory.

"I thought it was going to be close," he said. "I knew that out of Greg (Hackney), Aaron, (Gary) Klein and Kevin, somebody was going to smash them.

"It turned out to be Aaron and I feel bad about what happened to him, but I had a little bit of bad luck, too."

Gear Notes

> Cranking gear: 7' medium-action American Rodsmiths David Fritts Signature Series cranking rod, Abu Garcia Revo Winch casting reel (5.4:1 ratio), 12-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line, Spro Little John DD, Bill Norman DD22 or XCalibur Fat Free Shad (natural shad colors).

> Worm gear: 7' medium-heavy American Rodsmiths Team Series rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier casting reel (7:1 ratio), 17-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, 3/8-ounce unnamed lead weight, 5/0 Gamakatsu straight-shank hook, 10" Big Bite Baits Kriet Tail Worm (plum/apple).

> Jig gear: Same rod, reel and line as worm, 1/2-ounce Buckeye Lures football jig (green-pumpkin), Big Bite Baits Twin Tail Grub trailer (tilapia).

The Bottom Line

Main factor in his success – "I'd say the current generation being right on schedule. Knowing they were going to turn it on every day at 11:00 gave me the confidence to fish for big fish in the mornings, then I knew I had that 4-hour window to finish off my limit in the current."

Performance edge – "My Bass Cat Jaguar with the Yamaha SHO (engine). I was running up and down that lake to get to the places I needed to be and I never had a problem."

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