(Editor's note: In observance of the Labor Day holiday, a new First Cast story will not appear until Tuesday, Sept. 8.)

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor


With fall fast approaching, having 3 straight days of mild weather and winds to be able to fish the western basin of Lake Erie had to be considered a win for the 99 competitors at last week’s Northern Rayovac Series season finale.

While the winds did switch around during the event, they were tame enough for anglers to make long runs from Sandusky, Ohio, to, in some cases, water on the north side of Pelee Island. With so much water to cover, it stood to reason that anglers with a wealth of experience on the Great Lake bubbled to the top of the standings when it was over.

With an algae bloom in full effect across much of the western end of the lake, finding clean water was important, but it seemed that knowing which areas tend to hold concentrations of smallmouth this time of year was paramount, especially with how the water temperatures were falling. Knowing isolated humps or even specific boulders that created slight contour changes were crucial to the top finishers.

Here’s a recap of how runner-up Jared Rhode and 3rd-place finisher Dave Lefebre, who were separated by 1 ounce after 3 days, caught their fish.

2nd: Jared Rhode

> Day 1: 5, 23-10
> Day 2: 5, 19-15
> Day 3: 5, 21-00
> Total = 15, 64-09

The last thing Jared Rhode wanted to do last Sunday was head back out on Lake Erie to go fishing. He’d just spent a solid week chasing smallmouth in the Northern Rayovac Series and he was ready for a day off the water.

But when you help your father operate a charter service, as Rhode does, there are no off days when the weather’s decent. Rhode said he was actually thankful his clients were after yellow perch and not the brown creatures he’d been pursuing.

He was a little bitter at the Erie smallmouth after coming up 7 ounces short of winning in his backyard – he hails from Port Clinton, Ohio – but the runner-up finish stands as his second such result in a Rayovac Series on the western end of Erie (he was 2nd in 2011 at the Detroit River).

“I never expect to win, but I always give it my all,” he said. “Being a local, I expect to do well because I’m very familiar with the ins and outs of the lake.”

Rhode, who teaches 7th grade science and also coaches 8th-grade football and varsity basketball in the Port Clinton School District, practiced the weekend before event and found the bite to be “extremely tough.”

He had to be at school the Monday and Tuesday before the tournament and was considering not competing, but friend and Lake Erie stalwart Steve Clapper convinced him to not withdraw.

“He told me I needed to fish,” Rhode said. “He convinced me. He said, ‘With as much as you fish and the stuff you have, you’d be silly not to.’”

He said his hesitation stemmed from a lack of practice time and the slow bite.

“As slow as the fishing has been, I thought of waiting for the (Northern) Open, but the payouts are better in the Rayovac,” he said. “It turned out to be a good decision.”

Rhode said he prefers to dissect deep structure, but his best areas on days 1 and 2 were shallow.

“I have areas that at certain water temps and times of the year that I fish,” he said. “I attribute the shallow bite to the algae bloom. When the algae comes on strong and the water heats up, I love to catch fish deep, but the out-of-town guys seem to catch them shallow.

“It seems backwards, but it’s absolutely the case. In that 6- to 7-foot range, a lot of fish were caught there in this tournament.”

Rhode had finished 5th in a BFL on the Detroit River on Aug. 15 with almost 21 pounds and he said he had an area that he figured held 19 to 20 pounds.

“The fish had been there for a while,” he said. “I checked that in practice and they were still there. I didn’t stay there long. I looked deep and would catch one or two fish. There were no big concentrations of fish deep, but I could catch big singles.”

His deep spot kicked out a 3 1/2- and a 3-pounder early on day 1, before he bailed and ran to another spot that proved fruitless.

“At that point, I thought I better make sure to catch 19 or 20 pounds,” he said. “If you catch 16 on day 1, you can still make the Top 10, but you’re not going to win.”

He then moved to his primary area and things started happening in a hurry.

“The fishing was fantastic,” he said. “The fish were bigger than expected. I got there at 9 or 9:30 and caught them every single cast for 2 hours.”

At the end of the flurry, he began to think ahead to the next 2 days. He figured he had 21 pounds and his smallest was just under 4 pounds. He was also concerned about vacating the spot and having an Elite Series competitor move in on it (he said there were five or six Elite Series pros in his vicinity).

“I fished off to the side of it and tried to expand on it to see if the school was bigger,” he said.

He eventually had to leave, but stopped first at a spot where he’d won a team tournament last year. He caught a 5-08 and was able to cull the 3-14.

“I decided to head in then because I knew I had a big stringer,” he said. “The first day worked out very well.”

He coached a football game Thursday night, then got back into fishing mode Friday morning. He went straight to his primary spot on day 2 and had it to himself and put 25 fish in the boat in 2 hours.

“We got there and they were biting,” he said. “We caught a lot of non-keepers up to 3-pounders, but we did catch some nice ones, though. We probably caught 100 fish off that spot in 2 days.”

When the bite slowed down, he went to his big-fish spot, but came up empty. He made another move to a spot he frequently fishes – “It’s my bread and butter,” Rhode said,” – and he was able to cull three more times.

“That move turned out to be a good move because it helped me for Saturday,” he said. “Those fish at the end of the day were deeper in 25 to 26 feet.”

Rhode caught 19-15 to pull into a tie for the lead after day 2 with Dave Lefebre.

He’d yet to tap into an area that he practiced on that was a known community hole. There’d been several boats on it earlier in the tournament – he could see it from his primary spot – but he was banking on nobody being on his primary area Saturday so decided to start on the area he’d practiced on.

“By 9, I didn’t have any fish, but I wasn’t super concerned because I knew I’d catch them at my main area,” he said. “My main concern was size. It had tapered off on day 2. My co-angler caught a couple 3 1/2s and I caught 15 fish there, but it was much slower. I think the fish were wise to the game and were pretty picked over.”

By 11, he decided to pull the chute on his best spot and move to the area he finished day 2 on.

“I was watching my graph and saw a spike on the screen,” he said. “It was just a small peak, but something I’d never seen in hundreds of hours of being out there.”

He got on a school of fish bigger than the one he found on day 1.

“On my first cast I caught one,” he said. “On my second cast, I lost a 5-pounder. It jumped three times and just pulled off. It didn’t break off. If you fish 3 days on Erie and only lose one fish, you’re doing okay.”

He said he never moved his boat until the end of the day – the fishing was that good.

“We caught ‘em and caught ‘em and caught ‘em,” Rhode added. “I probably caught 20 in 25 casts. It was harder to make a cast and not catch one. It was pretty awesome.”

He said the rise came up to 26 1/2 feet from 30 and the fish were just stacked on the break and on top.

“My only regret would be that on day 3, I should’ve gone to my primary area rather than going deep trying for a big one,” he added.

> Dropshot gear: 6’10” mag-medium G. Loomis 822 spinning rod, Shimano Stradic 2500 spinning reel, 8-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, size 10 SPRO Ball Bearing Swivel, 6-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line (leader), size 1 Gamakatsu splitshot/dropshot hook, 4” Jackall Crosstail Shad (green-pumpkin), 3” Berkley GULP! Minnow (smelt), 3.8” Keitech Swing Impact FAT (pro blue red pearl), 1/2-oz. unnamed tear drop weight.

> He prefers to use straight fluorocarbon on his dropshot rigs because with braid he feels like he pulls the bait away from the fish too quickly.

> When fishing shallow (16 feet), Rhode stuck with darker baits like the Cross Tail Shad. On day 3, when fishing a deeper hump, one of his fish spit up a 4-inch shad so he switched to a Keitech swimbait.

> Tube gear: 7’ medium-action G. Loomis GLX spinning rod, same reel, 10-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, 1/2-oz. Bite-Me Tackle Big Dude jig head, 4” ISG Dream Tube Great Lake Series (goby).

> Main factor in his success – “My ability to use my electronics and my history on the lake and to adapt as things changed. I made a good decision on day 2 to go look around and on the third day that benefitted me. It would’ve been rough had I not done that.”

> Performance edge – “My Lowrance electronics were important, but I run a Ranger 620 and up here, if you smallmouth fish on the big water like me, there is no other boat to run than that. With my Yamaha 250, it has so much power and torque.”



FLW
Photo: FLW

Dave Lefebre caught all of his fish off one boulder in the middle of a flat in Canadian waters.

3rd: Dave Lefebre

> Day 1: 5, 21-06
> Day 2: 5, 22-03
> Day 3: 5, 20-15
> Total = 15, 64-08

Lefebre thought for sure he’d caught enough over three days on a lake he knows so well to keep everyone else at bay and go home with a win. As he knows all too well, Erie is one of those places where a 21-plus pound average sometimes isn’t enough.

“It was way too close,” he said. “It was the first time ever that I felt confident that I’d won. The last three guys small-eyed their fish so bad and I big-eyed mine by a pound.”

Lefebre came straight from the Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Ouachita so he didn’t have an extended practice period. He will be back later this month to compete in the Northern Open as he’s currently the points leader in the division with one event left.

“I had a tough practice,” he said. “The stuff I tried to catch them on didn’t work, but it probably will in the Open. Every fish I weighed was off the same cast off a single boulder.”

He said he’d fished the flat several years ago and decided to stop on the area to check it.

“I caught a 3 1/2 on my first drop and marked a few more,” he said. “I didn’t know what all was there. I just left and never made another drop there.”

He said he’d already found the spot he wanted to start on and the boulder was on the way there.

“I decided to check it on day 1 and caught 21 1/2 pounds on five casts,” he said. “For the rest of the day, I couldn’t cull. I needed a 4 1/4 to help me at all.”

Rather than burn through fish that could help him Friday, he opted to check in an hour early with a 21-06 stringer. Three of his weigh-in fish came on a Rapala DT-10 crankbait while the other two were caught dropshotting a Gary Yamamato Shad-Shaped Worm.

He needed seven casts Friday morning to put 22 pounds of smallmouth in his boat, all on the dropshot. He said a 6-pounder came off at the boat that would’ve given him a mega bag.

“I had a long day and fished all of my stuff,” he said, “but I felt like I was burning too many 3 1/2- and 4-pounders. I must’ve caught 50 fish that size over the first 2 days and couldn’t cull. I could catch 18 (pounds) in my sleep over and over again.”

His 22-03 stringer moved him into a tie with Rhode entering the final day. The area he focused on was a big flat that he had roughly 75 waypoints on, mostly specific boulders, he said.

“The weird part about it was I checked my best one from before and I was excited to fish more of them, but it was just coincidence that I checked that one that day in practice,” he said. “I couldn’t get bit on the other waypoints on the last day of practice. It was hard.”

Lefebre said his being followed by an angler who told Lefebre he’s planning to compete in the upcoming Northern Open hampered the start of the final day. Lefebre noticed the man trailing him and stopped on the way to his key area. When Lefebre cranked up to run farther, so did the other boat. Lefebre said he eventually circled back to ask the man twice not to follow him.

“I lost about an hour doing that,” he said. “It was frustrating. I didn’t have any good spots in my route out there so I literally pulled up on something I saw on my screen and was praying I’d start catching them so he’d think that was it and then leave.”

He eventually got to his magic boulder, caught a 4 1/2-pounder and then the bite turned off. He stuck with the dropshot for the final day.

“I thought about leaving,” he said. “Then I caught a 4 and three other big ones. I had a couple 2 1/2s, but couldn’t get any more big bites.”

He moved off the area and checked other spots on the flat before coming back to the boulder, which kicked out another 4 1/2. He continued to leave and come back and at 1 p.m., he caught another 4-pounder.

He said when the sun was high and winds were calm, he could see the top of the boulder he was throwing at.

“They were on the front edge of it,” he said. “I was getting (the bait) on top and then pulling it off. They were right there in front of it.”

> Dropshot gear: 7’3” medium-action 13 Fishing Omen Black 2 spinning rod, unnamed spinning reel, 8-pound Sufix Nanobraid (main line), 6-pound Sufix Castable Invisiline 100% fluorocarbon line (leader), Size 4 VMC Sureset dropshot hook, Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits Shad-Shaped Worm (cinnamon), 1/4- and 3/8-oz. VMC tungsten cylinder dropshot weight.

> Lefebre on why he opted for a size 4 hook: “It was all about minimizing the hardware. They were there, but it was so hard to get them to go.”

> He also had a 7’1” medium-action Omen Black 2 rod rigged up with 15-pound Nanobraid main line connected to a 10-pound Invisiline leader with a 1/0 VMC Sureset dropshot hook.

> Spinnerbait gear: 7’3” medium-heavy 13 Fishing Omen Black 2 casting rod, 13 Fishing Concept A casting reel (7.3:1 gear ratio), 17-pound Sufix Castable Invisiline 100% fluorocarbon line, 1/4- and 1/2-oz. Terminator spinnerbait (chartreuse), 2/0 Gamakatsu trailer hook.

> Crankbait gear: 7’1” moderate-action 13 Fishing Omen Black 2 casting rod, same reel, 10-pound Sufix Castable Invisiline 100% fluorocarbon line, Rapala DT-10 (rasta, Caribbean shad, Helsinki shad).

> He said the brighter chartreuse hues were more productive earlier in the day, but the shad patterns got better later in the day.

> Main factor in his success – “I came straight from the (Forrest Wood) Cup and had 2 1/2 days of practice. It was super rough and most guys were sleeping in or fishing for largemouth. I spent 3 days out in the huge waves and eliminated water. I didn’t have thoughts in my head of going anywhere else. I eliminated everything except for that area.”

> Performance edge – “I had the Power-Pro Paddles on my boat. I was skeptical about them, but there are times when you have to drift. The paddles just blew my mind. In my practice, it was rough and windy and when we put them down the first time, it didn’t take me 10 minutes screwing around to see how I could use them. We went from 1.3 mph drift to 0.4 after putting them down. It was crazy. I could turn the boat and I didn’t have to go up in weight on my dropshot.”

Notable

Here’s how the Northern Division standings finished up after three events. The Top 10 earn invitations to fish the 2016 FLW Tour:

1. Cory Johnston -- Cavan, On -- 719 points
2. Dave Lefebre -- Erie, Pa -- 705
3. Glenn Browne -- Ocala, Fl -- 693
4. Ryan Smith -- Galloway, Nj -- 692
5. Jim Dillard -- West Monroe, La -- 687
6. Troy Morrow -- Eastanollee, Ga -- 683
7. Jeffrey Ware -- Warrenton, Va -- 678
8. Gerald Spohrer -- Gonzales, La -- 669
9. Daryl Biron -- South Windsor, Ct -- 668
10. Kurt Mitchell -- Milford, De -- 647

Much of the tackle referenced above is available at the BassFan Store. To browse the selection, click here.