By BassFan Staff

Matt Herren left the dock this morning hoping he could figure out how to trigger some bites in the morning. Through the first 2 days at Ray Roberts Lake, the first part of the day had not gone as he had hoped. He knew if he stumbled again right away today, his shot at winning the Toyota Texas Bass Classic would evaporate.

He made it a morning to remember by collecting six bites before 10 a.m., including a 5-08 kicker, and finished the day with 17-04 to close out the victory with a 51-12 total for 3 days.

He focused on shallow-water targets for the majority of the event, but made key adjustments each day as the water receded from the shoreline bushes. It’s the Alabama native’s first win since 2007 when he won an Eastern FLW Series tournament at Lake Dardanelle.

“It’s incredible,” he said immediately after he clinched the victory, which paid $100,000 on top of a fully-rigged boat. “There’s a lot of hard work that goes into this and a lot of people that pay a big price for me to do what I do. It’s amazing. I’d always wonder when it’d be my time.”

Herren held off Bryan Thrift, who started the day 12 ounces off the lead as he stalked his second career TTBC title. Thrift caught a final day-best 17-08 to finish with 51-04, just 8 ounces shy of Herren.

Luke Clausen surged into 3rd with a 17-00 stringer that gave him 47-08, a solid bounce-back effort after four straight Elite Series finishes of 82nd or worse.

Andy Morgan, who started the day in 2nd, caught 13-00 and slipped to 4th with 47-00. Dave Lefebre bagged 14-08 and wound up 5th with 46-12, his second Top-5 outcome in his last three outings.

Here's a look at how the rest of the Top 10 finished up:

6. Aaron Martens: 46-08
7. Cody Meyer: 45-08
8. Kevin VanDam: 44-12
9. Chris Zaldain: 41-12
10. Greg Hackney: 41-00

The star-studded top 10 had been separated by just 4-04 prior to the final day, so the competitors knew that whomever could crack a 20-pound bag – there’d only been two caught in 2 days – stood a fairly good shot of winning.

The heroic charge from the back of the pack never materialized, though, as Aaron Martens’ 5-12 kicker wound up being the biggest fish of the day.

Ray Roberts was mostly an unknown venue to the field prior to this event. It harbors some big fish, but the sense is that the population of bass and big fish isn’t close to what swims at Lake Fork or Conroe, the previous TTBC venues.

No announcement has been made about plans for the 2017 TTBC.

Chris Zaldain, who finished 9th with 41-12, took home big-bass honors for the event and won a new Toyota Tundra after catching a 7-12 brute on Friday.

Herren Caught Some Early … Finally

> Day 3: 5, 17-04 (15, 51-12)

Herren said daily adjustments were key to his victory, but a tip he got from fellow competitor Bill Lowen is what got him going this morning.

Herren and Lowen share information during Elite Series events and Lowen knew Herren had been struggling to get bit consistently in the morning. He suggested he try cranking a causeway where shad had been spawning – Lowen even gave him the bait he’d been using.

“Bill Lowen is the reason why I won this tournament,” Herren said. “I knew where he’d been fishing and he’d caught a couple cranking there in the morning.”

When Herren arrived this morning, he tied on Lowen’s bait and on the second cast, he felt his rod load up. He set the hook, but the fish came off. He figures it was in the 5-pound range.

“That was devastating,” he said. “Bill had said he’d lost some, too, but it hit me after I lost that fish – when you’re cranking if they don’t have it in their throats, they’re just slapping at it.”



James Overstreet
Photo: James Overstreet

Herren works on trying to get this keeper in the boat Sunday morning.

He tied on another plug and caught three fish, including a couple 3-plus pounders, to get the day rolling. After that, he figured things would fall into place as he’d been catching his better fish later in the day. That wasn’t the case Sunday.

“I’d been catching three or four from noon on that were good ones,” he said. “Those quality bites didn’t come this afternoon because it stayed cloudy and windy.”

His best fish came at 9:45, a 5-08 that ate his jig around some shallow hardwood.

“It all kind of flowed,” he added. “The next thing I knew I had 16 pounds.”

Then he went 4 hours without a keeper bite.

“I ran around for 2 hours and fished deep stuff and didn’t get a bite,” he added. “Something told me I needed to catch more fish or else I was going to lose.”

He went back to pitching his jig around salt cedars and coaxed a 3-pounder and a 2-pounder within a minute of each other to give him the cushion he needed to thwart Thrift’s charge.

“I’m fishing really good right now,” he said. “A lot of it is not looking ahead and not being worried about yesterday. I’m at peace with what I’m doing and whatever’s going to be is going to be. The hardest thing out here sometimes is I overthink and overanalyze too much and I try to control things I can’t control. I’m tired of all that – I’m getting too old for it.”

2nd: No Regrets for Thrift

> Day 3: 5, 17-08 (15, 51-04)

Thrift fished a clean tournament and had no regrets after falling just short of winning his second TTBC.

“I’m not upset at all,” he said. “I never lost any or missed any fished. It’s just how the cards fell.”

He wasn’t overly confident this morning that he could put a winning stringer together – he’d been catching fish on moving baits but caught his two best fish Saturday flipping. He went back to the same area today and worked over the same exposed willow bushes that still had 4 to 5 feet of water in them despite the water level dropping throughout the event.

“I spent probably three-quarters of today flipping that Damiki Knockout and caught a bunch that way,” he said. “I caught a couple decent ones, but I never got that one real big bite that I needed to get some separation.”

His biggest fish was 4-12 today and he culled three times in the afternoon.

FLW
Photo: FLW

Bryan Thrift fell 8 ounces shy of claiming his second TTBC win today.

3rd: Clausen Fished His Gut

> Day 3: 5, 17-00 (15, 47-08)

After a tumultuous last several weeks, Clausen said it was nice to have some things go his way this week.

“It’s been a rough year,” he said. “It feels good to get a little bit of momentum.”

He tallied seven keepers today and three that registered 4 pounds or more. Aside from getting bites out of a shad spawn near a marina in the mornings, he junk-fished the entire event, fishing what looked good and figuring things out as he went along.

“I’ve told myself this before that so much about going fishing comes down to making decisions on the water and that matters more than what happens in practice,” he said.

He employed five different baits to catch his weigh-in fish today, a trend that held true all 3 days. He also caught fish off rocky banks, some bushes and stick-ups along shore.

“I just went fishing,” he added. “There’s a lot to be said for that approach. Those are my best tournaments and if I could let that happen at every event, I’d have a lot more good events. Things are easier to decipher when I fish that way.”

4th: Morgan Couldn’t Duplicate Day 2

> Day 3: 5, 13-00 (15, 47-00)

A shift in wind direction may have hampered Morgan’s shot at passing Herren today, but he was still satisfied with a Top-5.

“I’m a little disappointed, but not greatly,” he said. “I had a couple opportunities to do well on day 1 and it didn’t work out.”

He’d hoped to build on the momentum he captured Saturday when he sacked a tournament-best 22-00, but the cloud cover and breezy conditions today kept the big fish from feeding. He caught eight keepers today, two of which were 3-08.

He did the bulk of his damage flipping a Zoom Z Craw around willows, but the key for him was getting away from the crowds on day 2.

“There is a lot of strategy on these small lakes on getting away from people,” he said. “If you beat someone to a patch of willows for 30 minutes, you can make it a good day real quick. I just didn’t have many good bites today.”

5th: Lefebre Lost A Bunch

> Day 3: 5, 14-08 (15, 46-12)

Lefebre is convinced he had the fish on his line today to not only win the pickup truck that’s awarded to whomever catches the big bass of the tournament, but also to win the whole event.

“I had 31 pounds on my line today,” he said. “I lost the truck twice.”

He had several fish pull off or get tied up in woody cover. If he’d have landed a couple of them, he’d be the second angler with multiple TTBC titles to his credit.

“I don’t even know what to say,” he said. “At some point, I just have to not talk about it anywhere and not make sponsors look bad. It’s total coincidence. I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m so anal about the technical stuff. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s getting ridiculous.”

Still, he caught 10 keepers, the most among the finalists. His best fish was his last fish – a 4-12 kicker that came around 2:15 p.m. After finding an area offshore in practice, he wound up fishing most of the event shallow and flipping willow bushes and also mixing in a topwater.

Notable

> Day 3 stats – 10 anglers, 10 limits.

Final Results

> For complete standings, click here.