By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor


The 10th edition of the Toyota Texas Bass Classic was not the slugfest some have come to expect from the event that brings together the top point-getters from the Elite Series and FLW Tour.

Lake Ray Roberts took its first turn in the spotlight as the host venue and while it couldn’t match the past prodigious catches from Lake Fork or Conroe, it proved to be a worthy test for the 38-man field in this year’s event.

The lake had hosted the Texas Team Trail championship the weekend prior to TTBC practice and that gave most an idea that there was a good population of fish hanging around the plentiful standing timber and bushes.

The monkey wrench in everybody’s plans was the Corps of Engineers' decision to pull the water down during practice. That drew fish out and scattered them. Add to that sun instead of clouds and a reduction in wind for the start of the tournament and it was like a different lake for some.

The standing timber and shallow shrubbery proved to be the best bets, while the offshore bite never panned out like some expected it to.

Below is a rundown of how the rest of the Top 5 caught their fish at Ray Roberts:

2nd: Bryan Thrift

> Day 1: 5, 19-04
> Day 2: 5, 14-08
> Day 3: 5, 17-08
> Total = 15, 51-04

Bryan Thrift said he spent a good portion of the two-day practice session at Lake Ray Roberts idling offshore and staring at his electronics. His hope was that he’d stumble upon a group of fish that had escaped being found by the other competitors.

“I was looking around for an area where I could give myself a chance to win,” he said. “I never found that, so I went practicing in the tournament. I fished all over the place.”

When the event started, he had more than a dozen rods on his front deck and by the time it was over, he hadn’t narrowed anything down.

“I didn’t have a pattern going. It was junk-fishing mostly.”

He caught most of his 19-04 on day 1 on a buzzbait, fishing a shad spawn. After that, he had to force himself to slow down and flip shallow willow bushes.

“I wouldn’t change anything,” he said. “I wouldn’t do anything different. Everything fell into place and went great. I fished a good tournament. After I caught a good bag early on day 1, I spent 3 or 4 hours idling. That gave me a lot of freedom to go practice after catching a few key fish.”

His decision to go flipping was cemented on day 1 when he missed a good fish in a willow bush. He went back to that bush the next day and caught a 4-08, along with another good one out of a nearby bush.

He said the changing variables, from the cloud cover and sun to the wind and falling water level, made it a junk-fisherman’s dream.

“It seems like it’s a fun lake,” he said. “It seems like it could be good if you hit it right, but it’s nowhere near the caliber of Fork. The conditions definitely made it more of a challenge because the fish are constantly moving. It sets up perfect for junk-fishing.

“It also set up for a hard head who wants one rod and wants to make five fish bite all day. There was not really one option that was the deal.”

> Buzzbait gear: 7’ heavy-action Fitzgerald Rods Stunner HD casting rod, unnamed casting reel, 20-pound P-Line CXX co-polymer line, 3/8-oz. unnamed buzzbait (white), unnamed trailer (white).

> Flipping gear: 7’6” heavy-action Fitzgerald Rods Okeechobee flipping rod, same reel, 20-pound P-Line Ultimate fluorocarbon line, 1/2-oz. unnamed worm weight, 5/0 unnamed heavy-gauge flipping hook, Damiki Knockout (green-pumpkin).

> He favored the half-ounce weight in the shallow cover so when he made long pitches, he wanted to make sure the bait got down to the bottom.

> Main factor in his success – “My willingness to flip. I was proud of myself (Sunday). I was in slow motion. I was like, ‘Look at me, I’m flipping!’ I had to catch two or three and then slow down. The whole time I was flipping, I was looking around for schoolers or something I could turn and throw a moving bait on.”

> Performance edge – “The combination of the Knockout and the Fitzgerald rod and the P-Line. I never lost a fish fishing that bait.”



James Overstreet
Photo: James Overstreet

Luke Clausen never committed to an area or a technique and wound up finishing 3rd.

3rd: Luke Clausen

> Day 1: 5, 15-12
> Day 2: 5, 14-12
> Day 3: 5, 17-00
> Total = 15, 47-08

Luke Clausen had a “leisurely” practice prior to the TTBC. He put in after 7 a.m. and had his boat on the trailer by 4 p.m. both days.

“I just rode around to see what the lake looked like,” he said. “I didn’t do anything spectacular. I just tried to learn what was going on and went into it with a blank slate. It worked out well.”

Like Thrift, he went with the junk-fishing approach – he caught fish on five different baits Sunday when he weighed his best stringer of the tournament (17-00).

“Back when I started, I’d have some terrible first days in the (Bassmaster) Top 150s, then I’d run somewhere I’d never been before and have a great day 2 just fishing,” he said. “It’s more of a natural way to go about things. I’ve talked with other guys and it seems sometimes the harder you try, the worse you do. It was a lot easier to see things objectively having never been there before.”

He started each morning near a marina where a pile of giant tractor tires had been placed in the water to create a breakwater. The shad were spawning near the tires and he was able to catch several keeper bass each day on a buzzbait.

“(Chris) Zaldain and I were there Friday and did pretty well,” he said. “I had a keeper there Saturday and a 4 1/2-pounder there Sunday.”

After that, he went where he hadn’t been before. He threw frogs, he flipped, he threw a spinnerbait, a swimjig and a vibrating jig. He also cranked rocky banks with a square-bill crankbait and threw a walking topwater bait around stick-ups near the bank.

“I’d definitely say I was not on a pattern,” he said. “It was just random flailing. I caught fish off new water each day and I just tried to do what felt right.”

> Flipping gear (tires): 7’ medium-heavy Megabass Orochi XX jig & worm casting rod, unnamed casting reel, 12-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbone line, 1/2-oz. Dirty Jigs Tour Level pitching jig (white), Z-Man Turbo CrawZ (pearl) trailer.

> Vibrating jig gear: 7’5” medium-heavy Megabass Orochi XX Extreme Mission Type-F casting rod, same reel, same line (16-pound), 1/2-oz. prototype Z-Man Project Z weedless ChatterBait (white), 4.5” Z-Man RaZor ShadZ (pearl).

> Cranking gear (docks): 7’ medium-heavy Megabass Orochi XX Flat-Side Special casting rod, same reel, same line (10-pound), Megabass S-Crank 1.5 (sexy French pearl).

> He caught a few frog fish using 50-pound TUF-Line Tournament 8 braided line.

When flipping woody cover, he rigged a Z-Man Palmetto BugZ (green-pumpkin) on a straight-shank 4/0 hook under a 3/8-oz. worm weight and used 16-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line.

> Main factor in his success – “Keeping an open mind with the water dropping. There are places we caught fish in practice that are dry now. “

> Performance edge – “The weedless ChatterBait was key, especially when I would skipped it under marina docks and in between bushes. You can reel it through anything. It does not get hung up and still hooks fish.”

James Overstreet
Photo: James Overstreet

Andy Morgan got away from the crowd on day 2, but was hampered by a shift in the wind on the final day.

4th: Andy Morgan

> Day 1: 5, 12-00
> Day 2: 5, 22-00
> Day 3: 5, 13-00
> Total = 15, 47-00

There was a lot to like about Lake Ray Roberts for Andy Morgan. First, it didn’t take long for him to realize it wasn’t going to produce the giant fish and weights that Lake Fork had the past 2 years in the TTBC. By nature, he’s more of a grind-it-out angler and Ray Roberts suited that approach.

“I liked it,” he said. “I don’t want to go where you have to catch 60 a day to win. It fit right up my alley. I enjoyed having the chance to compete.”

In order to get into contention, he had to made a change after day 1 when he caught 12-00 and was mired in 26th place.

“I got out of a good rotation,” he said. “People were all around me and they were starting closer and working around a particular area.”

On the second day, he made it a point to start a greater distance away from the crowd, near some deeper willow bushes, and work his back toward the pack. In typical Morgan fashion, he kept a flipping rod in his hand most of the tournament.

“It was an area where I didn’t see anybody in there during practice so I just fished a deeper area,” he said.

The move paid off with a tournament-best 22-00 stringer that jumped him up to 2nd after day 2.

“I figured something out and got into a rotation to get ahead of everybody,” he added.

A change in wind direction and some cloud cover on day 3 prevented him from making a run at eventual winner Matt Herren.

“I got the same amount of bites, but with the clouds and wind, I didn’t get the big bites,” he said.

> Flipping gear: 7’6” heavy-action iRod Genesis II Andy’s Light Flipping/Junk casting rod, Lew's Super Duty Speed Spool casting reel (8.0:1 ratio), 20-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line, 1/2-oz. unnamed worm weight, 5/0 Owner 4X Jungle flipping hook, Zoom Z-Craw (white).

> Main factor in his success – “Trying to get away from the pressure.”

> Performance edge – “Those fish bit that Z Craw better than anything. I tried other stuff, but got bit immediately after I put that on.”

James Overstreet
Photo: James Overstreet

Dave Lefebre had hopes of catching some offshore fish, but wound up focusing his attention on willow trees in the 6 to 10-foot range.

5th: Dave Lefebre

> Day 1: 5, 19-00
> Day 2: 5, 13-04
> Day 3: 5, 14-08
> Total = 15, 46-12

Coming from the Toledo Bend Elite Series, Dave Lefebre was convinced there’d be some schools of fish holding to some of Ray Roberts’ offshore structure. There are plenty of old house foundations and road beds in the lake, but he was largely unsuccessful in his quest.

On day 1 of practice, he spent time out deep staring at his electronics, then up shallow.

“I never marked a bass deep,” he said.

He went back and forth again on day 2 and had some success flipping bushes, but it wasn’t a consistent pattern.

“It felt like it was luck, like it didn’t make sense,” he said. “It was one here, one there.”

He went out deep again and saw one slash on his sonar that caught his attention.

“I remember Randy Haynes saying how he once threw on a single mark and caught it,” he said, referencing the FLW Tour offshore guru. “I turned around, threw in my prop wash and caught a 4-pounder.”

He caught two other smaller fish, then caught a 6-pounder. He figured he could come back in the tournament and do some damage there.

“I thought that was going to be a good deal,” he said, “but I never had another bite there.”

He committed to shallow trees for the tournament. In practice, he got bites out of some of the shallowest cover in the lake, in less than a foot of water, but the receding water forced him to call an audible.

“I fished out from there after that,” he said. “There’d be strips of willow trees and I fished those. It started around 1 p.m. I could run to any of them and get bites. I just ran out of time.”

He said the best trees had 6 to 10 feet of water on them

“There was one spot where there were two points close together,” he said. “They were on bushes and trees out in front of the bushes. I didn’t do the trees until Sunday, but it was insane how many fish were on that point.”

> Flipping gear: 7’6” medium-heavy 13 Fishing Muse Black casting rod, 13 Fishing Concept E casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 20-pound Sufix Inivisiline fluorocarbon line, 1/4-oz. VMC tungsten worm weight (green-pumpkin), 4/0 VMC flipping hook, unnamed creature bait (watermelon red).

> Main factor in his success – “Where I was fishing, it was kind of windy. Even days when they said it was calm it was still blowing. I turned all my graphs to standby so I could be more stealthy.”

> Performance edge – “My Power-Poles were the to key making the cut. I put them on silent mode so they’d go down real slow. I’d be drifting through an area and pole down upwind of everything. That allowed me to pick it apart and fish every 6 inches. Being able to put those anchors down and dissect the water was key.”

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