By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor
Takahiro Omori is in a good place.
As far as where he sits in the Bassmaster Elite Series Angler of the Year (AOY) standings, he’s in a better place than he’s ever been this late in the season. With two full-field tournaments – Potomac River and Mississippi River – and the AOY Championship still on the schedule, Omori finds himself at No. 11 in the points and pretty safely inside the cut to qualify for next year’s Bassmaster Classic.
Qualifying for the Classic had lately been somewhat of a pressure-packed undertaking for Omori, who won the sport’s biggest event in 2004. During the four seasons spanning 2011-14, he was outside the Classic cut entering the final tournament, but posted strong finishes each time to punch his ticket. Last year, three finishes of 85th or lower took him out of the running and he wound up 73rd in points.
This year has been a different story entirely for the Emory, Texas resident.
He started the campaign with a 39th-place finish at the St. Johns River, his fourth money finish in four tries at the tidal fishery. He followed that up with top-20 results at Winyah Bay and the Bull Shoals/Norfork Lake dual-venue event. That had him up to 10th in points heading to Wheeler Lake, where he posted his seventh career win. The victory propelled him into 2nd place in points, behind Greg Hackney.
His momentum has slowed a bit since Wheeler – he cashed a check at Lake Texoma and missed the money at Toledo Bend and Cayuga Lake – but he’s more than pleased with how the season has unfolded so far. At the very least, he won’t be scrambling and scrounging for points down the stretch.
“That means I have to be careful,” he said Tuesday before heading out on Mille Lacs for another day of scouting. “If I don’t have any pressure, I don’t perform good. It seems like I perform better under extreme pressure. I have to be more careful about it now. I feel good to not have a ton of pressure like I’ve had sometimes. Only results matter, though.”
By the time practice starts at the Potomac River next Monday, he’ll have put in a week of pre-practice time at each of the remaining venues as he looks to solidify his place among the points leaders heading to Mille Lacs for the season finale.
“My goal is to get to Mille Lacs for vacation,” he said with a chuckle. “I want to be 50 points ahead of 38th or whatever the Classic cut off will be.”
Time To Recharge
Typically, after the Elite Series season ends – and assuming he’s qualified for the next year’s Classic – Omori spends the balance of the calendar year preparing for the Classic. He’s known to spend weeks at a time pre-practicing for the Classic.
After not qualifying for the 2016 Classic, Omori decided to fly back to his native Japan to visit his mom and younger brother and sister. It was his first trip home in 5 years. He stayed for a couple months. While he’d much prefer to have been readying for another Classic, the time with friends and family served as a time for him to reflect and recharge his competitive batteries.
“Usually, I’d practice for the Classic up to Dec. 31, but I had a lot of time off last year,” he said. “It refreshed my mind coming back for this season.
“Fishing-wise, scheduling-wise, I’m just doing the exact same things. The only change from last season was how I spent my offseason. I didn’t change anything about how I approach tournaments.”
Schedule Behind Surge
Omori has been competing at the sport’s top level long enough that he’s able to get a feel for how his season may play out simply by looking at the schedule. The timing of tournaments in certain regions of the country often reveals, to some extent, which patterns may be prevalent.
This season, the schedule lined up perfectly with his strengths – shallow water. Through seven tournaments, he’s spent exactly one day – day 2 at Toledo Bend – fishing deeper than 20 feet. As a result, his finishes reflected his comfort level with how the lakes and rivers ultimately fished.
“It had a lot to do with the schedule,” he said. “Before the season started, I felt the schedule fit my fishing style a lot. If you fish long enough, every year you know before the season starts if it’s a good schedule. I’m not usually a consistent guy, but the schedule helped me.”
What also helped was collecting the win at Wheeler Lake, his first victory since the Lake Toho Bassmaster Tour in January 2005.
“I get asked about not winning after more than 10 years and not once did I doubt myself and if I could win again,” he said. “When you go into any tournament, you have to feel like you can win somehow. That’s how I have to think as a competitor.
“After going 10 years since my last win, I want to win more now to make up for all that time. I want to win a couple more quick, but the reality in this sport is it’s so hard to win, especially now that I’m only fishing at the highest level. The competition is so tough.”
Day 2 Downer
He’s still stewing about a missed opportunity at Cayuga Lake. He’d finished 90th there in August 2014, but he knew this year’s event (late June) would be all about shallow water. He came into the event 6th in AOY points and caught 18-06 on day 1, good for 29th place.
With the disqualification of then-AOY points leader Greg Hackney after day 1 of the Cayuga event, Omori sensed he had a real opportunity to inch closer to the top of the points standings with another strong finish. Day 2 saw him weigh a 12-07 limit, tiny by Cayuga standards this year, and he plummeted to 67th.
“I’m still mad about it,” he said.
He explained that he still values winning tournaments over AOY titles, but not making the cut at Cayuga still stings.
“I think winning is everything,” he said. “Consistency is the second-most important thing to me. I want to win a second Classic before I win AOY. After day 1, when Hackney got DQ’d, that opened up a door for me in the points. That was the first time I thought maybe I have a chance if I put everything into it. Then the next day, I bombed and only had 12 pounds. Now I’m 11th, more than 100 points behind (Gerald) Swindle.”
He was so frustrated after the Cayuga tournament that he fished the lake two additional days after the event was over in an attempt to figure out what he missed. The final verdict?
“Dropshot,” he said. “That’s how you catch ‘em there.”
