Toad Was Lane's Ticket

Photo: Bassmaster.com Chris Lane caught limits that weighed more than 20 pounds on the final 2 days en route to winning the Okeechobee Bassmaster Southern Tour.

Three high-level tournaments visited the Big O this month, and the 1st-place anglers all deviated from the standard flipping pattern to catch their winning fish. Chris Lane of nearby Lakeland, Fla. is the latest in that succession. He found an uncrowded piece of water in Moonshine Bay and made long-distance retrieves with a Gambler Cane Toad to win the inaugural Okeechobee Bassmaster Southern Tour.

Bryan Thrift used a Chatterbait to top the Stren Series event at Okeechobee during the first week of the new year, and Shinichi Fukae employed finesse worms to capture the FLW Tour opener 2 weeks later. Now along comes Lane, who whacked back-to-back 20-pound sacks to beat out flipper extraordinaire Terry Scroggins by more than 6 pounds with a 3-day total of 54-12.

Lane's victory, the biggest of his career, was worth $71,100 and provided him with some much-needed seed money as he prepares for his rookie season in the Bassmaster Elite Series.

Here's how he did it:

Practice

Lane turned in his resignation notice from his job as a sales representative for a Lakeland pump company just last week. Prior to that, he was working long hours to earn as much money as possible before he embarked on a full-time career in tournament fishing. Thus, he had little time to practice for the event.

"I practiced for a total of about 5 hours, just because that was all the time I had," he said.

Moonshine Bay has seen nearly as much boat traffic this month as the ever-popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Walt Disney World. The vast majority of the competitors in each of the three tournaments camped out there because it featured the most and best water clarity that the hurricane-ravaged Big O had to offer.

He found a spot near the entrance to the bay that everybody else blew right on past on their way to other locations. Its biggest attraction was numerous cattail clumps surrounded by open water, and there were also lots of lily pads in the vicinity.

"It was a new spot for me, and I went in there blind and just found the pattern those fish were on," he said. "I was looking for some fish that weren't bedding – ones that had already come off – and I wanted to get away from some of the boat traffic. Right away I started getting wakes up behind that frog."

Competition

Day 1: 5, 10-07
Day 2: 5, 22-11 (10, 33-02)
Day 3: 5, 21-10 (15, 54-12)

A cold front had moved into the area the night before day 1 and his toad fish were shut down. He caught one average-size keeper, then realized he needed to do something different to scrounge up a limit, so he moved about a mile south.

He flipped up three small ones, then caught a 4-pounder on a worm. He ended the day in 33rd place, nearly 14 pounds behind leader Scroggins.

On day 2, his primary water warmed up about 7 degrees to 71, and his fish turned on again. He caught them throughout the day, and his big sack moved him up 26 places to 7th.

His largest was an 8-13 brute that had broken off his co-angler less than a half-hour earlier. "When I got it in, it had his hook, his weight and his Paca Craw in its mouth," he said.

Day 3 was more of the same. "I caught a 4 1/2-pounder after about 15 minutes, and I knew it was going to be a good day," he said. He caught a 7 1/2-pounder later in the morning, and then boated a 7-11 at about noon.

He said he lost one that afternoon that was close to 10 pounds. It came off just inches short of his non-boater's hand. "I was just glad I didn't end up needing that one," he said.

Photo: Gambler Chris Lane caught 16 of his 20 weigh-in fish at the Okeechobee Bassmaster Southern Tour on a black Gambler Cane Toad.

He made extremely long casts with the toad – most were 50 to 75 yards.

"I'd throw it just as far as it would let me go downwind, until just about all of the line was off the reel," he said. "Then I'd just reel it back at a pretty good pace across the lily pads. I just wanted it coming fast enough to keep both of its legs churning the water."

Winning Gear Notes

> 7'6" Bass Medics 2iG-Ultra Strike flipping stick, Quantum PT 600 casting reel (6:1 ratio), 30-pound Berkley Fireline braid, 1/32-ounce screw-in weight, Gambler Cane Toad (black).

> He flipped a Gambler Ugly Otter (Bowen's silver) to catch three fish on day 1, and also caught one on a 7-inch Gambler Ribbon-Tail Worm (clearwater red).

Notable

> Main factor in success – "Getting away from boat pressure and (using) the Gambler Cane Toad. It has so much more action than anything like it on the market."

> He lost the huge fish on day 3 at 2:15 p.m. He later learned that friend Troy Olivier and older brother Bobby Lane, who were fishing a BFL event at Kissimmee, caught fish that weighed 8-14 and 8-13, respectively, at almost that exact time. "I guess every big fish in the state of Florida decided to bite right then."

> He has a new lucky charm screwed onto the front of his boat – a toy tiger that his 4-year-old son got as part of a McDonald's Happy Meal. He rubbed it before the start of each day. "I think I'm going to have to Super-Glue it on there. I don't want to lose that one."