Bobby Lane has had a successful 17-year professional fishing career, with numerous wins, including a Redcrest Championship. However, a victory in his home state of Florida has eluded him. This weekend, he changed that with a come-from-behind win on the Harris Chain of Lakes.
The last time the Bass Pro Tour fished on the Harris Chain, Lane came close to winning but was outfished by Ott Defoe and went home with a second-place finish. There is a superstition about having a home-field advantage on the professional bass circuits.
While many think familiarity with tournament waters would be a huge benefit, it often hurts anglers, as they know too much. It’s easy for pros to fish history on the lake rather than in the moment. Lane overcame the home-field curse at the Bass Pro Tours Stop Two on the Harris Chain.
Championship Day
Championship day victory is always up in the air on the Bass Pro Tour since all 10 qualifying anglers start the day with zeroed-out weights. Past success in the tournament means nothing; it’s just your ticket to the show.
It’s kind of like a certain NFL team having a dominant run in the playoffs yet choking in the Super Bowl. As Chiefs fans have been annoyingly pointing out for years, performance on championship day is all that matters. Enter Philadelphia and enter Bobby Lane.
The conditions on the final day exacerbated the uncertainty of a championship round. Strong winds, shad spawns, and fish kills all changed anglers’ game plans. Things that had been working would no longer apply.
One of the lakes in the Harris Chain, Lake Apopka, recently experienced a massive fish kill. Many anglers avoided it; however, by the end, it was becoming clear that many of the top weights were coming out of Apopka.
The final 10 anglers had to make the call. Were enough fish left in Apopka to stand up to one last day of pressure from the best anglers in the world, or would the championship day be won on another body of water with higher fish populations?
Shad spawns also affected the standings throughout the tournament’s first 3 days. Anglers that stumbled on shad spawns found themselves rising up the leaderboard in quick fashion. When anglers found shad spawning, they could fish power techniques, land fish back to back for short bursts, and make big gains in weight.
The final day also brought strong winds — winds so strong that Mark Davis said, “It’s blowing your rod side to side. You can hardly fish.” The wind made boat positioning difficult, but the real kiss of death was the mud that the wind brought with it.
In Florida, it is well known that the bite shuts down in muddy water. Anglers found some of their top spots completely ruined by mudlines that got blown into prime areas.
Bobby Lane’s Championship Day Strategy
Bobby Lane knew there was one area of the lake where he could win the tournament. He had been catching fish on hard substrate that butted up to reeds. But he also knew he couldn’t fish in the area at the start of the day due to the high winds. Bobby opted to fish new water and watch the forecast, looking for a window that would allow him to get to his honey hole.
He started in a new area and immediately caught a 5-pound, 8-ounce bass. He said, “I thought I might have stumbled on something there, but it turns out I didn’t.” He struggled through the rest of period one and found himself 18 pounds, 8 ounces back from the leader, Mark Davis.
The Comeback
Mark Davis and Matt Becker took significant leads early in period one. Matt Becker was sitting in second place with 26 pounds. 11 ounces. He capitalized on the shad spawns and caught a flurry of fish using a lipless crankbait and a bladed jig. Unfortunately, he could not continue that pattern and only caught another 10 pounds of bass in the final two periods.
Mark Davis had a seemingly more sustainable plan. He was flipping and pitching in reeds with soft plastics, avoiding the moody fishing the shad spawns brought. He started out with 29 pounds, 11 ounces in period one. Later in the day, the wind carried the dreaded mud to his area, and he slowed down. At the start of the final period, he led Bobby Lane by a mere pound and a half.
In period three, the wind shifted directions, giving Bobby a last-minute window to fish his prime area. With just 2 hours left in the day, he overcame his 18-pound deficit and squeaked by Mark Davis to take the lead.
He utilized the last 2 hours to assert his dominance and run away from the field with a final weight of 56 pounds, 5 ounces. In just two periods, he went from an 18-pound deficit to winning by over 17 pounds.
I bet Patrick Mahomes wishes he could come back from deficits like Bobby Lane. But he can’t because he isn’t the GOAT. Bobby Lane had a GOAT-like comeback this week. He earned the win and finally took home a trophy in his home state.
Top Techniques From the Tournament
Unlike Stage 1 at Lake Conroe, forward-facing sonar did not play a huge role in the tournament. Jacob Wall, a young gun who utilizes livescope heavily, stated that he didn’t use it to fish. He used it in practice to identify areas with strong fish populations, and then pulled out his power rods and just fished.
That’s why we saw names like Mark Davis at the top of the leaderboard. Mark Davis is an old-school guy who has stated that he likes livescope for crappie fishing but would rather pull out a flipping stick when he’s bass fishing.
In his final tournament interview, he made his stance clear on the technology and came as close to making fun of ‘scopers as you can without outright making fun of them. Fortunately for him and Bobby Lane, the conditions lined up perfectly for old-school flipping and pitching, and the young guys couldn’t keep up with them.
Two main patterns were produced for the top 10. The first was the shad spawn that Matt Becker utilized. Top baits for guys fishing around spawning shad were bladed jigs, lipless crankbaits, and jerkbaits.
While that produced flurries of fish, the top of the field fished reeds with flipping sticks. Most anglers put on a flipping hook, a tungsten weight, and either a craw or worm soft plastic. Bobby Lane won it with that setup, fishing a 6-inch Maxscent The General stick worm on a 5/0 Berkley Fusion19 Hook with an Epic Tungsten weight.
Major League Fishing takes a break until March 6, when the tour will stop at Lake Murray in Columbia, S.C. If you want more Florida bass action, the Bassmaster Elite Series kicks off this week on St. Johns River. You can follow along starting on March 20 at bassmaster.com.
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