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Norman,
Oklahoma.
– Granted, the 2007 Bassmaster Elite Series is over. We've crowned an Angler of the Year, a Rookie of the Year and
the Classic spots have been determined. But that doesn't mean that all of the accolades have been given. As we look back upon the year that was, it's helpful to look at the people, places and trends that will define and explain this record-setting year when the history of bass fishing is written.
Just remember, it's all about being
there. The BZ was the only independent
media company on location during every Elite
Series Event. Accordingly, over the next several weeks the BASS ZONE will bring you a retrospective look at the players and events that shaped the year gone by. There were more highs than lows, but they'll both be covered. Invariably, what was big news in March may have faded by the time they finished at Toho in September, but we'll go back in time to give you a clear-eyed view of what happened with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
Stay tuned for exclusive features that will focus on a myriad of factors and bring them together in the way that only the BASS ZONE can.
THE
TOP SIX PERFORMANCES OF 2007
The Bassmaster Elite Series is about as far away from a "shakey head tour" as you can get. That doesn't mean that it's better than any other circuit, only that it's a constant punching match. Strike that, a better analogy is Ultimate Fighting on water.
If you don't catch a big sack every day you're toast. In some of these rodeos, if you don't catch 18 or 20 pounds each of the first two days, there is no third day. Instead you're driving home with no check. There's no such thing as saving fish, either.
With only two and a half days of practice, the leaders are typically still dialing in their patterns after they place their limits on the scales on Day 1. Think you're a hot local stick? The bottom half of the standings is filled with guys who were the top dogs on whatever ponds were closest to their homes.
With that in mind, you have to do something pretty extraordinary to register one of the top 6 performances of the year. Think about it : 11 tournaments of over a hundred competitors each, three majors of 50 competitors each – and you want to narrow it down to six? It had better be something pretty
darn special.
#1
- Steve Kennedy at Clear Lake
It's an absolute freak show when a 5 pound average over 4 days barely gets you inside the Top 10. Add to that the fact that 10 anglers who averaged over 4 pounds per fish for 2 days didn't even get to stay around and fish Saturday.
All
year long, the sports media has opined
about whether San Francisco Giant
Barry Bonds uses steroids, but the
real story is just a few hours up the
road – what are those Clear Lake
bass using to grow so big?
Leading the charge at the Golden State Shootout was Alabama's Steve Kennedy. He may seem happy-go-lucky, but the swimbait novice put on a focused clinic all week – limits that weighed 20, 29, 40 and 32 pounds. He hadn't really thrown swimbaits all that much before he got there, but he ponied up cash to the tune of $3,000 at local bait shops to beat the locals at their own game. Three of the other four anglers who made the Top 5 were from the west. |
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Kennedy did it despite the fact that he had to throw back multiple fish. California law, as interpreted by BASS staff, required that each fish have at least one hook in its mouth, even if you're not sight fishing. You know you're living right if you don't have to think twice about dropping a 4+ back into the drink.
And Steve, the good folks at Basstrix certainly thank you for making their product into this year's
Chatterbait.
#2
-Timmy Horton at Lake Champlain
The folks at Tim Horton's donuts, a Canadian breakfast spot, may have tried to scare the fisherman formerly known as Tim Horton with a cease and desist letter, but that doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility of a pizza chain sponsoring him in the future.
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Due to the strict practice schedules enforced by BASS, the anglers really only have two and a half days to practice for any event, so Horton must've read the rules wrong. He gave up a half day on the last day of the Champlain tournament to sit at the dock and munch pizza.
He ran way south to the Ticonderoga area, where the lake narrows down, but he wasn't frogging and flipping the matted grass like most of the other competitors who made the run. Instead, he'd found a magic rockpile and dragged a football jig to catch outsized bass. When the jig bite died, he'd stir 'em up again with a Fat Free Shad. Did he need the one-two punch? Maybe, but the 12 pound margin over second place made it look a bit like piling on. |
You could say that it was a once in a lifetime turn of events, but think back to his first tour-level victory on the Potomac in 1997 and it's like déjà vu all over again. He saw birds diving on an shallow unmarked and unknown rock ledge and put himself on the map by crushing the field there too. Luck? No. Perhaps more than just about any event this year, this demonstrated in several ways why your average weekend angler can't survive in the major leagues of fishing.
#3
-Skeet Reese
During the New York Swing
You don't tug on Superman's cape under any circumstances, but if you have to test him, certainly don't do it where he's most comfortable. There's no doubt KVD is the Superman of the bass fishing world. It's not clear which superhero that makes Skeet Reese, but this year he had enough kryptonite to hold KVD back in the Angler of the Year race, and New York is where he cemented his lead.
Of course, neither of them is from New York – Reese is from the left coast and KVD's from the arctic tundra of Michigan – but the point is that all of the pundits thought that Skeet's shot at AOY would be lost after the swing through smallmouth country.
His lead didn't evaporate – it grew. At Champlain, he nailed the last of his multiple 2nd place finishes for the year. Those finishes were profitable but highly frustrating. The frustration may have been erased when he won at the Potomac and sealed the AOY battle at Toho, but the monkey hadn't left his back until that point. Meanwhile KVD placed 27th at Champlain, a fine finish by just about anyone else's standards but poor for him. Like Horton, Reese tempted the weather gods and made a long run south. Once there, he used a variety of Lucky Craft hard baits to catch four sequentially improving limits. |
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At Erie, he also beat KVD, although this time by only three places (13th vs. 16th). But again, no one expected him to even hold his position in the AOY race, let alone improve it. In fact, by the time this weather-shortened event was completed, we'd changed our whole outlook on Mr. Reese. Rather than being surprised that he'd beaten KVD, the biggest surprise was that he hadn't managed to squeeze himself into the Top 12, so when the victory at the Potomac occurred, no one was surprised in the least.
#4
-KVD at Grand Lake
It's not clear whether any performance by the Van Daminator (known as Van Dammit to the rest of the field) should be included in a Top 6 list. Sure, looked at objectively what he did in his 2 Elite Series wins this year was extraordinary, but unless he's setting lake records, we're not surprised by anything he does anymore.
Whatever Strike King is paying him, it's not enough.
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Sometimes
you get the feeling that he can will
the fish to chew just about anything
he wants them to bite. Others were
flipping the willows or trying to
finesse inactive bass and he goes out
there, runs a crankbait across their
faces and goads them into
striking.
Did you notice the glee he seemed to
get at Grand Lake from telling
everyone that the "Sexy
Shad" color was critical to his
success? Either Jackson and Nicholas
have loaned him a grade-school sense
of humor or else he hit some sort of
incentive-bonus from Strike King. If
indeed it was the latter, it was just
icing on the cake because the $101,000
that BASS paid him that June week made
him the all-time leading money winner,
too. |
His win also made him the (temporary) leader for AOY, to no one's surprise. That's impressive. It's also impressive that he had two Elite Series wins this year. But when you look at the individual event and where it was held, perhaps most striking is who he beat. Jeff Kriet and Edwin Evers, two Oklahoma boys, came in 2nd and 3rd, and semi-local Kevin Short of Arkansas filled out the top 4.
#5
-Boyd Duckett at the Dardanelle Major
Boyd Duckett didn't have to prove himself to anyone. He's long been established as top regional stick. And then he went and won the Classic in February, the first angler to do that in his home state. The Classic win alone will keep you booked for seminar appearances for the next four or five decades.
But the home-state victory was something of a double edged sword. If it were easy to do, it would've been done before. On the other hand, now that he accomplished it, surely many fans of the sport were at least slightly dismissive – "You can win at home. Now show us what you can do on the road."
That's why it was so critical for Boyd to win again, and to do it out of state. The icing on the cake was that he did it in a Major, where the competition consisted of only the best of the best. Sure, Scott Suggs won a million bucks in one event this summer, but Boyd's two six-figure paydays are nothing to sneeze at.
The people he beat at Dardanelle were a who's who of the BASS tour – the top 12 included not only Van Dam, Hackney, Martens and Horton, but also previous Major winner Fred Roumbanis and stars such as Ish and Jason Quinn. Arkansas resident Scott Rook was an early favorite to win and Boyd beat him by almost 10 pounds on Day 3. |
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Perhaps most impressive was the fact that he beat Rojas at a tournament with a stellar frog bite. He didn't do it with a magic spot or a magic bait. Instead, he borrowed a page from Iaconelli's book and "fished the moment." Much like the Classic where he switched up between a Rat-L-Trap and Chigger Craw as dictated by changing conditions, at Dardanelle he varied it even further – a Rat-L-Trap, a heavy flipping rig, a lighter soft plastic and a dropshot all played a role in the victory.
If anyone doubted his longevity, his numerous Top 12 finishes might have convinced them otherwise, but this made it a steel trap lock that he'll be around as long as he wants to stay.
#6
-Derek Remitz at Lake Amistad
The only reason I'm putting Remitz in the six spot is to keep his head from getting too big. Actually, that's a lie, he's a mild-mannered kid and a fishing machine, but we really didn't know that at the beginning of the year when he stormed onto the scene.
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Sure, he'd won a Tour points title in '06 and thereby made the Classic, but no one knew who he was. Heck, we didn't even know whether he was from Minnesota, Louisiana or Alabama.
But the proof was in his livewell when he passed the century mark at Amistad with a stout 111-07. More importantly, he showed an independent streak by discounting the dock talk and "common wisdom" that the big sows would be moving to the bank that time of year. No swimbaits, no flipping stick, no burning a spinnerbait. Instead he sat at the edge of some sort of underwater Grand Canyon and barely moved a football jig. |
And if that wasn't enough, he came in 2nd a few weeks later at the Delta, won the rookie of the year award, and will be making a special appearance at Hartwell in February.
Now the gauntlet's been laid down for the '08 rookies: Come out swinging or be prepared to get run over.
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