Posted -  August 17th, 2008 7:30pm CST

Michael Bennett Holds Off Dave Lefebre to Win the Forrest Wood Cup  

Story by Brent Conway - Photos by  Matt Pangrac  

Columbia, SC  – In all of sport there is perhaps nothing more thrilling than a come-from-behind win. In this week’s $2 million Forrest Wood Cup, Sunday’s final weigh-in held the right ingredients to be just that. The final-day story centered around a young California pro and a number of wily veterans nipping at his heels – all fishing for a $1 million payday. 

With all of the variables involved in fishing anything is possible, and a sure thing isn’t always so sure. Prior to the tournament’s start on Wednesday, The BASS ZONE spoke with many of the 77 qualifiers and most echoed the same common thread – the bite at Lake Murray was inconsistent at best. Arkansas pro Mark Rose crossed the scales the first day with a five bass limit weighing just over 20 pounds showing that big bags roamed freely at Murray despite the difficult conditions. 

It was clear from the start of the tournament that catching five bass a day would be a challenge. The weather front that passed through the area on Wednesday shuffled the focus from deep offshore structure to the shallows, but did little to enhance the bite. For the two days following Roses’ frenetic start, junk fishing was the go-to technique as anglers covered miles of shoreline searching for their susceptible quarry. 

California pro Michael Bennett, who was the tournament’s leader Sunday morning, seemed to be most in control of the junk fishing potential Murray held. Bennett started the day with a three-pound lead over second place, but knew going out that in order to see victory at the end of the day, he couldn’t afford a stumble and would have to bring some weight to the scales.

Pennsylvania pro Dave Lefebre, in second place to start the day, was the picture of calm and confidence all week long. He had been getting large numbers bites each day, and had held a spot in reserve for the final day since practice. Bennett, on the other hand, was fishing new water throughout the contest…and had scrambled for each keeper he boated.

Going into the final day, in order for an upset to be penned, the big limit that everyone knew was possible at Murray was a must have. However, until the sixth angler in the round robin styled weigh-in, the results were anything but upset making material as only four of the 10 remaining anglers caught a limit.

Michael Bennett, from Lincoln, CA, came to the scales needing only 3 pounds and 12 ounces to earn a seven-figure payday. Despite an 8-ounce fish care penalty, Bennett didn’t give in to the upset-making potential the conditions presented as he brought four fish to the scales weighing 8 pounds, 14 ounces to claim honors as the FLW Champion with a total weight of 24 pounds and 15 ounces.

While Dave Lefebre of Union City, PA was able to make the most lucrative tournament in professional bass fishing suspenseful, his back-up spots didn’t have the horsepower required to overtake Bennett. Lefebre ended the tournament in second place with a total weight of 19 pounds, 12 ounces after weighing five bass for 6 pounds, 8 ounces in the final round.

Jonesboro, AR pro Terry Bolton weighed five fish for 8 pounds, 10 ounces boosting his final combined weight to 19 pounds 9 ounces, giving him third-place honors. In fourth after all the confetti had fallen was Chris Baumgardner of Gastonia, NC with 16 pounds, 9 ounces after weighing five bass for 6 pounds even.

Kevin Vida of Clare, MI, who started the day in eighth place, weighed the day’s biggest stringer of 9 pounds 11 ounces. Vida’s final weight of 15 pounds 14 ounces was enough to move him into fifth at the tournament’s conclusion.

1st Place: Michael Bennett
Michael Bennett is no stranger to winning on the FLW Tour, having notched his first tour-level win this year at Lewis Smith. However, that win earned the 24-year old pro $125,000. With the win his championship crowing win this week at Murray, he’s a million dollars richer – but it’s not all about the money. “Don’t get me wrong, the money is great,” the humble pro admitted.

“But the win – the title – that’s what this week is all about. This is history, and I’m now a part of it.”

Being the model of consistency all week long, on the final day Bennett was able to only bring four fish to the scales. “It was just grueling today,” he said. “I worked as hard as I’ve ever worked in a tournament. I was just consistently running all day – going 100-miles-per-hour doing as much as I could to put five fish in the boat.”

With time running out and short of a limit Bennett decided to pull up and fish a bridge that he’d he once before during the tournament week. “I ended up catching my second-best fish of the day,” he said. “I pulled up there hoping to just catch a 12-incher, so I was shocked when I caught one over 3 pounds.”

At that point in the day, the normally reserved Bennett was feeling the pressure as his anxiety level was at an all-time high. “I knew that Dave (Lefebre) had already caught a limit so I was a little worried,” he said, adding that execution this week was elemental in his success. 

“I wouldn’t say that this was the cleanest tournament I’ve ever fish,” Bennett said, “but it’s up there. I think all week long I only lost one fish, and I’m not sure if it would’ve helped me or not.”

Thanks to his performance on the third day, Bennett was able to go into Sunday’s final round with some cushion. However, at times Sunday he began to let doubt enter his mind. “Saturday I knew that I had them good enough to be in contention,” he said. “Sunday, I never thought that I had it won. When I caught my last one I thought that I might have a shot, but I never once thought that I had it locked up. There’s just too much that can happen, so I never really knew for sure.”

Fishing a variety of baits throughout the week, Bennett explained that the Snag Proof Frog, available as “Fred’s Frog” (which has now won two tournaments this year) was the key to his victory. “I caught everything I weighed off of it Saturday,” he said. “Sunday, it accounted for three of the four fish I brought to the scales.”

It will likely take days for Bennett to fully absorb the monumental win and to be able to put it fully into proportion. But at first blush, he understands that being only the second person in the history of the sport to win seven figures in one tournament is epic. “This was, without a doubt, the most grueling tournament I’ve ever fished,” he said.

“It was just a mental grind because of the fact that I was getting so few bites. I think I had six bites Thursday total. Today I only had four…you just had to grind and keep you focus.”

2nd Place: Dave Lefebre
Dave Lefebre came into the day as the potential spoiler, but Sunday the magic that he’d been feeling as the day approached began to evaporate. “Yesterday, I had the mindset that the tournament was mine to win,” he explained. “All week long I’ve had really good execution, but today I didn’t. I don’t want to dwell on that at all though…not even for a second.”

Second place is obviously bittersweet, but Lefebre was able to put it into context when reviewing the incredible week he had and the opportunity that he was given. “The best thing that happened to me today was when I learned what second place paid, because I thought it was only 50-grand,” he laughingly said.

As for what got him into contention for the win, Dave explained that it all came down to just one bait. “I caught every single fish on a six-inch Berkley flip tail worm in June bug,” he said. “The water was real muddy where I was fishing, and I would move the bait just enough to get the tail of the worm to move. If there was a fish there, they couldn’t resist it.”

Lefebre focused on the scattered cover inside slight depressions along the bank within one key area of Murray all week. “I had several little sweet spots within a single stretch of bank,” he said. “It would take me like five minutes to fish each one.”

Dave found his area during practice, but didn’t fully realize what he’d stumbled across until the tournament began. “I fished them in practice, but sometimes you really have to just put the trolling motor down and spend some time there to know what’s going on,” he said. “That’s why I struggled a little the first day because I didn’t realize that these real subtle depressions where there.

“They were just so slight, but when you found one it was a guaranteed fish. The key was just knowing where they were at because there wasn’t anything from the bank that would tell you where they were.”

Reviewing the week, Lefebre explained that just being in contention was a huge bonus towards further solidifying an already stellar career. “This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” he said. “You never know if you’ll have another chance to win a million dollars fishing a tournament, so I’m disappointed, obviously, but I’m actually happier for Michael. He’s the guy I’d want to win it if I couldn’t.”

3rd Place: Terry Bolton
Terry Bolton knew going out Sunday morning that he was going to need his biggest limit of the week to catch Bennett. He knew that his area upriver had the right ingredients for that to happen, and that with the success he’d had up there all week he liked his chances. But this is fishing we’re talking about, after all.

“I went back upriver to the four or five pockets that had been producing for me all week and never got a bite,” he said. “I was sure going out that I would be able to catch a limit up the river, but it just didn’t work out. I basically had to spend the majority of my day in new water because none of my areas were working.”

Bolton said that he’d spent 90% of the week up river throwing a Spro Bronze-eye frog, but did have one span of docks that he’d found earlier in the week that he kept in the back of his mind. Needing a limit, given that his prime water had petered out, he headed back to the dam and his row of docks. 

“I had two fish at 3:15, and ran all the way back down by the launch,” he said. “I caught the last three off those docks.”

“I pulled up to the docks with two fish around 3:30,” Bolton added. “At 3:34, I put keeper number three in the box, and at 3:35 I put my fourth keeper in the boat. At 3:36 I got broke off and had to re-tie, and by 3:38 I had keeper number five in the boat and headed to weigh-in.”

Looking back on the week, Bolton said that there’s nothing he would change if he had the opportunity to. “It was a great week, and I fished about as well as I could have,” he said. “I gave it my best shot, and though I would’ve loved to have won this week, I can’t complain at all about my tournament.”

4th Place: Chris Baumgardner
Down in the 18th-place position after the first tournament day, Chris Baumgardner kept working and earned a spot in Saturday’s Top 10 field. However, what had worked to get him there was fading fast by Saturday, but he refused to give in. “I knew that the bite was fading fast, but I’m just too hardheaded to give up I guess,” he said.

“I actually wound up down by the dam fishing some new stuff (Sunday) afternoon just trying to upgrade my limit.”

Fishing the mid-section of the lake with a June bug or green pumpkin Zoom Horny Toad for the first three days of the event, Baumgardner wasn’t able to connect with the quality he needed to overtake the leaders in Sunday’s final round. “I caught the little limit that I weighed in pretty quick this morning,” he said. “I just wasn’t ever able to upgrade it.”

Baumgardner explained that his shallow-water pattern was fueled by the presence of bait – something that he’d noticed was in dwindling supply as the weekend wore on. “I was keying on little flats with shore grass around them back in pockets and there were just so many cruisers up there that I figured I could run across a few,” he said.

“The bait was the real key deal, and I started to notice Saturday that I wasn’t seen nearly the bait that I had been. The quality keepers must have moved out with the bait.”

5th Place: Kevin Vida
The way the week started off for Kevin Vida, it looked like he was going to be the man to beat coming down the stretch; however, the sight-fishing pattern he’d developed was very much a hit-or-miss affair. “I knew that the way these fish were I knew that I had a chance (to win),” he said.

“The only thing was that I had to catch them because as soon as they’d see me they were done.”

Vida explained that he’s still convinced that he had found the type of quality he could have won with, but at the end of the day it just came down to arithmetic. “Of the 30 fish that I would see I could catch maybe three of them,” he allowed. “They were just so skittish that the slightest mistake on my part would send them shooting. It was really a tedious deal.”

The second day for Vida was the toughest as a result of the heavy cloud cover that blanketed Murray. “I just couldn’t see them,” he said. “I only saw one fish all day. Today when I went back I saw several and was able to catch a few of them, but it was too little too late.”

The key to catching the elusive cruisers was stealth. “They were cruising in about a foot of water so you had to stay way off the bank and make a super-long cast,” Vida revealed. “I had to see them before they saw me. You could throw Pop-R way out in front of them, and if they had a sense that you were even remotely close they’d be gone.”

6th Place: Dion Hibdon
“You hear guys say that it’s great just to have been here and make the championship. The thing is that after winning it once already, I want to win it again. So just making the championship isn’t enough for me because I came in with the intention of winning it.

“So am I disappointed? You bet, but I got to fish exactly the way that I wanted to all week long, and really over the last two days I fished flawlessly – I just didn’t get enough bites. I think that there were just too many of us up the river and we just ran out of fish.

“I went out this morning and stuck with the same Luck-E-Strike10-inch worm that I caught everything else on to do everything I could to try and win. Second place won’t be remembered next week. The only you’re fishing for this week is the top spot, and that’s what I tried to do all week.” 

7th Place: Brent Ehrler
“I had to give myself an opportunity, so I ran with a top water as long as I could. The last couple of days I hadn’t really caught anything after 1:00, so I told myself that I was going to run some offshore stuff today where I thought I could catch a quick limit.

“I ran it, and missed two right off the bat. I lost another one up against a dock, and had another two fish that I missed shallow. I had the bites I needed to have a good limit, but was only able to get two of them in the boat today.

“Over the course of the week though, I couldn’t tell you how many miles of shoreline I covered just fishing as fast as I could. It was a really fun tournament, but it was a total grind too.”

8th Place: Brian Travis
“I hooked a 5-pounder on a swimbait in the first 45 minutes of the day and pulled her three feet and she came off. It just broke my heart. I lost another 4-pounder that got hung over a limb. That’s 9 pounds of fish in less than an hour. It was brutal.

“The frog got me into this thing, but the problem is that I milked them out over the first two days of the tournament. A hand-tied jig worked pretty well as a back up over the last two days, but it wasn’t enough to win with.

“I’m just really happy that I came out here and competed with the best in the world. Everyone has made me feel right at home. I actually never got nervous all week because it’s like a big family. I’m just excited about next year and getting out here on the Tour and trying to make a name for myself.”

9th Place: Mark Rose 
“I thank the good Lord for that one big bag on the first day. It’s kind of like a two-edged sword because it kept me there instead of going out and looking. I might could’ve made a little bit more money this week if I wouldn’t have stayed in that one spot, but there’s no way that I could’ve caught Michael.

“The only thing that I had any real confidence in was that one spot that I had from Thursday. I found it late in the day on Tuesday, and I just thought that it looked like a good place to throw a jig. Something happened, and they were feeding that first day, but they never were again.

“All in all though, it was a great week and I’m just so blessed to have been in this position to begin with.”

10th Place: Jay Yelas
“You work all year to qualify for this with the hopes of winning. Everything was going great for the first two days, but then the wheels sort of fell off. So now I’m just sort of left wondering what happened because things were looking pretty good before the weekend.

“I still had a really good tournament, and I guess that I just ran out of fish. I do know that there were a lot of big top water fish biting, but I never go onto that. Michael figured out how to catch those big ones on the frog and my hat’s off to him.”

FINAL STANDINGS