As history has shown us on the Elites nothing is guaranteed, and after a blanket of fog delayed Saturday’s launch to around 8:10 the already intense final-day pursuit was elevated to a whole new level. Minus two hours of the precious morning bite, Lane struggled along until around 10:00 without a keeper bite.

So while at launch Lane may have seemingly had the $100,000 first-place prize money all but spent, there were at least four other anglers behind him poised to strike should he stumble. Also, the issue of who will walk away as the Angler of the Year point’s leader was anything but resolved at Saturday’s launch. In fact, VanDam and Reese were each tied at 1,588 points each. 

Of course the remaining prize money allowed for spots two through 12 is nice, but the anglers fishing in Saturday’s final field weren’t necessarily focused on it. Instead, their focus was on the additional points they could earn each spot they climbed up the leader board. 

As always, Saturday was once again all about swinging for the collective fence, only with a little more at stake. Bobby Lane, while not having the kind of day he’d hoped for, was still more than capable of hanging on for a wire-to-wire win – the first of his career. 

Lane closed the week with a total weight of 97-9 after posting a final-day 16-15, which was enough to eclipse Kevin VanDam, who ended the week in second place, by more than 5 pounds. VanDam brought an impressive 20-10 to the scales Saturday to boost his final combined weight to 92-1 - and give him at least a temporary lead in the Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year race.

Russ Lane ended the week in third place with a total weight of 90-9 after bringing in 22-10 Saturday, and Skeet Reese ended up in fourth place with 90-7 after placing 18-9 on the scales.

Fifth place belonged to Rick Morris, who brought in five bass weighing 22-11, pushing his four-day total weight to 88-6. Making his 2009 Top 12 debut was Steve Kennedy, who rounded out the Super Six, with 87-4 after weighing 23-14 in Saturday’s finally.

1st Place: Bobby Lane
Winning is never easy at this level, and though Bobby Lane notched his first Elite Series victory in a wire-to-wire runaway the final day wasn’t one he’d like to relive. “Today definitely didn’t go as planned,” he said. 

“I was looking forward to getting out there early today, but the two-and-a-half-hour fog delay nixed that. Sitting through that fog delay was absolutely the hardest thing I’ve ever done because I knew that they were out there schooling like they had been every morning this week. It was like a shot in the heart”

Lane arrived at his spot this morning at just after 8:30 this morning – but it wasn’t until 10:00 that he boated his first keeper. Ultimately he managed four keepers off the spot, but only one eclipsed the three pound mark. “It was absolutely dead slick today,” he said. “There just wasn’t a hint of current at all.

For the first time this week, Lane was forced to deviate from the techniques that brought him so far. “With it being as slick as it was, I thought that they might be suspending right off the edge,” he explained. 

“I picked up the Carolina rig for the first time all week, and caught two of the four keepers doing that.”

Trolling motors and electronics noise from the flotilla of onlookers likely hurt his spot, Lane admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, I was overwhelmed to see that many people there…just tickled to death,” he said. “They finally turned on just a little bit and I was able to catch four, but there was just too much pressure for them to really turn on like they had been.”

With his primary spot being a virtual bust, Lane moved to a back-up location which netted his limit fish; however, it was hooked deep and he knew that it was a gamble to put it in his live well. “My fifth fish was dying, but luckily I went to another spot and was able to cull it. 

“It was a pound and three-quarters, so culling it for a two-pounder was the like the best cull ever.”

Lane returned to his primary spot later in the afternoon, and by 2:00 had what he’d come for. “I ran about eight miles down the river, and was trying to decide what to do and the wind picked up just a little bit,” he said. 

“That’s all it took for me to head right back where I’d been all week. Thank God I did because on my third cast I caught a five-pounder.”

Lane has returned to Paris Landing early each day of the tournament, but Saturday’s early arrival to the area wasn’t to weigh-in…it was to fish. “I fished around the ramp for the last 15 minutes of the day,” he said. “I wound up catching one that culled a two-pounder that I’d been trying to get rid of all day.”

2nd Place: Kevin VanDam
While Kevin VanDam left the week still in control of the Angler of the Year race, he’d liked to have won another tournament at Kentucky Lake too. He pointed out that he would’ve needed a lot of things to go his way in order to win, and very little did. “It was a challenging day,” he said. 

“I just kind of fought through it and tried to make the most of it. I wound up having a decent day, but certainly not what I wanted.”

VanDam knew early on that between the two-hour fog delay and the absence of any wind or current, the day’s prospects weren’t bright. “Without any current you know that it’s going to be tough,” he said. 

“I was shooting for 24 or 25 pounds, but came up a little short of that.” 

VanDam employed either a Strike King Series 6 XD or a Strike King Sexy Spoon, but pointed out that he “caught 75% of my fish this week on the crankbait.” 

In hindsight, KVD said that he likely made a tactical error by over-managing his water Friday. “I had a place I was saving for today, but you have to have current,” he said. “Looking back, I sure wish that I would’ve fished it yesterday because there was zero current today.” 

3rd Place: Russ Lane 
Russ Lane has posted the best finish of this 2009 campaign, and his first Top 10 since 2007. That’s all fine and well, but it was the day’s fishing that really had the Alabama pro excited. “It was a really unbelievable day,” he said. 

“I have no way to explain why I caught them they way I did today. It was really just an awesome day.” 

Lane used a series of crankbaits for his 90-pound week: a Bomber BD5 Fat Free Shad BD5, a Strike King Series 5, and an unnamed Lucky Craft crankbait. “My whole deal was cranking the ends of shell beds,” he said. “The key to them was that they had to have hydrilla on them.

“Without the hydrilla being there, there wouldn’t be any fish. That was just something really subtle that I picked up on in practice that no one else seemed to notice until later in the week.”

In review of the week, Lane said that the distance his fish had to cover likely salvaged his week given the amount of pressure his area had. “My places were further in away from the river channel,” he said. 

“That’s the only thing I can figure out. I just didn’t get the pressure that the other guys did.”

4th Place: Skeet Reese
Skeet Reese started the day with an opportunity to not only take over the point’s race, but to also notch another win. Unfortunately the cards didn’t fall his way. “It was really pretty uneventful to be honest with you,” he said. 

“They didn’t pull any water, and I guess that I didn’t make the right adjustments. I just didn’t catch many fish at all today.”

Reese added that without any wind or current, he felt certain that he had been given a great opportunity. “I knew that without any current today that Bobby was going to struggle,” he said. “I felt like I had a great opportunity, but I just couldn’t get the fish to cooperate.”

Reese alternated between either a Lucky Craft RC 2.5 and a Strike King Series 5 crankbait to trigger the strike, and would pick up a 12-inch Berkley Power Worm to “drag on the bottom” if the crankbaits wouldn’t fire the school.

In the end, Reese – in his normal laid-back way – expressed some disappointment in how the final day had gone. “I did the best I could with what I was given I guess,” he said. “If anything, I should’ve maybe tried to go out a little deeper.”

5th Place: Rick Morris
With another Top 12 to his credit in 2009, Rick Morris is having a solid year, but wishes that the final day would’ve had a little more productivity so that he could’ve climbed another spot or two of the leader board. “The day started out slow, and there was just so much traffic out there,” he said. 

“When you pull up on a spot, most of the time you’d have to ask a local that was already there fishing if they minded if you fished there too.”

Morris didn’t have a limit until somewhere around the midday mark, and “even then, I didn’t have anything big at all,” he said. “After some grinding, I caught one pushing six that culled. That’s just how it was …just grinding all day.”

The key to the week for Morris was “cranking all day everyday.” When he wasn’t throwing a big deep-diving crankbait, he was on his big motor running to the next spot. “You just had to keep running all over the place,” he said. 

“You had to keep switching up.”

In review, Morris would like to have the first day to redo. “Looking back, I stayed at one hole too long the first day,” he said. “That really hurt it because I never caught another limit over 17 pounds from it.” 

6th Place: Steve Kennedy
It’s been a year since Steve Kennedy has made a Top 12 cut, which as he pointed out has “been an entire pregnancy ago.” Ecstatic over his finish, Steve revealed that the final day on Kentucky Lake was anything but a simple stroll in the park. 

“There was just a lot of boat traffic, which kind of bothered me coming out,” he said. “It got to where I’d get excited every time a pontoon boat would run over my marker buoy – which happens a lot more than you’d think. Whenever that would happen, the fish would go to feeding and I’d catch one real quick…maybe even two or three.”

Steve had been catching 50 to 60 fish a day, but he revealed that Saturday he didn’t come anywhere near that mark…and never caught a short one. “The fishing wasn’t anything like it was the last two or three days,” he said. “Oddly though, the ones that I caught were better for the most part.”

Kennedy’s primary weapon of choice was either a 5- or 6-inch Berkley Mullet swimbait (dependant on where they were positioned) or a football jig. “The fish just moved all over the place everyday this week,” he said. 

“My best day they were up in eight-feet on top of the grass, and today they were down in 20-feet off the ledge. You just really had to stay with them.”

The key to the week for Kennedy was in two off-the-beaten path spots that he’d had recent success on. “I had two spots up on the north end of the lake where I won that FLW tournament on,” he said. 

“Those fish that were there in May where still there in June. I had those two spots basically to myself.”

Kennedy said that this time of the year it’s tough to find a pattern or spot that’s not already well worn. “It’s hard this time of the year when everyone finds the same stuff,” he said. 

“One of my best spots mid-lake I was sharing with Kelly (Jordon), and he wound up catching 26 pounds off of it. If I would’ve had that one to myself things might have been different.” 

7th Place: Britt Myers
Final-Day Thoughts: “I started off pretty quick by catching a four-pound fish, but from there I had 70 more fish before I caught another keeper. Literally, with five minutes left in the day, I caught my biggest fish.”

8th Place: Kelly Jordon
Final-Day Thoughts: “I ran a lot of stuff, but they didn’t run any current today to speak of. I went to my old ace-in-the-hole spot and caught basically everything I weighed there.”

9th Place: Gerald Swindle
Final-Day Thoughts: “Coming into the day I knew that I didn’t have a realistic shot at winning, so for me it was just about trying to move up the leader board. So I really thought that with a little bit of current I might have a chance to do that. What happened was that nothing happened – no wind, no current. I guess I did okay for such a slick day, but I would’ve liked to have had another 10 pounds to really make things interesting.”

Bait of Choice: RC 2.5 in Copper Shad; ½ Picasso Shaky Head rigged with a Zoom Finesse worm

Biggest Challenge: “The biggest challenge for me this week was just the mental commitment it took to stay out there on the ledges. Fishing offshore is just not one of my strengths.”

Key to the Week: You really had to be ‘psycho-winding’ that crankbait over the tops of the grass to trigger a strike.” 

Week in Review: “I’m not a bad offshore fisherman, but it’s just not my style. To come here and make a Top 12 cut without any outside help, I’m just ecstatic. I’ve got no regrets.” 

10th Place: Byron Velvick
Final-Day Thoughts: “I got one big bite all day. There was no current, and there were just a ton of boats. Fortunately, everywhere I went that had a local fishing, they were gracious enough to move off. The problem was that as slick as the conditions were today, the fish were already spooked by the time I could start fishing.”

Bait of Choice: 10-inch Berkley Power Worm in Camo; Crankbait

11th Place: Jeff Kriet
Final-Day Thoughts: “I spent too much time trying to make the big ones bite. I had one little spot that they were eating really good on, but I just didn’t make the most of it. I caught a limit off it, but I lost a few big fish that would have helped. It lasted probably 30 minutes, and it was over.”

12th Place: Fred Roumbanis 
Final-Day Thoughts: “For the most part, the spectators were awesome. The problem is that there’s another tournament going on. When you pull up to your best spot and realize that it’s been pounded on for over an hour, it’s kind of frustrating.”

Week in Review: “Overall I can’t complain a bit. My goal coming into the week was to make a Top 12. I did that, so I got some valuable points towards the Angler of the Year race.”

FINAL STANDINGS