Syracuse , New York . – The 2009 Bassmaster Elite Series regular season is over, and 2009 Bassmaster Classic Champion Skeet Reese won the regular season points title. However, despite the fact that he was able to overtake reigning Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year Kevin VanDam at Oneida with a 14 th place finish, Reese will still head into Toyota Trucks Champions Weeks one point behind VanDam in the chase for the AOY title.
“The AOY trophy has been my goal since before the season; even before I won the Classic,” Reese said. “After I won the Classic in February, I wanted it even more, and I was able to get as close as I could to Kevin at Oneida ; now it's time to get to work in the postseason.”
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While Reese ended the season with a 10 point advantage of VanDam, the rounding procedures, and the two point bonus given to anglers who won a regular season event, VanDam will carry the one point advantage into the two postseason events in Alabama . “I wanted to be in the lead, but I can make that one point up in the first tournament in Alabama in September,” Reese figured. “It certainly is going to be interesting.”
While he finished 14 th at Oneida, the reigning Bassmaster Classic Champion said he felt at odds with his finish in the season finale. “I did the best with what I had, but I feel like I missed the most productive, winning pattern,” he said. “I never found the schooling fish that seemed to dominate the top of the leaderboard; I left the event wondering what had happened.”
He said that he spent the first two days of practice checking on patterns he had located in the past, and while there were some differences in the water temps, and the way the grass had grown, was able to locate quality schools of fish. “I found smallmouth on the first day using a Lucky Craft LV500, then went looking for my largemouth pattern the second day, and found that too,” he said. “I felt so comfortable with what I had found; I didn't go out the third day of practice. I spent the day organizing and cleaning my truck, and resting for the event.”
The Californian started the tournament with his new Wright & McGill Co. Skeet Reese Tessera Drop Shot Rod in his hands. The Abu Garcia Soron reel he mounted to it was spooled with 8-pound test Berkley 100% Fluorocarbon line tipped with a green pumpkin Berkley Gulp Wacky Crawler on a Lazer TroKar drop shot hook and ¼ oz. sinker. “I caught a bunch of smallmouth on the dropshot rig in the morning,” Reese said. “When I got to 13 pounds, I went to my largemouth water.” His smallmouth came in eight to eleven feet of water.
He then turned to his signature Skeet Reese Wright & McGill Co. 8-foot flippin' and pitchin' stick with his trademark black and yellow Abu Garcia SKT Revo and 25-pound-test 100% Fluorocarbon and a black and blue Berkley Chigger Craw on a Lazer TroKar straight shank flippin' hook with 3/4 –ounce tungsten weight.
“I was able to cull up to 16 pounds with largemouth by weigh-in, and felt pretty good with that,” Reese said. “One of the smallmouth in my bag died by the time I got it to the bump station, so that cost me a half of a pound, which is not something you want to do at Oneida; it cost me four places in the standings.” He opened the event in 9 th place with 15 pounds, 8 ounces.
On day two, he returned to the same areas, and again started with the drop shot rig. However, as the morning began to wear on, he decided to try another tactic on his deeper water flat with grass clumps, pitching a jig in the same areas.
“I'm not even sure what type of jig it was, basically a homemade ½-ounce Arkie style head with brown, purple and a little orange skirt, and a 3” green pumpkin Chigger Craw as a trailer” he said. “I started finesse flipping, and caught a bunch there as well.” He teamed his jig with his signature Wright & McGill Co. 7'2” Jig and Worm rod, SKT Revo and 12 pound Berkley 100% Fluorocarbon.”
He said that he tried his largemouth areas in the afternoon, but was only able to get a few bites. “I worked my butt off to cull up by a few ounces, and that hurt.” His 13-pound, 4-ounce limit gave him a total of 28 pounds, 12 ounces, and dropped him to 17 th in the standings.
He returned to his deeper flat on Saturday and found an east wind punishing his water, which made it difficult to control the light jig, so he ran to his largemouth water, which produced nothing. By then, the wind had died down some, but not enough to stay with light tackle. “I did something I've never done before,” he said. “I used my heavy flippin' rig to go after those smallmouth in that deeper grass. When I caught my first three pound smallmouth on a ¾-ounce weight and green pumpkin Chigger Craw, I knew I was on to something.”
He filled his limit by catching one fish every 20 minutes, then ran back to his largemouth water, which he said in hindsight was probably a mistake. “I caught my sixth fish, which culled me up to 13 pounds, and went looking for a big largemouth,” Reese said. “It didn't work out, I should have stayed on the smallmouth because I only culled up a little bit, and one or two more ounces would have put me into the finals.”
Despite feeling like he missed the winning pattern, and making a few tactical errors, the week was a success overall. “It's my highest finish at Oneida , and I did put some heat on Kevin in the Angler of the Year race,” he said. “But, I know I could have done better, and that always eats at me, oh well, on to the post season.”
