Local hero DeFoe a crowd favourite
By Bryan Brasher
BASS PRESS RELEASE
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| Ott DeFoe grabs lead with help from daily big bass, a 6lber. (Photo: BASS) |
Ott DeFoe came into Friday’s opening round of the GECIO
Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods with two patterns in mind
that he thought would work on the Tennessee River.
Only one of them did — and even then, just barely.
But it worked well enough to give him the lead at the
Super Bowl of Professional Bass Fishing.
DeFoe caught only eight keeper bass on the day, but his
best five weighed 20 pounds and gave him an early cushion over Arizona pros Roy
Hawk, who was second with 17-11, and Clifford Pirch, who was third with 16-11.
“I got five good bites all day, and I landed them,” said
DeFoe, a Knoxville resident who was considered by many to be the odds-on
favorite coming into the event. “Honestly, it felt like a very tough day.”
DeFoe’s two-pattern strategy included one tactic he
believed would produce heavier bass and another he thought would be a good
“limit filler.” The limit-filling pattern didn’t work at all.
Fortunately for the Tennessee pro, the big-fish strategy
produced a 6-pound largemouth that anchored his catch.
“A 6-pounder here is a really big one,” said DeFoe, who
also took the Day 1 lead in the Berkley Big Bass competition. “So to get that
one and four other pretty good ones, I felt really blessed.”
This marks the first time that Fort Loudon and Tellico
Lakes have hosted a major Bassmaster event — and since DeFoe lives in the area,
he probably knows as much about the fisheries as anyone. But even he couldn’t
say exactly what changed the fishing so dramatically from what he had come to
expect in practice.
“Coming in, I felt like both of my patterns would hold up
all week,” DeFoe said. “I don’t know if the fishing pressure got to the one
that didn’t work for me today or if it was the fact that the water level came
up some.
“If I had to guess, I would say the water level coming up
probably caused the fish to scatter out in some places.” As the first-round
leader, DeFoe receives the GEICO Everyday Leader Award of $2,500.
