2022 Tackle Warehouse Tour Stop 2 on the Harris Chain of Lakes Day 3: California Rookie Loberg Leads into the Final Day!

By Kyle Wood

Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Press Release 

LEESBURG, Fla.– If the fishing on the final day is anything like it was on Day 3, tomorrow’s finish to Bass Boat Technologies Stop 2 on the Harris Chain of Lakes Presented by Frogg Toggs is going to be one for the record books. Jeff Reynolds and Michael Neal (he’s unstoppable!) both caught more than 27 pounds on Day 3, and Andrew Loberg tallied 22-10 on Day 3 for a 57-11 total that put him on top prior to the weights zeroing out on the final day.

One of the most consistent pros all week, Loberg put his best weight of the week on the scale today, which he believes is mostly due to the fact he’s getting more dialed in.

“I’ve said it a few times, but a lot of the style of fishing [in Florida] reminds me a lot of Clear Lake, which is kind of my home lake,” said Loberg. “Shallow grass, all the tules, dirty-ish water and I really like targeting postspawn fish and they love going to the grass after they spawn. So that’s what I started doing in practice.

“I found a few areas and really just capitalized on those areas and milked them each day. Which is good because I’ve learned more and more each day as I’ve fished about the spots and what’s going on.”

Doing his damage in Lake Eustis, Loberg has been making the most of the morning bite each day.

“The morning bite each day has been kind of my best deal, especially for a bigger bite,” said the former Chico State angler. “As the day goes on it seems like it’s harder to get multiple bites. It’s kind of one here, one there. But the weather is changing so much you kind of almost have to practice in your areas and figure out how they are going to bite with all the changing conditions.”

Given that the Top 10 starts with a clean slate tomorrow, Loberg knows he’s likely got to bust his biggest bag of the event to have a shot at winning. With what he’s learned over the course of three days firing reaction baits around his spots, he’s going to lean on his West Coast roots to try and help him seal the deal.

“I’ve learned where the sweet spots are on my areas,” he said. “I’m going to try to figure out some other baits to throw and I’m definitely going to be throwing a big swimbait tomorrow just to see if I can get bigger bites. Over 20 (pounds) is for sure going to win it, so I really need to capitalize on the morning and strategize with different baits because I’ve put a lot of pressure on those areas over the last few days.”

With wins at the college and Toyota Series levels under his belt, the 28-year-old pro is used to closing events, though he’s never fished a tournament of this magnitude. But in classic Loberg form, he’s excited for the challenge and ready to get back out and do what he loves – go fishing.

Top 10 below

LeBrun Surges To Victory In 2021 Bassmaster Central Open Finale On Grand Lake

BASS PRESS RELEASE

GROVE, Okla. — Nick LeBrun’s strategy of “go big or go home” carried him to a dominant victory in the Basspro.com Bassmaster Central Open at Grand Lake with a three-day total weight of 50 pounds, 2 ounces.

 

Hailing from Bossier City, La., LeBrun placed third on Day 1 with 17-12, then improved to second with Friday’s limit of 15-3. Championship Saturday saw him sack up the day’s heaviest catch — 17-3, which helped him edge Day 1 leader Kenta Kimura of Japan by 4-6.

 

Along with the top prize of $47,833, LeBrun earned a spot in the 2022 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk, which is scheduled for March 4-6 on South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell.

 

“Money spends, but going to the Classic is a childhood, manhood, everything dream,” Lebrun said. “It’s going to take a while for that to sink in.”

 

LeBrun, who placed second at the Central Open on Alabama’s Smith Lake two weeks ago, caught all of the fish he weighed this week on a Whopper Plopper and another plopper-style bait. He started throwing the 110 size bait in practice, but windy conditions prompted him to upsize to the hefty 130, which holds its own in blustery conditions.

 

As it turned out, LeBrun’s big bait was a good match to the giant gizzard shad his fish were targeting. With fall bass intent on filing their bellies, many anglers were keying on the smaller and more common threadfin shad. Locating areas thick with big gizzards proved foundational to LeBrun’s success.

 

“Anytime you see those big gizzard shad up on the bank in this part of the country, it’s time to pick up that plopper and keep it in your hand all day,” LeBrun said. “You don’t get many bites, but the ones you get are usually big."

2019 FLW Cup Lake Hamilton Day 2: Bryan Thrift Leads with 27-10 lbs!

Canadians Luzak 17th & Johnston 46th

By Curtis Niedermier 

FLW PRESS RELEASE

Thrift readies for his first FLW Cup Championship.
(Photo: FLW)

For the second day in a row, Shelby, N.C., pro Bryan Thrift will go to bed with the lead in the 2019 FLW Cup at Lake Hamilton. Today, Thrift weighed in 12 pounds, 7 ounces for a two-day total of 27-10. He leads Florida pro Kyle Walters by 1 1/2 pounds.

For the most part, the pros who made the top 10 this week seem very confident that the final day could be the best of the week – a slugfest by Hamilton standards. Sunshine makes the bite go at Lake Hamilton this time of year, and there’s sunshine in the forecast. 

Thrift is the exception. He isn’t sure what to expect.

For the last two days, Thrift has run all over Hamilton, fishing deep, fishing shallow and having to scrape and claw for every bite. He thinks the fishing pressure has taken its toll, but what makes him most uncomfortable is that he’s not dialed in well enough to know that he can pull up on specific spots and get bit in expected ways.

“I don’t know where I can go catch one,” Thrift says. “I know where to throw, but I don’t know where I can catch one. And I don’t like that.

“Nothing seems to outshine anything else,” he adds. “I’ve caught some on reaction baits. I’ve caught some dragging worms. I’ve caught some on topwater. It’s just kind of a hodgepodge of anything.”

Thrift only had six keeper bites today. The morning bite was really slow for everyone, especially for the leader. He only had two fish by 1 o’clock. 

That’s when the former Angler of the Year made a key adjustment. 

“I just kind of put my head down and just made myself slow down and milk an area out and finally caught a limit,” he says. 

Lane, Swindle & Avena Classic Bound!

3 more join 2019 Classic
By Brian Brasher

BASS PRESS RELEASE

Adrian Avena told his followers on social media Thursday night that Friday’s final round of the Mossy Oak Fishing Bassmaster Classic Bracket on Carters Lake would be the most important six hours of his career.
 
Then he went out and made the most of the opportunity.
 
The New Jersey pro was one of three anglers — along with Gerald Swindle and Chris Lane of Alabama — who won their head-to-head matches during the Bracket finals to earn berths into the 2019 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods.
 
Avena, who will be making his first trip to the Super Bowl of Professional Bass Fishing, caught a five-bass limit that weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces, to easily win his match with Japanese pro Shin Fukae, who boated only one keeper that weighed 1-5.
 
“Today was all about making a dream come true,” Avena said. “I’ve never had a day of fishing that meant more, and I’m so glad it happened the way it did for me.”
 

Jeremy Lawyer Wins Costa FLW Series on Lake of the Ozarks with 46-03lbs!

Topwater and Jig Top on Ozark

by Kyle Wood

FLW PRESS RELEASE

New locations and topwaters key for Lawyer win.
(Photo: FLW)

Forgetting the past can be a hard thing for a bass fisherman to do. But for Jeremy Lawyer, it proved to be the right decision.

When Lawyer left the dock this morning for the final day of the Costa FLW Series event on Lake of the Ozarks presented by Evinrude, he was in fourth place and just 2 pounds, 8 ounces off the lead. Being that the top-10 weights were so close, the general consensus was that whoever caught the biggest limit on the final day would likely be crowned champion.

Lawyer hauled in a rare limit on Saturday worth 13-12 – also the heaviest of the day – and it proved to be more than enough to earn him his first FLW Series win with a total of 46-3 and $88,500 in winnings.

Fishing off instinct instead of history was the biggest key for the Sarcoxie, Mo., pro this week, and really for the entire season.

“Earlier in the year before the first Central Division event on Table Rock I erased all my waypoints there and had a good finish,” Lawyer says. “I just got a new Ranger before coming [to Lake of the Ozarks] and I didn’t transfer any of my waypoints over. You can get in trouble sometimes when you try to fish history and I just wanted to go fish what looks good and what’s right for the conditions.

“I’ve fished a lot of tournaments up here and have a lot of history and you can get stuck in a comfort zone, so I figured without my waypoints I wouldn’t have the pressure to try and fish that stuff. Sure, you remember good stretches of bank, but I wanted to be able to fish free. Really, fishing the (FLW) Tour has helped build my confidence to just fish because most of the lakes we go to I don’t have any history on.”

It all started this week when Lawyer ran to a stretch he hadn’t practiced on in the Gravois Arm and started catching fish flipping a prototype JaKKed shaky head (it will be his signature series jig) with a Zoom Magnum Trick Worm. He would then go on to cull up to 14-7 thanks to a River2Sea Whopper Plopper.

2018 Forest Wood Cup Lake Ouachita Day 2: Wes Logan Leads with 23-13lbs!

3 Canadians Out of Top 10
by Sean Ostruszka
FLW PRESS RELEASE

After two days of fishing, pros are usually pretty dialed in on their patterns. Not this week. You’d be hard pressed to find a pro who feels confident in any sort of pattern on Saturday at the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita.

Mixing shallow and deep working for Logan.
(Photo: FLW)

Case in point, day-one leader Alex Davis brought a lone fish to the scale today. Nick LeBrun, who was in second on day one, only caught three keepers. He was fortunate one of them weighed more than 6 pounds, which helped him stay in second.

At this point, even new leader Wes Logan is unsure if he’ll catch another fish with how random and tough the bites have been on Lake Ouachita. His catch thus far is 23 pounds, 13 ounces, including a 12-pound, 4-ounce bag that was the largest of day two. He has a 1-pound, 2-ounce lead over LeBrun going into the final day

“I’m just going with my gut, and so far it’s been right,” Logan says.

The Springville, Ala., pro has been running a two-pronged attack up shallow and out deep.

Two key offshore spots in 17 to 25 feet of water have been more consistent. He’s been able to catch multiple keepers there each day.

The shallow pattern is a lot more random. He doesn’t know where he’s going to go at any given moment.

“I must’ve hit 50 spots today,” Logan says. “I burnt a good amount of gas. I’m just running anywhere I see. No real reason to it. Just covering water.”

The end result has been him catching 10 keepers each day.

As for Sunday’s final day of competition, Logan doesn’t even know where he’ll start. While the deep bite has been more consistent, he’s not getting any big bites out there, and it seems to be better in the afternoon. That leaves him probably going shallow, but where is anybody’s guess.

The “anybody’s guess” part could be said about who’s going to win this event too. With such unpredictability in the bites and weights, most every pro in the top 10 has a shot to win if he has a good day.

Still, considering he’s a rookie who’s never been to Ouachita, Logan is just quite pleased to be where he’s sitting.

“I’m obviously excited [about leading the Cup],” Logan adds. “But you want to be leading after the third day, not the second.”

TOP 10 PROS

1. Wes Logan – Springville, Ala. – 23-13 (10)           

2. Nick LeBrun – Bossier City, La. – 22-11 (8)        

3. James Niggemeyer – Van, Texas – 20-14 (9)         

4. Zack Birge – Blanchard, Okla. – 20-6 (10)

5. Jason Lambert – Michie, Tenn. – 20-3 (10)          

6. John Cox – DeBary, Fla. – 19-14 (9)        

7. Bradford Beavers – Summerville, S.C. – 19-5 (8)  

8. Brandon Cobb – Greenwood, S.C. – 19-2 (10)     

9. Justin Atkins – Florence, Ala. – 19-0 (10)

10. Clent Davis – Montevallo, Ala. – 19-0 (10)        

2 Must-have Bass Baits for Covering Clear Water

Here's a video I did for Ontario OUT OF DOORS Magazine. It features the speed worm and the whopper plopper; two super baits for shallow clear water. These baits are fantastic at covering water and catching big bass.

KVD Wins the 2016 BASS Elite Toledo Bend

The King had returned. 
By Bryan Brasher
BASS PRESS RELEASESuperstar professional angler Kevin VanDam often deals with a different set of circumstances than the average angler on the Bassmaster Elite Series.

With such a sparkling resume, many fans' expectations for VanDam are much higher. With such a recognizable name and face, the number of people who want to catch a glimpse of him doing his thing on the water is sometimes off the charts.

Because of all that, many people have wondered aloud these past five years if VanDam would ever win another major tournament. But he was never one of them — and now, he's silenced all of his doubters.

Van Dam scratches out his 21st BASS title. (Photo: BASS)

VanDam slammed the door on a wire-to-wire victory at the A.R.E. Truck Caps Bassmaster Elite at Toledo Bend with 21 pounds, 6 ounces of bass on Championship Sunday. The big bag gave him a four-day total of 96-2 and his record 21st victory in a B.A.S.S. event.

"This was the most challenging tournament I've ever won," said VanDam, who raised his career earnings with B.A.S.S. to just over $5.9 million with Sunday's $100,000 payday. "The first two days were pretty good, but the last two days were really, really tough.

"It's normally not hard fishing here. But with the pressure out there this week, trying to be there at the right time when the conditions were right, it was tough."

VanDam caught 29-5 Thursday and 20-11 Friday to lead the field into Saturday's semifinal round with 50-0. But with the weekend, the lake became more crowded — and at times, VanDam had as many 50 boats following him from spot to spot.