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Del Rio, TX – Making quick changes, or having the ability to decipher subtle variations in the environment and execute a plan accordingly is what separates the good from the truly great on the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament trail.
When the week began for the first event of the 2007 regular season at Lake Amistad, it looked like it was going to be a land-run week with records falling everywhere. Defending Toyota Rookie of the Year Steve Kennedy jumped out to the lead with a jaw-dropping 36-10 by capitalizing on the clouds and wind that morning to debut his growing prowess with the swimbait.
With the mega-weights that were posted Thursday, it looked like a sure thing that many of history’s records stood at risk of being tossed. Guys were praying for sun and slick conditions for the weekend, and the prediction for a sight-bite reached almost frenzied proportions.
Ultimately, changes in pressure and wind direction stymied the big-fish bonanza for Friday, and the weights of a several frontrunners took a dramatic dip. There were still some movers on the board, and still others who were pecking around the top gained steam. Once again, the dock talk seemed to be centered on the ensuing rush of females towards the bank.
When the weekend rolled around, it appeared that there where indeed some spawners up shallow, but Saturday’s weigh-in proved that the movers on this day were still tracking the staging fish located just off shore. None seemed to be more confident in the subtle changes they were making daily than Elite Series rookie Derek Remitz.
Remitz stole the lead Saturday by weighing the day’s second-heaviest limit. His limits had been growing all week, and with the lead secured, it should have been just a matter of following up with another solid sack Sunday and cruising to victory. Instead, what he did was nothing short of a true rookie blunder…he absolutely crushed the veteran competition!
Remitz brought 31-6 to the scales Sunday, boosting his four-day total weight to 111-7 – almost seven pounds ahead of his closest competitor! His total weight, though not a record, still secured the rookie a spot in the annals of bass-fishing history as one of the heaviest four-day weights ever recorded. Along with his spot in history, Remitz is also the first Elite rookie to leave with a victory their first time out.
In second place after all the dust had settled was the defending Angler of the Year Mike “Ike” Iaconelli, who’s total weight after four days of fishing was 103-11. Ike was backed into the water Sunday at Diablo East Marina needing only three pounds to win, but by the time he came to the scales that afternoon he was needing well over 25 pounds. His five-fish limit weighing 27-7 did the trick and took over the lead…until Remitz walked in.
Finishing the tournament in third place was day-one leader, and defending Toyota Rookie of the Year, Steve Kennedy, who needed 26-10 to bump Ike off the hot seat. For a tense moment, it appeared as though Kennedy would have enough, but instead fell two pounds shy weighing 24-8 instead, bringing his four-day total weight to 101-10.
Todd Faircloth finished in fourth place with a total weight of 100-5, anchored by his bracket-busting third-day limit, which earned him both Big Bass and Heavyweight honors. Faircloth’s final limit weighing 25-4 just wasn’t enough to dust off Iaconelli and give Faircloth the second win of his career.
Rounding out the top five was the living-legend himself, Kevin VanDam. Kevin brought 22-9 to the scales Sunday, bringing his total weight to 90-13 after four days of fishing. Because of his reputation, KVD is always a threat to win, but this just wasn’t his week as he was off pace after the first day.
1st Place: Derek Remitz
Elite Series rookie Derek Remitz qualified for the Bassmaster Classic via the Northern Opens, but had never faired better than a second-place at Series event on Grand Lake. Until earlier in the year, Remitz living out of his truck bouncing from tournament to tournament. He’s the quintessential vagabond Bass Rat, but it paid off in the biggest of ways Sunday at Lake Amistad.
Remitz may have came to Amistad as a rookie, but he left a champion by literally crushing the competition on the final day. “It’s always been my dream, and I can’t believe that it’s finally came true,” he said. “I think the win will take a while to sink in, but I cannot believe that I came out in my first tournament and won it.”
Each day Derek had the bulk of what he weighed before 10:00. Sunday – the day when it mattered most – his early-morning limit evaded him. “It was a slow day today,” he said. “It took the better part of the day to get my limit, so I was sweating it out a little at the midway point of the day.
“I’m just so glad that I finished with what I did because I lost a couple over the day that I was sure would come back to haunt me.”
Remitz was on a solid-but-improving pattern all week. “I was on good bites all week, but they got stronger each day of the tournament,” he said. “This lake is just going to be on fire next week, no doubt about it. All of the fish I was catching were staging fish, and the areas that I was in are just loaded.” |
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Remitz stole a page of a much more tenured bass pro’s field guide by making key adjustments all week based on what he was seeing change around him. “Usually what I was looking for, I was finding shallow too but never could get them to be real consistent,” he said.
“I was on a typical pre-spawn staging area along a ledge, and everyday it would just load up. Thankfully, I had picked up on the shallower bite earlier in the week, so I made the adjustment today and found them again.”
With the lead secured, Remitz should have been all nerves when he tried to go to bed with the names he had in his rearview mirror trying to chase him down. Still, he wasn’t rattled. “I slept good all night,” he explained. “The only highlight that I had Saturday night was watching the weather to know what it was going to be doing today.”
Sunday, Remitz served notice to everyone that, while he’s a rookie, he’s well grounded in the principles required to go the distance in this sport. “There was a time today where I got sort of nervous and started running around like an idiot,” he said. “I only had two in the livewell, so I felt like I had to make something happen. I settled down once I regrouped and started catching them again.”
On the win, Remitz isn’t able to just yet to fully summarize his feelings. “It’s just unreal right now,” he tried to explain. “It’s something that you dream about and work for your whole life, and to know that it’s finally here is almost unbelievable. I’m a pretty mellow person, so it’ll just take me a little bit to absorb everything.”
Second Place: Mike “Ike” Iaconelli
If Ike plans to repeat the incredible season he had in 2006, he knows that it will be done through his uncanny ability to be consistent. Coming into the first event of 2007, he felt sure that 25-pounds a day was going to be the ticket, and proceeded to make good on his gut feeling by running a 25-pound average all week.
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Ultimately, he miscalculated the needed weight by around three pounds, but his desire for a consistent tournament of 25-pounds-a-day held true as he did just that…with change to spare. “The key was being open-minded with bait selection,” he said. “I knew that they were coming into spawn real soon, so I set up in some areas to intercept the staging fish.
“The school that I was on was full of giant fish. I mean, they were so big that a couple of times I was sort of starstruck when I’d bring a seven pounder up and see eight or nine other fish with it that were just as big or bigger.” |
Ike credits a Berkley Beast as his primary “go to” bait during the week. He would fish the bait around the gigantic submersed mesquite trees where the big females were staging. “The Beast was the perfect bait to pitch into those deeper trees,” he explained. “I could pitch it out and swim it through the branches and you could see fish just keying on the bait as it came through.
“If the sun wasn’t up, I would go to a big swimbait around the same trees.”
Ike fished a very clean and almost error-free tournament. For that he’s justifiably proud; however, knowing that he was so close to a win is still bittersweet. “It was just a great tournament all the way around,” he said. “I caught a ton of big fish and just stayed on my game plan all week.
“You get very few opportunities to win an event, and we all want the points, but when you have a shot to win you really try and pull out all the stops.”
3rd Place: Steve Kennedy
Coming down the stretch of the 2006 Elite Series season, Steve Kennedy, Mike Iaconelli, and Kevin VanDam battled it out tooth-and-nail for the Angler of the Year title. Ultimately, Kennedy cruised into the Rookie of the Year title – missing the AOY by only a handful of points – and Ike finished the season as the Angler of the Year. From the looks of it, they’re on pace to do it again in’07.
Kennedy may have been able to close this event out had the big fish continued to torpedo his swimbait as they did Thursday. Instead, Friday he struggled and ultimately wasn’t able to make up the ground he needed. “I had so many follows and bumps that day, but they just wouldn’t eat it,” he said. “I was in some of the same water where I’d been throwing the swimbait and had a monster come up and just turn away.
“I went back into some of the same areas from Thursday all week – in fact, Saturday I must have caught 50 fish from the same spot that I’d caught two the day before. There was a whole bunch of little fish in this area, but there were some big ones too…unfortunately I couldn’t ever get them to bite like they did that first day.” |
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Kennedy made up some ground Saturday with the pre-frontal conditions that blew through the area. “The low pressure coming in made them eat Saturday, whereas Friday you could see them stick their nose out, but they’d never commit,” he said. “I covered a lot of water today going for the win – running through many of the same areas that I’d been in Thursday – but couldn’t get on those great big ones.”
Over the course of the week, Kennedy explained that he basically had four patterns that he was running – all of which were tied to the conditions at hand. “I really tried a lot of different stuff trying to see what they wanted every day,” he said. “I flipped a lot, and looking back I should have flipped more than what I did.
“Of course I threw the swimbait some, and I threw a big worm a little bit. I was really just a lot of different things trying to get some bigger bites.”
Kennedy doesn’t have any true regrets on the week. “Coming in, I felt like I needed to learn how to fish a swimbait because of the western swing,” he said. “The first day the conditions were perfect for it, but the second day, I guess you’ll have to call me Byron Jr. because I threw it and threw but never could hook up.”
4th Place: Todd Faircloth
Entering Sunday as one of the biggest movers of the week, having won the Berkley Heavyweight and Purolator Big Bass honors Saturday, Todd Faircloth found himself just 15-13 out of the lead when it was his turn to weigh in. Once again Todd busted a big sack at just over 25 pounds, and had a momentary lead, but ultimately his 100-4 wasn’t enough to stave off those who were in line behind him.
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Regardless of how the tournament ended, Faircloth will always know that Saturday he experienced the best 15 minutes of his fishing he’s ever known. “I’ve caught a lot of big stringers in my life, but that was definitely the biggest that I’ve ever caught during a tournament,” he said. “I felt sure when I left that school that there were some others in ite just as big.”
Unfortunately for Todd, the bigger fish that were surely in the magical school never appeared Sunday. “It was a lot slower today,” he said. “I started on the big school from yesterday, but there was nothing but little fish there.
“I didn’t find the school’s sweet spot until midway through Saturday, and I think I was within 100 yards of in Thursday and Friday. It moved a little on me Sunday and I was only picking up a straggler or two.” |
After the incredible 15-minute bass fishing blitz Todd served up Saturday, he completely shredded the swimbait to the point where it wasn’t usable. Feeling certain he’d need it Sunday, he pulled a few favors from fellow competitor and friend KVD.
“I had to get a swimbait from Kevin (VanDam) because the onet that I was using was just ruined,” he said, noting that Kevin didn’t charge him for the bait. “I’m sure he’s going to want some money for it now though.”
Faircloth abandoned the swimbait early in the day, and went back to his confidence bait – the Senko. “I was catching all of my bigger fish this week during the latter part of the day,” he said. “I would really struggle in the mornings, but just had to have the confidence to hang on until the afternoon. All of my fish – or at least the bulk of them – came on a Yamamoto Senko.”
After his first win at Table Rock – the final event of the 2006 Elite Series season – Faircloth struggled to find similarities between it and his home lake of Sam Rayburn in East Texas. He didn’t have that problem at Amistad. “This lake fishes very similar to Rayburn,” he explained. “It has a lot of flats and grass, and the fish related to the cover the same. The water is incredibly clear here, unlike Rayburn, but it’s very similar due to the cover and structure that they relate to.”
Summing up his tournament, Faircloth can’t help but go back to the amazing day he had Saturday. “It’s just been an incredible week,” he said. “Saturday was a dream-day for me, and really capped off a great tournament. I can only hope that this will be a regular stop for us.”
5th Place: Kevin VanDam
When KVD came to the weigh-in stage, you almost knew that the lead was about to change. It did, as he took the lead from Ish Monroe, and for a very short time his 7-1 anchor was in contention for Purolator Big Bass honors.
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While he briefly held his customary spot in the leader’s chair, he wasn’t able to hold it for long. “I just never really capitalized on opportunities during the calm conditions,” he said. “Saturday, I really had a hard time getting off the limit fish, thinking that the big bite was going to come along at any minute.
“It never did, and as a result of sitting on them as long as I did I feel like I squandered some really valuable opportunities.” |
VanDam targeted deep staging fish all week long with a new swimbait from Strike King. The bait, as he explained, is hard plastic allowing him to fish it fast. “I caught the majority of my fish on a new swimbait Strike King started making called the Queen Shad,” he said. “The key was letting the bait get down a little deeper.
“I don’t like to fish slow, so the big swimbaits aren’t the deal for me. Strike King’s can be worked real fast – the first couple of days that thing was almost on fire I was moving it so fast.”
VanDam relates his week to sitting in front of the aquarium at Bass Pro Shops. “I’ve seen some of the biggest fish I’ve ever seen in the wild here this week,” he said. “It’s hard to judge them, but they looked like submarines going under the boat. There’s not a ton of truly gigantic fish in this lake, but there are so many that are from eight to 12 pounds.”
Looking back at his day, and the entire week, VanDam can already pinpoint a few things that cost him, and one think that he would change for sure. “I thought the fishing would be better today for me today,” he said. “First thing this morning I lost several good ones that hurt me. I really just wish that I would have had a another hour because I figured something out right at the end of the day.”
Final Standings
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Pl. |
Pro Angler |
DAY 1 |
DAY 2 |
DAY 3 |
DAY 4 |
TOTAL |
|
# |
Wt |
# |
Wt |
# |
Wt |
# |
Wt |
# |
Wt |
|
1 |
Derek Remitz |
5 |
20- 3 |
5 |
29- 7 |
5 |
30- 7 |
5 |
31- 6 |
20 |
111- 7 |
|
2 |
Michael Iaconelli |
5 |
27- 9 |
5 |
24- 8 |
5 |
24- 3 |
5 |
27- 7 |
20 |
103-11 |
|
3 |
Steve Kennedy |
5 |
36-10 |
5 |
16- 6 |
5 |
24- 2 |
5 |
24- 8 |
20 |
101-10 |
|
4 |
Todd Faircloth |
5 |
18- 2 |
5 |
20- 8 |
5 |
36- 7 |
5 |
25- 4 |
20 |
100- 5 |
|
5 |
Kevin VanDam |
5 |
26- 8 |
5 |
24- 8 |
5 |
17- 4 |
5 |
22- 9 |
20 |
90-13 |
|
6 |
Ishama Monroe |
5 |
25- 2 |
5 |
18- 1 |
5 |
23- 6 |
5 |
21- 4 |
20 |
87-13 |
|
7 |
Davy Hite |
5 |
25-15 |
5 |
22- 1 |
5 |
21-13 |
5 |
17-12 |
20 |
87- 9 |
|
8 |
Edwin Evers |
5 |
29-11 |
5 |
20-14 |
5 |
20-11 |
5 |
15-14 |
20 |
87- 2 |
|
9 |
Skeet Reese |
5 |
25- 2 |
5 |
21- 7 |
5 |
20- 5 |
4 |
19- 7 |
19 |
86- 5 |
|
10 |
Ken Brodeur |
5 |
23- 7 |
5 |
19- 8 |
5 |
23-13 |
5 |
13- 6 |
20 |
80- 2 |
|
11 |
Jeff Kriet |
5 |
26-14 |
5 |
21- 4 |
5 |
18-15 |
5 |
12-15 |
20 |
80- 0 |
|
12 |
John Murray |
5 |
19- 4 |
5 |
27-10 |
5 |
20- 3 |
5 |
10-13 |
20 |
77-14 |
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