Entry 149-3
How Kevin VanDam Won the 2005 Bassmasters Classic
How VanDam Fished on the First Day of Competition
Editor’s Note: Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Michigan, won more than $250,000 this year at the Bassmasters Classic in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Three Rivers area. This Classic has become known as the “Minnow Classic,” because the participants caught so many small bass and was won by the lightest weights of fish in the history of the Classics. VanDam won the tournament by a mere 6 ounces. According to VanDam, “This was the most mentally-challenging tournament I’ve ever fished.” This week you’ll see VanDam’s strategy, his frustration, his disappointment and his eventual triumph.
Question: What was the first day of competition like, Kevin?
VanDam: I really struggled. I lost a lot of fish I had on my baits. I had some real mental challenges to overcome because I was getting so many strikes, but wasn’t able to land the fish. I ended up only catching three bass. But, luckily I caught the biggest bass of the tournament on the first day of the competition, a bass that weighed 2 pounds, 14 ounces. That weight lets you know just how tough catching bass in this tournament was. I caught that fish on the jerkbait that I ended up having to fish on the last day.
Question: Why were you missing so many bass?
VanDam: With the weather being as warm as it was, the smallmouth were wild. They were jumping, shaking a lot and just going bananas. I lost several really-nice smallmouth
fishing a shaky head with Strike King’s 3X Finesse worm. I normally wouldn’t lose this
kind of fish on this type of bait. I lost another really-nice smallmouth on the Strike King 1/4-ounce buzzbait. I had a trailer hook on the buzzbait and normally never would lose a smallmouth that hit that bait. I didn’t make any mistakes; I decided it was just the nature of the brown beast.
Question: Why did you go with the smaller 1/4-ounce Strike King Pro Model buzzbait?
VanDam: Because we were targeting smaller fish, I knew the 1/4-ounce buzzbait was the size of the shad on which the smallmouth were feeding. I used many different lures in the 2005 Classic, but they were all small baits. I also fished the Strike King Series 1 crankbait and a lot of other little lures like the Rocket Shad that Strike King makes. Since all the shad the bass were feeding on were about 1- to 1-1/2-inches long, I trimmed down the skirt on my spinner bait.
I was having problems not getting any strikes on the baits I was using. I was getting enough bites every day to win the Classic. However, the fish weren’t staying on the hooks, and there was nothing I could do to make the fish stay hooked-up. I had 10 rods laying on my casting deck with 10 different baits tied on them. I fished and even caught bass on all those lures. But, I found that the keeper-size bass seemed to be targeting the jerkbait. I lost more bass in this Classic than any Classic I’d ever fished. I lost so many fish, that I probably shouldn’t have won. Fortunately for me, everyone else was having the same problem. Everyone was getting numbers of strikes and losing a lot of bass.
Question: Kevin, do you think it was you who were at fault when you were losing bass, or were the bass so wild they couldn’t stay on the hook?
VanDam: The bass weren’t overly aggressive. They weren’t biting my bait because of a feeding instinct. The conditions we fished under the first day were high, bright skies with very-little wind, the complete opposite of practice day. I was having to make these fish react to the baits I was throwing, and they didn’t want to eat them. They were just slapping at them.
The basic nature of the smallmouth is when they’re feeding on shad, the smallmouth will run in and try to kill the shad and then circle back around to eat the bait. I think this reason was why we were losing so many bass. The fish were accustomed to attacking the balls of shad, killing some shad in the schools and then circling around and eating the shad. Therefore, when they were attacking our baits, they were attacking to kill the bait, not to eat the bait. That’s one of the reasons we were missing so many fish.
Question: What place were you in at the end of day one?
VanDam: I was in fifth place.
Question: How did you feel going to bed that night?
VanDam: I felt really good, believe it or not, although I was disappointed I wasn’t leading the tournament. I had enough bites that day that I should have easily been leading the tournament, but I just couldn’t put the fish in the boat. I realized that I’d missed an awful lot of opportunities to be way out in front in this 2005 Classic. But, I felt really good because I had been able to get so many bites by keepers, even though I didn’t catch them.
I felt that on the next day, the second day of the tournament, I could go out and get that many keeper bites again. If I could just keep the fish on the hook, I could lead the tournament by the second day. I went to bed confident, looking toward the next day of competition, and believing I could keep the bass that took my bait hooked-up.
