Entry 245-5

Another $100,000 Win for Kevin VanDam Using the New Sexy Shad Chrome Color

Part 5: The Final Day of Competition

Question: Kevin, what did you think you’d have to do to win this tournament? You were in the lead, you were the fisherman everyone had to beat, and the pressure was intense. How did you handle the pressure, and what did you do to set up to win?

VanDam: I knew the area I was fishing had a ton of bass in it, and my job was to get in that region and make those fish bite my bait. I returned to the same place where I’d been catching bass, and on my fifth cast, I caught a 3-1/2-pounder. I thought to myself, “Oh my goodness, this is going to be a great day.” But then I really started having a difficult time catching bass. I caught a couple more small keepers, and when I finally caught my fourth keeper, I looked in my live well and saw that none of my fish were really big.

I decided to leave Lake Toho and go to another lake to see if I could find bigger bass. The wind had picked up and was blowing 10 to 15 mph, and I felt like I had a couple of good spots on other lakes where the bass should be biting good based on the wind direction. The wind was the key in this tournament for catching bass. I wanted the wind blowing onto the grass line or the edge of the grass I was fishing. The wind switched back to the south and I thought to myself, “I’ve got the right spot for the wind to be blowing on the grass line to win this tournament at Cypress Lake.”

I cranked-up and ran to Cypress Lake and never got a bite. I decided to run back up to Lake Toho and return to the spot where I’d caught all my fish. I planned to invest my last 2 hours of the tournament in this region. Many times the bass would school-up in this area late in the afternoon just before the weigh-in. So, I was hoping to catch some schooling bass and wishing that some of those schools would have some large bass in them. I also decided to use my BioSonics unit to try and activate those bass into feeding. I ran from coordinate to coordinate on my GPS receiver. With the BioSonics running, when I reached one of those spots, a school of bass came up feeding right in front of me. I caught a few more bass with my Red Eye Shad in the Sexy Shad Chrome color, and I was able to cull some of my smaller bass for a bigger bass I caught out of that school.

I fished as hard as I could to try and not let this tournament slip away from me. I knew I only had 10 or 11 pounds of bass. I felt sure this wouldn’t be enough to win the tournament, because the other competitors were really catching bass. Although there were only 12 guys fishing the final day, they were the 12 guys who had caught the most bass every day of the tournament. I just didn’t feel that my small limit had a prayer of winning.

I was really disappointed going to the weigh-in. I felt like I really had had a chance to lead in Florida and an opportunity to win this tournament, and I’d given it away. I told myself, “Kevin, you’ve done everything you can to win this tournament, but you just didn’t get any big bites, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” On my way to the weigh-in, I was feeling like a loser. But when I reached the weigh-in, I saw that everyone else had a pretty-slow day, too. Out of the top-12 fishermen, the biggest stringer weighed-in was 11 pounds. I had 10-1/2 pounds, but I had a 2-pound lead going into the final day. So, I won by a couple of pounds.

Question: Were you surprised that you’d won, Kevin?

VanDam: Yes, I was.

Question: Who came in second?

VanDam: Ray Sedgwick came in second place and Scott Rook came in third place.

Question: So, you won the second tournament of the year. How did you finish in the first tournament of the year?

VanDam: I was in 31st place.

Question: You’re in fifth place for the Angler-of-the-Year title, right?

VanDam: Right.

Question: Kevin, what does this win mean for you?

VanDam: It means a lot to me. Florida has always been a state that’s really challenging for me. It’s not in my nature to fish super slowly, and that’s how you typically have to fish in Florida to win. But over the years, I’ve learned how I need to fish in Florida, and I’m starting to feel better that maybe over the years I’ve learned something as I’m getting older.

Question: Did you slow down your fishing for this tournament?

VanDam: Yes, I did. I fished more deliberately and methodically around the spots where I’d gotten bites. I made a lot of casts to the same area and tried to trigger the bass to bite by letting that Red Eye Shad fall.

Question: When you fished the King Shad, what color did you fish?

VanDam: I used the new green gizzard shad color, and I was reeling over the shallow grass using a reel-stop-reel-stop type of retrieve. If I hit grass, I’d rip the bait free. I kept the bait above the grass. I used this bait because it catches quality-size bass.

Question: Kevin, you took a real gamble after the first day, because all the leaders were sight fishing. Reasoning would have dictated that sight fishing would have been the winning pattern. So, why didn’t you change patterns?

VanDam: Because I’ve fished in Florida for many years, I know that historically, there are very few tournaments that have ever been won by an angler who sight fished every day of a 4-day tournament. I decided that the most-consistent bass would be in the deeper grass. I saw that the Red Eye Shad in the new Sexy Shad Chrome color would make these bass bite, if I’d fish it slower and fish the bait on the fall after I jerked it out of the grass or when I swam it through open water. I had confidence in where I was fishing and the bait I was using.

I’ve known that 4 days of good, consistent limits will beat one day of a really-good limit. I felt I could stay consistent and catch the fish I needed to catch to do well in this tournament, if I stayed with the pattern I was comfortable fishing, regardless of how everyone else was fishing. Now, I will admit that on the last day, I really thought I’d lost the tournament. But even if I’d lost, I would have still felt I used the right patterns to have the best chance to win.

Question: Don’t you think many people who don’t have the time on the water you have would have abandoned that open-water, deep-water pattern and probably started sight fishing?

VanDam: They very well may have, but you have to be true to yourself and what you believe, and true to what you’re learning every day on the water. The major key is seeing how the weather and the wind will not only affect your fishing, but every one else’s fishing, too. You have to gamble. I left the places where I was catching fish twice. Once, the gamble paid off, and the second time, it didn’t. But also, I remembered that I saw bass schooling in the afternoon in the area where I’d caught most of my fish. So, I left myself enough time to return to that spot, if I needed it.

Contents:

• Part 1: What I Learned in Practice
• Part 2: Day 1 of Competition
• Part 3: Day 2 of the Tournament
• Part 4: Day 3 of the Tournament
• Part 5: The Final Day of Competition