Kevin VanDam

Reese’s Hole Holds, edges Ike By Ounces

February 22, 2009
(bassfan.com, February 22, 2009)

The Bassmaster Classic at the Red River near Shreveport, La. could have gone any number of different ways today, but it went just one way – Skeet Reese’s way. The 40-year-old native Californian rode his outside hole in Bobo’s to a 16-12 limit.

Day-2 leader Jami Fralick’s jig-swimming pattern faded, which opened the door for Reese.

The only man who stood in Reese’s way was Mike Iaconelli, who began the day way back in a tie for 9th. Ike walloped a 20-03 limit, which included a 5-pounder he caught with 1 minute of fishing time left, but it was too little too late.

Reese, on the strength of that single stretch of water toward the outside of Bobo’s, edged Ike by 11 ounces and achieved what so few anglers can claim – the title of Bassmaster Classic champion.

Notably, Reese and Ike fished similar patterns, except Reese worked his in a community hole in pool 5, whereas Ike worked in isolation in Pool 4. But that doesn’t mean Reese had company. Plenty of anglers were packed in the back of Bobo’s, but Reese fished the outside where the fish were more in a true pre-spawn pattern.

That meant the fish weren’t knocked back by the successive cold fronts that moved through. In fact, as often happens with deeper pre-spawn fish, the cold seemed to improve the bite.

Reese came within a hair of breaking the all-time Classic weight record for the five-fish era, set by Luke Clausen at Toho in 2006, but his 54-13, 3-day total fell 1-05 short.

Brain Snowden suffered an engine malfunction this morning and lost 3 hours of fishing time. With a replacement boat, he returned to the area he’d worked the past 2 days alongside Fralick. Snowden sacked 18-01 and moved up three spots to finish 3rd with 52-13.

Fralick didn’t catch them, however. His 10-09 limit dropped him to 8th.

Mike McClelland continued his climb. He was 21st after day 1, 15th after day 2, and caught 21-11 today to finish 4th.

Edwin Evers caught a relatively strong 15-02 today, but fell two spots to finish 5th.

Federation Nation qualifier Bryan Schmidt caught 22-01 and improved 12 spots to finish 6th.

Kenyon Hill caught the day’s heaviest limit (24-02) and that pushed him up 15 spots to finish 7th.

As it turned out, this Classic was won on a spot, which many predicted it would be, but it wasn’t quite that simple. Reese put very little time into research and practice. He didn’t fish the river before the cutoff, ended his 3-day pre-practice early, and took a matter-of-fact approach to the final practice day and again quit early.

He developed his strategy, instead, through an hour or two of Internet study, and a map inspection that made it “obvious” Bobo’s was the place to fish.

http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3206

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