Day: May 6, 2019, The National Angler

ROJAS RIDES MORNING SHAD SPAWN TO WIN ON SMITH LAKE

CULLMAN, Ala. – It’s an age-old question in competitive bass fishing: pattern or location? If you ask MLF pro Dean Rojas this week, he’ll come down firmly on the side of “location”.

Fishing an area on the upper end of Smith Lake that he had found during practice for the Bass Pro Tour Phoenix Boats Stage Five Presented by Mercury, the Arizona pro went to work on the Sunday-morning shad spawn with a mix of baits (primarily a crankbait, swim jig, frog and swimbait). By the end of the first period, Rojas had put 23 fish on SCORETRACKER® for 36 pounds, 5 ounces – enough spotted and largemouth bass that Rojas could’ve put his rods down for most of the rest of the day and still won.

“It’s not too often that you get into a Championship Round where the fish are biting like that and you can use multiple baits to rack up a big lead,” Rojas said. “The conditions were right: we had overcast skies, a breeze, warm temperatures, and the fish were just feeding in the area I was in. It was just about capitalizing on this format. I knew I had to catch as many fish as I could early to put some distance between me and the field.”

Rojas added an additional 9-1 in the second and third periods for good measure, finishing with 47-0 and a 6-plus-pound win over Brent Chapman (40-14), Michael Neal (34-15), Jason Christie (32-6) and Todd Faircloth (32-2). Mark Rose (29-14), Brent Ehrler (26-0), Dustin Connell (24-14), Mike Iaconelli (17-14) and Fred Roumbanis (10-1) rounded out the Top 10.

“At the end of the first period, that was the end of (the bite),” Rojas admitted. “It was a big deal that I caught as many fish as I could to build a big lead. Period 2 and Period 3 were a matter of catching a few here and there, but I was struggling because they just wouldn’t bite.”

Rojas with one of several morning bites. Photo by Josh Gassmann

Rojas Cashes in on “Money Spot”

Rojas was one of a handful of anglers in the 80-man field who identified his primary area, a stretch of bushes in the Ryan Creek Arm. Rojas hit the area throughout the week of competition, sharing it periodically with Boyd Duckett, etc., but had the whole stretch to himself on Championship morning.

“I had to mix it up to catch all those fish, but there was bait all over that area, so I had a feeling the fish should be there this morning,” Rojas said. “I went to that spot every morning in the ride-around to see if they were still spawning, because that’s what they were doing in practice. I didn’t go to it until the Elimination Round because my other stuff wasn’t working, and then didn’t fish it in Knockout because Boyd was fishing there. I went there this morning and they were busting, so I sat down on it and fished it out.”

Chapman Made a Late Run at Rojas

Just 24 hours after qualifying for the finals thanks to a 3-13 largemouth that he caught with 10 seconds left, Chapman made another final-period run at the top of SCORETRACKER®, catching a 3-14 largemouth and a 4-10 largemouth in the final 20 minutes of competition to cut Rojas’ lead in half.

“I noticed going into the third period that things were getting tough, and that little point where I caught had a fish on every bush when there was a shad spawn going on,” Chapman said. “I figured that my best chance was to go somewhere where I knew I was putting my bait around fish on every single cast. I figured that was my best chance to at least put myself in position to have a chance to win.”

Brent Chapman put together another late-day flurry, finishing second. Photo by Josh Gassmann

Championship Notes

Rojas’ Stage Five win is his first tour-level win since a Bassmaster Elite Series title on Toledo Bend Reservoir in 2011, a span of 80 events … Neal fished his third Championship Round in five events this season … Sunday’s round was the first Bass Pro Tour Championship Sunday without Edwin Evers: the current Bass Pro Tour Points Race leader finished 16th, to add to his previous finishes of second, first, fourth and seventh … Faircloth was named the MLF Autism Awareness Champion on Sunday after weighing the most fish in April (Autism Awareness Month).

COBB TOPS CENTURY MARK, WINS BIG AT TOYOTA BASSMASTER TEXAS FEST ON LAKE FORK

May 6, 2019, LAKE FORK, Texas — Photo courtesy of BASS

Big Bass. Big Stage. Big Dreams.

It’s the inspiring mantra B.A.S.S. unveiled before the 2019 Bassmaster Elite Series season, and it perfectly sums up the last two months for Brandon Cobb.

After earning his first Elite Series victory in April on Lake Hartwell in his home state of South Carolina, Cobb caught one big bass after another at Texas’ Lake Fork to amass a four-day total of 114 pounds. It earned him his second six-figure first-place prize of the season on one of the biggest stages in bass fishing — the Toyota Bassmaster Texas Fest benefiting Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

He’s living his dream — big time.

“It’s absolutely been an amazing season for me,” said Cobb, who also earned an automatic berth into the 2020 Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods with the victory. “I had a lot of success on the FLW Tour, but I never could quite put together a win.

“For so many things to go right this season, it’s just been a dream come true.”

Cobb went into the day with nearly an 8-pound advantage over his closest competitor. But after a slow start, he actually lost the lead for a while to Georgia pro Micah Frazier.

Then Cobb, a 29-year-old former college angler at Clemson University, started working the magic that helped him grab the lead during Sunday’s semifinal round with a catch of 37-15.

Cobb put a three-pounder in his livewell at 8:23 a.m. and then added a 4-13 and a 6-5 in the span of six minutes between 9:07 a.m. and 9:13. He added a 3-15 at 9:38 and a 6-2 at 9:43. At that point, he had 24-13 and the tournament seemed to be over.

He kept culling until his five biggest fish weighed 6-5, 6-2, 6-2, 5-10 and 5-12 for total weight of 29-15. All fish were weighed on the water and immediately released.

“It was really boring until you’d run into them,” he said. “Then when you’d hit them, it was amazing.”

Cobb caught the bulk of his weight all week fishing around shallow shellbeds where bass were feeding on spawning shad. His primary bait was a Dual Hardcore Minnow Flat 110 SP jerkbait in ghost pro blue.

“I was basically running points and flats, and the areas I was fishing might be 6 feet deep for 200 yards,” he said. “But the fish, when they were eating, were in 1 to 2 1/2 feet of water up on the tops of the shellbeds.

“I’ve got mud all over me because I had to pick mud off my jerkbait bill just about every cast. I was literally jerking it into the bottom.”

Surface activity always signaled Cobb that the fishing was about to get good.

“When you hit a big school of shad up on one of those shellbeds, I think you pushed the bait up with your boat,” he said. “When that happened, bass would start blowing up everywhere on the surface.

“I hooked two or three doubles (two fish on one cast) today and actually caught one double.”

During the rare moments when Cobb wasn’t fishing the offshore shellbeds, he fished some shallow shoreline structure hoping to catch a few spawning fish. While doing that during Sunday’s semifinal round, he managed to boat an 11-1 monster that ranked as the Toyota Tundra Big Bass of the Week.

Cobb earned a new Toyota for that fish to add to the $247,500 cash he’s already won this year.

During ceremonies at the 50th Classic, to be held next March in Birmingham, Ala., Cobb will also receive one of the most exclusive awards presented by B.A.S.S. — the Century Belt. The belt is only given to anglers who catch at least 100 pounds of bass during an Elite Series event.

Second-place angler Garrett Paquette of Michigan, who caught 101-15, will also receive a Century Belt.

Prior to Texas Fest, no angler had earned one of the belts since the 2013 Elite Series event on Falcon Lake when Keith Combs (111-5), Rick Clunn (105-6) and John Crews (103-13) all topped the 100-pound mark.

Cobb has seemed cool and calm all season long. But now, with all of that hardware — and a Classic berth — already secured, he said he can be even more relaxed the rest of the way.

“I’ve been in position to win these kinds of events so many times,” he said. “But something would always go wrong, whether it was a bad last day or whatever.

“This has been the best year I could dream of. Aside from winning the Classic, how could it get any better than this?”

The fishing was as good as expected on Lake Fork with 63 five-bass limits of 20 pounds or more caught in four days. Of those 63, five topped the 30-pound mark.

South Carolina rookie Patrick Walters remained in the lead in both the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year and the DICK`S Sporting Goods Rookie of Year race, after five events, earning $1,000 for AOY and $500 for ROY.