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"Our Frogs WIN Tournaments!"
Cal Delta Winning Pattern
Monroe Flipped Franks Bank, Made Late Change
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The recent California Delta Western FLW Series was originally to be
held at Lake Shasta, but low water levels forced a return to the Delta
for the season finale.
Before the event began, many in the field noted that locals would have
a tremendous advantage, simply because the Delta's a different fishery
in fall, and traditionally, circuits visit in spring and early summer.
The local prediction came true. The final Top 10 was dominated by Delta studs, and Delta expert Ish Monroe topped them all.
Monroe weighed 22-plus pounds on day 2, averaged around 16 pounds the
other 3 days, and won by a relatively large 6-pound margin.
"It feels good to finally win on the FLW side, considering I've been a two-tour guy for a while," Monroe said.
About all the Delta big sticks in the Top 10, he noted: "It was really
cool. All those guys kicked my butt for many years out there on the
Delta. I was at every single Bassmaster that Robert Lee won. Mike
Reynolds is one of the deadliest guys there is here. Is there truly
anybody better with a frog than Bobby Barrack? To finally beat them all
felt pretty good."
Here's how he did it.
Practice
Monroe decided to dedicate each day of the 4-day practice to a
different section of the Delta. He started in the south, then moved to
the central area. He fished north on the third practice day, and
finished in the west Delta.
Water temperature was in the mid-60s.
He used a crankbait, frog and plastic in the search for fish.
"I felt like the north-central Delta was the best, just because of the
concentration of fish I found in an area near Franks Tract," he noted.
"The fish weren't actually in Franks Tract, because the grass was gone
from spraying.
"I think when they sprayed the grass, the fish just got into the
current and moved. I just had to hunt around for them, and when I found
them, I really found them."
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 16-03 (13th)
> Day 2: 5, 22-05 (2nd)
> Da6 3: 5, 14-12 (1st)
> Day 4: 5, 17-02
> Total = 20, 70-06
Monroe began day 1 at his hot bank in Franks and the bite was on.
He estimated he caught 35 to 40 fish both flipping and tossing a frog.
That was remarkable since so many in the field struggled to catch even
five that day.
"The frog was a little bit of a morning deal, but it was more about
when the tide came up and put some water underneath the mats," he
noted. "The bite was best the first day when the water would go up."
Blastoff was at low tide, and when he got to his area, he had about a half-hour before incoming.
He caught good fish again on day 2 from the same area, but the frog bite was gone and he caught them all flipping.
"I caught a 6, 5, 4 and two 3s," he noted. "I must have caught 40 to 50
keepers, and it was an all-day deal. I caught the 6-pounder first thing
in the morning, then the 5-pounder at about 11:00, then the 4-pounder
at about 12:30 or 1:00."
Day 3 offered drastically different conditions. "The wind blew hard �
25 to 30 mph," Monroe said. "I picked up a Hildebrandt spinnerbait,
thinking that bite would really be on. For some reason it wasn't, and I
think I caught one keeper. So I just put my head down and started
flipping again.
"At that time, I had about 2 hours before the low tide, and for some
reason the fish that day bit best on the low tide. I think the wind
positioned them on the edge of that grass, and I was flipping the edges
of grass and the deeper clumps. I caught a 5-pounder and ended up
catching 14 1/2 pounds."
That put him in 1st with 1 day left to fish.
Conditions the final day were tough again. The air temperature had
dropped from the 80s into the high-60s and low-70s, and the water
temperature in the morning was about 7 degrees cooler.
"The front was pretty much blown through, but it was still blowing
hard," Monroe said. "And it was cold. I started out with flipping
again, but it was slow. I pulled out the frog, pulled out the
spinnerbait, pulled out the crankbait � it just wasn't happening."
At 12:30, with 2 hours left, he had two rats in the box and reached a critical juncture.
"I got kind of frustrated, and I said to myself, 'You can't get
frustrated,'" he noted. "Like the first time I won, at Amistad, I sat
down, drank a vitamin energy drink, put a bunch of rods away, and made
a decision to move from the area I was fishing and expand a little bit.
"Driving by, I saw this one spot I hadn't fished in a while. I've
caught a lot of fish in the area, but they're usually small. I knew a
limit was just what I needed, so I pulled in and they started biting �
and I mean biting."
In those 2 hours, he caught about 20 keepers, including two 5-pounders.
"Realistically, I had about 8 or 9 pounds in the boat before the fish
really turned on hard. When the tide started coming in, they started
chewing, and I culled each of those fish out."
Winning Pattern Notes
Monroe described his main area near Franks as "a random bank" he hadn't
fished in over 10 years. It was a mix of riprap and tule berms, with a
lot of grass.
"It was one place on the Delta that had a lot of grass," he noted. "It
was still green. The first few days, before the wind, it had the
green-moss frog stuff that fish love so much. There were huge holes
underneath it with no grass. So you'd have this huge layer across with
holes inside. When the wind blew it apart, the fish moved off and I
concentrated on the real big clumps."
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Photo: FLW Outdoors/Vince Meyer
Monroe made a critical decision with 2 hours left to fish � he fished new water and whacked two 5-pounders.
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Photo: BassFan Store
Monroe's
two baits were a Snag Proof Bobby's Perfect frog in sparrow (top) and a
Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver in sprayed grass (bottom).
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Photo: FLW Outdoors/Vince Meyer
Ish Monroe fished as much of the Delta as he could during practice and eventually found the winning bank.
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Cup Winning Pattern
Bennett Flew Loose, Frog Biggest Factor Final 2 Days
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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Photo: BassFan
Michael
Bennett split his practice between shallow and deep, but the late cold
front that blew through convinced him to start shallow on day 1.
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at Lake Guntersville in Alabama.
But from 2004 until spring of this year, the frog was always seen as a
gambler's bait. Rojas challenged for several wins with a frog, but
inevitably fell short on lost bites.
That started to change earlier this year, when Fred Roumbanis won the
Murray Bassmaster Elite Series in South Carolina on a frog. And just 3
weeks ago, Rojas clinched his first frog win at the Oneida Elite Series
in New York.
But what happened Sunday will probably come to be the known as the day
the frog finally matured. Michael Bennett gambled with an amphibian
assault at the Forrest Wood Cup in Columbia, S.C. and used a Snag Proof frog to catch nearly all of his key fish.
Third-place Terry Bolton also threw a frog, and 4th-place Chris
Baumgardner threw a toad (a soft-plastic version of a scum frog that
can be fished on top or subsurface).
Part of the frog's maturation process has been equipment better
hooks, braided line, better frog bodies that walk the dog and collapse
on the strike, and rods that can set the hook hard, then settle back
with some give.
Part of the maturation process, too, has been the willingness of young
pros like Bennett, Roumbanis and others to throw the frog in
high-stakes situations, alongside Rojas who's been doing it for years.
And in the case of Bennett, he chose the frog in the toughest
imaginable conditions peak summer temperatures, clear water, a
post-frontal barometer, and beat-up water.
And he dusted legendary pros like Jay Yelas and Dion Hibdon who typically thrive in those conditions.
Bennett banked $1 million for the victory (the second tour-level win of
his career) and at 24, became the youngest angler ever to reach the $1
million mark in career earnings.
Here's how the 4-year pro from Lincoln, Calif. did it.
Photo: BassFan
Bennett noted that he refined his junk-pattern into specifics by day 3.
Practice
Conditions throughout the official practice period were stable hot
with lots of sun and mixed clouds. But a massive cold front blew though
on Tuesday that dropped air temperatures by 20 degrees and dumped rain
throughout the area.
The field rested on Wednesday, as the cold front ripped through, and
thus didn't know quite what to expect when they launched on Thursday
for day 1 of competition.
The biggest question, by far, was whether to fish shallow or deep. The
shallow bite seemed riskiest, since nobody knew how much rain had hit
particular parts of the lake.
Bennett practiced both ways. He practiced deep the first day, then
split things 50/50 the next. On the third practice day, he fished
shallow for the first few hours, then went deep and got bit
immediately. He stayed deep for the rest of the day and solidified five
spots where he thought he could catch deep fish.
The front arrived on the final practice day, so "it was a little
sketchy because of the cloud cover," he said. "In pre-practice I never
got bit shallow under clouds, but an hour before I came in, I shook off
a 3-pounder (shallow), and ended up catching another one."
Given that last-minute mini-flurry, he decided to start the tournament shallow.
Days 1 & 2
> Day 1: 5, 11-15
> Day 2: 5, 15-05 (10, 27-04)
Bennett started shallow as planned on day 1, but struck out. Then he
went and fished deep for 2 hours and never got a bite. He went shallow
again, caught a keeper, then went deep for another 2 hours and caught
one keeper out there. Then he went shallow again and caught another
keeper.
The shallow fish were better than the deep fish, so he stayed shallow the rest of the day.
He started shallow on day 2 and stayed with it the whole day, and the
rest of the tournament. That's because he caught a fish that clued him
into what he needed to look for.
After knowing what he needed to look for, he ran to a similar-looking
stretch and caught a 6-pounder and a 2 1/2. He went looking again, "for
other spots that looked good," and finished out his limit.
His biggest fish the first 2 days came on the frog, but he also caught weigh-fish on a dropshot.
The key on day 2, he noted, was he caught his fish from new water. "I
caught 15 pounds running all new water I'd never fished," he said. "I
felt I had a pattern I could duplicate across the lake. So after I had
my 15 pounds, I ran around the lake for an hour and a half looking for
similar characteristics.
With a 27-04, 2-day total, he topped the cut in 1st.
Bennett only lost one
frog-fish over the 4 days, something he said was a tribute to his
Fenwick Elite Tech Froggin' stick (top). Along with the frog, he caught
several weigh-fish on a Berkley Power Hand Pour Finesse worm (bottom,
actual color shown).VIEW MORE ANGLER PROFILES
class="header" colspan="5" height="20" background="images/sub_head_blank.gif">Michael Bennett 
<Hometown
Lincoln, California
Age
24
Former Occupation
Real estate agent (current)
Height
5' 10''
Weight
class="story3" 140 lbs.
Stats
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Years Pro
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3
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Top 10 Finishes (Wins)*
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5 (2) As of 8/17/2008
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Career Earnings*
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$1.4 million As of 8/17/2008
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Current World Rank
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15
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Current FLW Standing
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9 (933 points)
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Best Finish in 2008
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1 - Lewis Smith, 4/3/2008
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Best Finish in 2007
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7 - Lake Norman, 4/26/2007
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Last 3 Finishes
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1 - Lake Murray, 8/14/2008
7 - Detroit River, 7/10/2008
109 - Ft. Loudoun-Tellico, 6/19/2008
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Bassmaster Classics Fished (Won)
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0 (0) As of 8/17/2008
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FLW Championships Fished (Won)
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4 (1) As of 8/17/2008
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Titles/Honors
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Forrest Wood Cup (2008)
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Personal Stuff
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Favorite Food
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Steak (medium)
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Favorite Music
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Alternative rock
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Favorite Book/Movie
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Fishing magazines (book)/Wedding Crashers (movie)
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Non-Angling Hero
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"My dad because of his work ethic and ability to overcome tough situations."
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When Not Fishing
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"Not much, I'm usually fishing."
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Why He Fishes
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"I
love it. It's my favorite thing to do. You're competing against other
anglers and the fish. There's so many highs and lows, I just love it
all." |
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