2009 Bassmaster Classic First Glance

I am going First Glance, because in a day or so, all the footage will be out, photos, articles on baits and presentation, the real nuts & bolts of how the anglers caught their fish. Right now we are going off the cuff, a little anyways.

Congrats to Skeet Reese, this with his AOY title validates his career if he never boats another bass in a tournament, not likely! I think several guys were on fish to win this event, but it seems that Skeet just made the right decisions and for the most part must have fished pretty clean and landed his bites. The early reports are he used two main baits, the new Crazy Legs Chigger craw and the Lucky Craft Redemption Spinnerbait. These baits seem very fitting, since a chigger craw was Skeet’s demise when Boyd Duckett used it to knock him to second on Lay Lake and Skeet designed the Redemption Spinnerbait for Lucky Craft and that is exactly what he got, REDEMPTION!!! It will also be interesting if other anglers start sporting Skeet’s new hair style…. Maybe since he could spend less time on his hair and more time preparing tackle or sleeping and that is what fueled his win…….

Iaconelli is a great angler, but I think our ear drums will appreciate him not winning As I review the final standings, the most interesting thing I noticed is that not a single angler was able to break 20lbs on more then one day. The weighs were really kind of up and down for all the anglers, I think that is just the nature of the Red RIver to some degree. I believe the guys weights who varied less were the ones that made the better adjustments in either area or presentation or both. COngrats to Federation Nation champ Brian Schmidt for his 6th place finish, awesome job!!!

Couple interesting things, Kelly Jordan left his primary area early today with a few small fish, later in the day Alton Jones slipped in and caught 20lbs, so if KJ would have stuck it out or came back earlier, it could have been a different story. Also Jami Fralick was sharing an area with Snowden, the first two days, Fralick caught the big bag, today Snowden had the big bag and would have won it for Fralick, tough to say what would have happened if they didn’t have to share.

Seemed like pad stems and wood were big keys. Soft plastics, Spinnerbaits, jigs and a few crankbait fish. Like Kenyon Hill said, it is very much Meat & Potato fishing.

Photo Courtesy of ESPN.com
I think my Fantasy team took a nose dive as all 3 of my remaining anglers fell in the standings. Better luck in 2 weeks at Amistad.