Florida’s Harris Chain of Lakes is a popular BASS stop, but tournaments there had almost always taken place in the spring. This time around, though, anglers fishing the Bassmaster Elite Series Wildcard Qualifier faced a full-on late-fall/winter fishery.
Needless to say, conditions were tough. It took Ben Matsubu 13 1/2 pounds a day to win, but nobody else was even close. In fact, Matsubu made it a total blowout, and won by a 7 1/2-pound margin.
It was his first BASS win, and the biggest moment of his career so far. With it, he pocketed a boat package valued at over $50,000, plus paid entry fees for the 2007 Elite Series season ($55,000). Here’s how the Texas pro did it.
Practice
As practice began, Ben Matsubu noticed that the fish weren’t in the shallow canals – the water was too low. Instead, they were concentrated to the outside in main-lake areas. But rather than run helter-skelter through the chain of lakes, he decided to focus first on Lake Eustis.
He found three banks worth the time and effort, but it was really boring. On the second day of practice, he thought about going into Harris to practice, but the wind was blowing hard. So he decided to focus more on Eustis, and worked a 3-mile stretch he hadn’t hit yet. Within that, he found a half-mile stretch with fish.
The third day of practice was basically a bust. With his Eustis work pretty much done, he ran to Dora. It was a mudbowl with no bass. So he entered competition with two or three possible stretches to fish on Eustis.
Notable was that much of the field was flipping and worming, but he was cranking. Also notable was that his main spot, where he planned to start, was near a well-known community hole on the north end of Eustis.
Day 1
Matsubu started day 1 of the tournament near the community hole. Conditions were windy and rainy, and it took him about an hour and a half to catch a limit. At that point, he made the key decision of the tournament.
“I told myself, ‘You know what, I need to keep going another quarter-mile.’ I hit one stretch where I didn’t catch them in practice, and there were big ones in there. I caught a couple of big fish right away, but never got another bite there.”
If he hadn’t gone that extra quarter-mile, he wouldn’t have caught those two fish. And as he’d learn the next day, that quarter-mile stretch – about a half-mile from the community hole – turned out to be the winning area. But as noted, he initially caught two big fish there, then the bite ended. He finished up his day in Harris, caught his limit, and that was it for day 1.
Day 2
Day 2 delivered post-frontal conditions, but Matsubu’s fish bit early. He started on his big-fish spot from day 1 and quickly caught a 3- and 4-pounder. But he also lost a 5 1/2- to 6-pounder. He decided then to lay off the area.
Ben continued to run and gun in Eustis and finished off his limit.
Day 3
Things happened pretty quickly for Matsubu on day 3. He ran right to his big-fish spot again, and immediately connected. “I missed the first fish, and caught the second – a 4-pounder right where I’d caught my good fish the day before. Then 10 yards later I caught a 2 1/2. Then 30 yards later I caught a 3 1/2. Then I struggled for a long time.”
He eventually pulled the plug on his big-fish spot and commenced to running. He hit all his spots from the previous 2 days, but hit the lode later in the day.
“On my way to Harris, there was an area I’d found in practice, but I never caught a fish there on day 1 or 2, probably because the wind wasn’t blowing,” he noted. “But on the last day, the wind was blowing along the banks. We went in and they were everywhere.
He lost two really good ones, and culled out a little 12-incher. And his partner caught two 2 1/2s real quick. At that point it was game over.
Winning Pattern Notes
About his big-fish spot, Matsubu said: “It was a sort of flat little point with four different types of vegetation on it – hydrilla, eelgrass, reeds and Kissimmee grass.”
Also important were depressions to the outside of the weeds. “In the Harris Chain, people build up their backyards by taking dirt out of the lake,” he said. “That leaves a lot of 8- to 10-foot holes in front of the Kissimmee grass.
“And right by the (big-fish) area, there was a park, and when they built up a certain part of the park, they left an 8-foot hole within 10 yards of where I fished. That probably contributed to it a little bit. It’s a nice deep little hole that the fish can turn to if it got cold.”
He didn’t fish that hole though – he fished pockets of grass. During practice, he marked the end of every eelgrass and hydrilla bed in the productive areas. He noted that allowed him to maneuver the boat to utilize the whole area of grass. But the key areas were those rare spots where the grass extended out about 20 yards beyond where it normally ended.
And he’d tick the grass with the crankbait, much like fishing a Rat-L-Trap in the grass. He started with his rodtip high, at about 11:00, then slowly lowered it as his crank moved into deeper water, all the while ticking the top of the grass. He did catch one fish, a 4-pounder, on a worm. Otherwise, all his fish bit the Lucky Craft RC 2.5.
Winning Gear Notes
> Crankbait gear: 7′ medium-action Powell fiberglass rod, Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris casting reel, 16-pound Yamamoto Sugoi fluorocarbon line, Lucky Craft Rick Clunn Crankbaits 2.5 (chartreuse/black-back).
> He changed out the stock hooks for No. 2 Mustad Triple Grip trebles (red on front, black-chrome on back), because he felt the stock hooks were too light for big bass.
> Worm gear: 7’3″ heavy-action Powell frog rod, Shimano Curado Super-Free casting reel, 16-pound Sugoi, 4/0 Roboworm ReBarb hook, 1/8oz Kanji Senkin X-Metal tungsten weight, 6 1/2″ Gary Yamamoto Kut Tail worm (watermelon/gold).
> He pegged the weight about 1/4-inch above the worm with rubber from a spinnerbait skirt. Her prefers the rubber over a toothpick because it won’t nick the fluorocarbon.
> He also used a BSX Biosonix Fish Attractor Unit. “I’ve had Biosonix for almost 2 years now, and I believe that in shallow water, it excites the fish,” he said. “I’ve heard both pros and cons about it, but I’m convinced that it works in shallow water. I’ve seen post-spawn fish guarding fry swim 5 to 10 feet toward the boat when the unit’s on. They just leave the fry back there.”
The Bottom Line
> Main factor in his success – “Getting on those big fish. Going that extra quarter-mile on day 1, and also using the crankbait when others weren’t.”
> Performance edge – “The (RC 2.5) crankbait. In practice, I started catching them on a spinnerbait. But I started to experiment with different sizes of RCs – the 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5. After I caught one on a 1.5, I saw a bluegill that was a little bigger than the 1.5, so I switched to a 2.5., then to a 3. After the bass regurgitated a bunch of bluegill in my livewell, I saw the 2.5 was the perfect size, and that was a key factor.”
His three-day total of 40-15 easily outdistanced Georgia’s Jim Murray (33-8) and Florida’s Bryan Hudgins (32-13). Rounding out the top five were Marty Robinson of South Carolina (32-7) and Matt Amedeo of Ohio (31-9).
Rich
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