Brent Ehrler Wins Toyota Texas Bass Classic

Man, what a difference a couple of months and 250 highway miles can make! Brent Ehrler's first visit to the Lonestar State this year was completely devoid of highlights. In his Bassmaster Elite Series debut, the former FLW Tour star and 2006 Forrest Wood Cup champion boated just three keepers over 2 days at the Sabine River out of Orange, Texas. Their total weight amounted to a paltry 5-12. Things went far better over the recent holiday weekend at a much different type of fishery 4 hours to the north. Ehrler caught a single fish from Lake Fork that was more than twice the size of his entire haul from the Sabine in March, along with 14 other nice ones that carried him to victory at the Toyota Texas Bass Classic. The Californian has fished extremely well since his tank job at the Sabine and has clawed his way back to No. 9 in the Toyota Tundra B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year (AOY) race. He'll take a great deal of momentum into BASSFest next week at Kentucky Lake, where he'll go about his work in much the same way he did at Fork. He started the final day at the TTBC trailing Jason Christie by 5 3/4 pounds, but made up that deficit and then some by catching a tournament-best 10-11 behemoth with about an hour remaining in the day. The giant anchored a 31-08 sack that pushed his total to 89-12, which was 2 pounds more than runner-up Christie compiled.

Ehrler, who's respectfully called "Meter Man" by his fellow pros due to his ability to locate offshore fish using his depthfinders, spent almost all of the 2 1/2 practice days staring at his Humminbird units. He found quite a few places where multiple post-spawn fish had congregated, but only one that he was really wild about. It was a spot where a long point fell off into much deeper water that went undetected or ignored by just about everybody else. Naturally, he found it with his graph, and the first practice cast he made produced a 6-pounder. "I just idled over it and the fish were there," he said. "I don't know what was different about it, to be honest - it was just one of those overlooked spots. "It seemed obvious, but maybe not completely obvious to everybody. Some places seem like they have a flag waving that says, 'Hey, come over here.' This wasn't one of those." Unlike a lot of similar offshore hotspots at Fork, this one wasn't peppered with timber. The sweet spot was a 40-by-40 foot shelf topped by either rock or mussels. The fish were sitting in depths ranging from 18 to 25 feet. "It had a bunch of white bass there, but they were off on the sides," he said. "There was one cast I could line up that produced a lot of bites. "Some of the largemouths were up on top and some were on the sides."

Competition:

Ehrler caught an 8-pounder and four fish that averaged a little over 5 pounds apiece on day 1 to establish himself as one of the contenders. He came in a quarter-pound heavier on day 2, which move him up one spot (to 5th) in the standings and set the stage for his final-day heroics. He pulled 23 pounds off his primary locale during the morning of day 3, but then the action went stagnant. He finally pulled out during the lunch hour and relocated to a point that he'd fished in last year's event. It was a place he'd wanted to try earlier in the event, but found a boat on it each time he arrived. With only 10 anglers in the field on Monday, he hoped it had gotten a much-needed rest. Within 20 minutes of arriving, he connected with the bruiser that would bring him the victory and also garner him a new Toyota Tundra as the largest fish of the event. The fish took a hollow-belly swimbait - one of three baits he used during the week (the others were a jig and a deep-diving crankbait). That goliath and a 6-pounder that arrived shortly thereafter gave him enough weight to overtake Christie, who weighed 23-12 on the final day. "I'm still kind of shocked," he said a couple hours later. "I really didn't think that I had a great chance to win today because I was so far behind. "This win ranks way up there for me." His best spot ended up surrendering 11 of the 15 fish he took to the scale. Ten of those were enticed by the swimbait, but the others played key roles. "Bait rotation was a big thing. I'd catch one on the swimbait, then not get a bit for 15 minutes, then throw the jig and I might get one on my first cast. I only got a school fired up on a crankbait one time - the rest of the time the bites were sporadic."

Winning Gear:

Swimbait gear: 7'6" heavy-action Daiwa Zillion or Daiwa Tatula flipping stick, Daiwa Tatula casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 16-pound Sunline Shooter flurocarbon line, 3/4- or 1-ounce BOSS jighead, unnamed hollow-belly swimbait (various shad-themed colors). "I didn't have very many baits of any one color and I probably used four different ones," he said. "That really didn't seem to matter." He threw the 1-ounce jighead on the Zillion rod and the 3/4-ounce on the Tatula. "The Tatula has just a slightly softer tip," he said.

Jig gear: 7'4" heavy-action Daiwa Tatula frog rod, Daiwa Steez EX casting reel (7.9:1 ratio), 16-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, 3/4-ounce BOSS football-head jig (green-pumpkin), 5" Yamamoto Twin Tail trailer (green-pumpkin).

Cranking gear: 8' prototype Daiwa fiberglass composite cranking rod, Daiwa Tatula casting reel (5.4:1 ratio), 12-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon, Lucky Craft RTO 3.5XD (pearl threadfin).

Main factor: "It was that spot, for sure. I had it to myself and I was able to kind of watch it and make sure it didn't get a lot of pressure on it."

Performance edge: "It was just a combination - the Humminbird showed me where the fish were, and then everything else took over."

TTBC Winning Pattern BassFan 5/27/15 (John Johnson)

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Christie is a superb flipper, but he'd pretty much made up his mind that he was going to fish offshore long before he arrived in Quitman, Texas. "I practiced shallow for 4 or 5 hours and checked out the flooded willows, but I felt like it was going to be won out," he said. "I could catch a couple of 5-pounders up shallow, but I could go out deep and catch a couple of 7-pounders." He developed a string of about 15 places that had the potential to surrender quality fish - some that he'd fished in last year's TTBC and others that he discovered in practice. "The problem was that I didn't have any of them to myself," he said. "I spent a lot of time idling, looking for a place that nobody else would find, but I just couldn't do it. "Out of the 15 places I had, the majority might have three big ones on it at a given time, but not a whole school. Catching them was a timing deal - you had to hope they were ready to eat when you pulled up." He led the field after each of the first 2 days and his day-1 stringer was the biggest of the tournament. It included a 10-01 brute that stood up as the big fish of the event until Ehrler roped a 10-11 in the final hour of the last day. "With them giving away a (Toyota Tundra) for big bass, that had a lot to do with my strategy - I wanted to be out there where the big ones swim. I'm not saying I knew I was going to catch a 10-pounder, that's just the way it went." He alternated between crankbaits and swimbaits throughout the event and lost only one fish - an 8-pounder on day 2.

Swimbait gear: 7'10" heavy-action Falcon Cara Big Swimbait rod, Team Lew's Lite casting reel, 18-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon line, various 5" and 6" swimbaits, including a Yum Money Minnow. The colors of his swimbaits varied widely. "Most of the time we didn't have a lot of sun, so I was mixing it up with brighter colors - anything with a little chartreuse in it," he said. "I didn't have a lot of any one color and (on day 3) I got down to just white, so I was taking a Sharpie and coloring the sides chartreuse."

Cranking gear: 7'6" medium-action Falcon XD Cranker rod, Lew's BB1 Pro casting reel (5.4:1 ratio), 16-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, various deep-diving crankbaits, including a Bomber Fat Free Shad BD7 (citrus shad, threadfin shad or splatterback). "It didn't seem like they were on any one crankbait better than another," he said. "I'd throw a couple of the bigger ones and if I caught one (the fish would) get spookier, so I'd go back down with the silent BD7."

Main factor: "I pretty much had a game plan going in and I don't know if that's what led me to finish 2nd on the positive side, or if it caused me to lose. In any case, I'd decided what I was going to do before I got there."

Performance edge: "The Garmin electronics. I stared at those my entire practice and even some during the tournament. Also, in that wind, I was on my (MotorGuide) trolling motor the whole time and it never quit on me."

TTBC Patterns 2-5 BassFan 5/28/15 (John Johnson)

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Morgan, the two-time defending FLW Tour Angler of the Year, turns in high finishes all the time. However, he said he was genuinely surprised to post one at Fork. "I didn't have a really good practice," he said. "I had like four places that I thought were decent and I could get a bite or two off each, but nothing great. Of course, in practice you get a bite or two and keep on going before anybody sees you there. "I had no idea what I could catch or how many, and to be honest, I was somewhat concerned about catching anything at all. It turned out those places were better than I thought as far as quality and they had a lot more fish than I thought they did." He concentrated most of his efforts on places where dropoffs made a slight turn. He fished a worm on a 1/2-ounce weight despite conditions that made dragging any bait a difficult chore. "The first day they were set up real good on the structure, but the next 2 days they didn't set up as well," he said. "I was just running between those places trying to hit the timing right. There was no rhyme or reason to when they'd bite and you couldn't depend on it."

Worm gear: 7'4" medium-heavy iRod 744 rod, Lew's Super Duty casting reel (7:1 ratio), 16-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line, 1/2-ounce bullet weight, 5/0 Easy2Hook worm hook, Zoom Magnum Trick Worm or Zoom Ol' Monster (green-pumpkin or plumb).

Main factor: "Being patient and resisting the urge to go fish all that flooded cover."

Performance edge: "My Garmin electronics allowed me to find a lot of small pods of fish. I was looking for places that had three, four or maybe five of them, and I could see them."

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The Florida-born Lane isn't a big fan of offshore fishing, but he tried to make a go of it during practice. "Not only was it not working for me, but I didn't enjoy it," he said. "I caught some sand bass and that was fun, and I caught as many of them as I could just to be getting some bites." He'd stayed in the shallows on the initial practice day and connected with some 5-plus-pounders on a frog and a big jig. After he surpassed 30 pounds on the first competition day, he kept trying to expand on that pattern and find new areas. He caught a fish that topped 7 pounds each day and was convinced by their rounded shape that they were late spawners. "Not knowing enough about the lake, I think, is what hurt me," he said. "I was trying to learn and adapt the whole time. Fishing the willows, the grass and the catttails, there could be a giant on any one of them. "I knew it was probably going to be won out deep, but I had a lot of fun losing."

Frog gear: 7' heavy-action CarbonLite rod, CarbonLite casting reel (7:1 ratio), 50-pound Stren Braid, 1/2-ounce Snag Proof Bobby's Perfect Frog (white).

Jig gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Carbonlite rod, same reel (6.4:1 ratio), same line (65-pound), 1-ounce homemade jig (black/blue), unnamed chunk trailer (black/blue).

Main factor: "Staying in my comfort zone. If I could've gotten two or three more good bites up shallow, I could've won that deal."

Performance edge: "I could put the Atlas jackplate all the way up on my Legend boat and run through those forests of trees. Every now and then I'd bounce over a stump, but everything worked out fine."

TTBC Patterns 2-5 BassFan 5/28/15 (John Johnson)