Ryan Lavigne Wins Lake Conroe BASS National Championship
Idaho's Darrell Ocamica was a distant 2nd with 41-12, a deficit of nearly 16 1/2 pounds. "I don't know if my feet have landed on the ground yet," Lavigne said Monday while making the five-hour drive from Conroe to his home in Gonzales, La., where he competes as a member of the Ascension Area Anglers fishing club. It's been quite a year for anglers from Gonzales. Fellow Gonzales residents Gerald Spohrer and Robbie Latuso qualified for the 2017 Elite Series through the Bassmaster Opens. Former Forrest Wood Cup winner and Elite Series Angler of the Year Greg Hackney also hails from Gonzales, which was ravaged by flooding earlier this year. "Maybe the flood we had brought us some good fortune," Lavigne said. Lavigne's victory came in the first B.A.S.S. Nation Championship contested with a new format that sent the top three finishers, regardless of their home region, to the 2017 Bassmaster Classic. Previously, the top finisher in six separate regions at the Championship locked up Classic berths. Lavigne, along with Ocamica and former FLW Tour winner Timothy Klinger, are headed back to Conroe for the Classic in March. "It's unreal. I don't even know how to describe it," said Lavigne, 35, who's married and has a 3-year-old daughter. "What happened this week is mind-boggling. I've been fishing the Nation since I was old enough to do it and the Classic has always been a dream of mine. I took the hardest road possible to it this year and to do it that way is unreal. The feeling... I can't even comment on it."
Lavigne figures he spent just shy of two weeks at Conroe prior to it going off limits last month. It was during that time he identified a couple patterns that he figured would hold up come tournament time. "I had some pretty good practice days and I knew if I could get to my boat (day 3), I had the chance to do it," he said. "It all depended on how big of a deficit I had to make up, though. I never thought I'd be leading going into the last day, especially by 7 pounds. "Even before the off-limits, I was able to catch them fairly shallow flipping docks in 2 to 6 feet of water," he said. "I did find some offshore stuff, but nothing really deep. Before off-limits, I caught them deeper than I did last week, but I felt like the deeper stuff was starting to turn off this week." The field was allowed three days on the water last week and one additional day before the tournament began last Thursday. Lavigne practiced with a boater from the Louisiana team on the official practice day and was able to get a better feel for what he'd found before. "We worked together," he said. "There were several areas we both hit and we combined info and went with it." One challenge to practicing to be a non-boater was he forced himself to keep an open mind because he knew he could be at the mercy of where the boater wanted to fish. "I practiced for any situation I could be in," he said. "If I found something I wouldn't expand on it. The next day I tried to find something else."
Competition:
Lavigne said prior to the Central Divisional at Guntersville, his last tournament as a non-boater "was years and years ago." "It was a huge adjustment," he said. On day 1, he was paired with Jason Vaughn, who is from Delaware. The two worked together well, Lavigne said, hitting spots both had found in practice. They focused almost exclusively on docks. While Vaughn used a jig, Lavigne went with more of a finesse flipping presentation, rigging a Missile Baits Tomahawk on a 1/4-ounce standup jig head. "I made as many flips as I could," he said. "It's tough to catch a 16-inch fish there. I don't know why, but we saw so many 15-plus inchers. To get one to cross that 16 line, it's amazing how difficult it can be. We were both hitting docks pretty hard. I just did something different behind him." His four-fish stringer weighed 11-14 and had him in 2nd place among non-boaters after day 1. "I figured with the way practice had been and the first day seeing how they were biting, I figured I'd be pretty close (to leading)," he added.
For day 2, Lavigne drew Japanese boater Naoaki Ishikawa, who had zeroed on day 1. Before launching, the two talked through an interpreter and Ishikawa had no issue with going to some of Lavigne's waypoints. "I put waypoints in the GPS at the beginning and end of some stretches and I put a couple offshore spots in there close to those stretches just in case," Lavigne said. "I wasn't planning to hit them because we didn't hit them on day 1." They started on some docks, but Lavigne said it was a slow go. He had a 3-pounder and a 5-pounder in the boat by 11 a.m. when they idled out of the creek they'd been in. "We were leaving this creek and I knew I had a hump with some scattered stumps around it outside the mouth," Lavigne said. "I just wanted to check it." It's a place that he looked at last Monday and caught a 16-incher on his only cast. "I figured it had the right stuff on it," he said. "It turned out to be the deal." He finished his limit there with a crankbait before dashing to another section of protected docks close to the ramp in advance of a cold front that was moving in. "The weather got really, really bad," he said. "I never imagined Conroe could get that rough." He upgraded once on the second stretch of docks and wound up with 22-05 to capture the non-boater title. He commended Ishikawa for being willing to go to his spots. Ishikawa did not catch a keeper on day 2.
"I offered my spots and he had no problem going to them," Lavigne said. "We stayed on my stuff all day. It was a little awkward, but every fish I caught he was smiling and high-fiving me all day. He was frustrated, but extremely happy for me." Winning the non-boater side came as a bit of shock to Lavigne. "I don't think it sank in what was going on and I think that worked to my advantage," he said. "When they postponed day 3, I did a lot of pacing because I was anxious to get out there. With the wind we had, I knew I had to go to different stuff." When the tournament resumed Sunday morning, he was in control of his own boat and more than 6 pounds ahead of the field. He immediately went to the offshore spot that had produced for him on Friday. "They were still there," he said. "I had close to 18 pounds by 8 a.m. As I was grabbing a 6 1/2-pounder, which was my second fish, by the side of the boat, that's when boat number 5 came running by to go into the creek. It happened pretty quick." He eventually left after the bite slowed down and upgraded a couple times elsewhere. He returned to the hump around the same time he fished it Friday and caught three more upgrades to get to 24 pounds. "In the middle of the day, it got real slick and they wouldn't react (to the crank)," he said. "I grabbed a Delta Lures 1/2-ounce football jig with a Missile Baits Twin Turbo on it and dragged it. It was the first day I threw a football jig. I hadn't really thrown it because they weren't eating it, but they ate it Sunday."
Winning Pattern:
Lavigne said the dock pattern evolved during the tournament compared to how he caught them during practice. "In practice, they were more on the outside, but as the tournament progressed, I caught them from the bulk head to the end of dock," he said. "That took more time because you had to key on everything."
Winning Gear:
Cranking gear: 7'3" and 7'7" medium-heavy Phenix Maxim casting rods, Shimano Citica casting reel (7.1:1 ratio), 14-pound unnamed fluorocarbon line, Strike King 5XD crank bait (various colors). "I had a slew of colors tied on and it didn't seem to matter to them," he said. "As long as you got it in front of them, they'd eat it."
Flipping & Jig gear: 7'2" medium-heavy Phenix M1 casting rod (flipping), 7'8" heavy-action Phenix M1 casting rod (football jig), Shimano Curado casting reel, 20-pound unnamed fluorocarbon line, 1/4-oz. unnamed standup jig, Missile Baits Tomahawk (lovebug), 1/2-oz. Delta Lures football jig, Missile Baits Twin Turbo (green-pumpkin) trailer.
Main factor: "Time, effort and the good Lord guiding me through this one. It was all Him. I don't quote many people or like to talk about it much, but it was an absolute Randy Howell moment from the (2014) Classic at Guntersville. This spot and idling over it and going back to it. It was way more than I imagined."
Performance edge: "My Phenix rods. They're sweet and you do can so many things with those rods. Cranking with those Maxims is so great and that M1 when you need to drive a hook home. it's a bad dude."
