Takahiro Omori Wins BASS Wheeler Lake

Takahiro Omori blew the two major pre-tournament theories regarding the Wheeler Lake Bassmaster Elite Series right out of the water. One of the preconceived notions leading up to the derby was that the winner wouldn't catch much more than 60 pounds over 4 days - if he reached that total at all. Environmental conditions were out of whack and the fish seemed confused as to what they were supposed to be doing, and they were difficult to catch and even tougher to pattern. And there seemed to be a lot fewer of them than there used to be. The other misconception was that the lake's traditional hot spot, the Decatur Flats, wouldn't be much of a factor. The massive area near the Ingalls Harbor launch ramp in Decatur, Ala. has been devoid of the vegetation that once made it so great for several years now, and all the best bags would come from places much farther down the lake. Uh ... no. On both counts. After a sub-par day 1 that saw him weigh just 10 1/2 pounds of down-lake fish, the former Classic champion mined the Flats over the final 3 days to the tune of 71 pounds. He caught the tournament's three largest stringers on his climb from 72nd to 1st on the standings sheet, notching his first victory in 11 years. The win carried special significance for him because it came 2 weeks after the Kumamoto earthquakes in his native Japan. About four dozen people were killed, several thousand were injured and many thousands were displaced from their homes. He displayed a small Japanese flag throughout competition and during the weigh-in on the final day. "I went back to Japan in the off-season (last winter) to see my mom, my brother, my sister and my friends, and I'm just so sad about it," he said. "My heart goes out to the people in Japan. "I thoroughly enjoy living in the U.S. and being a professional angler, but I'm still a Japanese citizen. I don't ever want to forget where I came from, and that's why I carried the flag."

Omori estimated that he's competed in about 10 tournaments at Wheeler over the past two decades. He's enjoyed a lot of success there, too, including finishes of 17th or better in his three previous tour-level visits. He finished 3rd in the last April Elite Series event there in 2009. "I have a lot of experience there," he said. "It's almost like my home lake, I've spent so much time there. I'd say 100 days, easy. I was very happy when I saw it on the schedule." He got a 5-pound bite with a crankbait from a shell bed on the Flats during the first morning of practice, then ran a bunch of other offshore waypoints in search of other big post-spawners. He shook off a couple of much smaller bites. He next tried some of the shallower bays down the lake for bedding fish, but that was unproductive. "Usually at Wheeler it's no problem catching 14-inchers, but I fished there a little and didn't get many bites," he said. "About noon, I went back to where I caught the 5-pounder and shook off a 6, and it had a 4 following it." He regarded the spot as a place where he might be able to pick up a kicker - he still had no inkling that that shell bed and three others like it would carry him to victory. With seemingly nobody else paying any attention to the Flats, he was convinced that the winning bags would come from places much closer to the dam. "I was sure somebody would win down there, so I spent the next 2 days there. I caught four keepers the second day and two on the last day. "After practice, I knew I had to start where I got those bites, but it was just one spot. It wasn't far from take-off and it was obvious stuff. I still wasn't sure what I had."

Competition:

Omori's main shell bed didn't produce a single bite in the first hour on day 1 and another one gave up just one small keeper, so he took off down the lake and caught five 2-pounders off of laydowns in the pockets. "I still wasn't sure what stage most of the fish were in," he said. "The water temperature (well into the 70s in some places) was higher than normal for that time of year, but the water was too low to fish in the bushes. I was very confused in my mind." The picture got a lot clearer on day 2. Sitting 22 places below 50th (the final money position) but just a couple of pounds off that pace, he went back to his best shell bed to start the morning hoping to get just one quality bite to erase that deficit before he returned to the laydowns. Instead, he got three in short order that combined to weigh nearly 15 pounds. He relocated to another mussel conglomeration and picked up a couple of 4-pounders. His bag, which was compiled via a combination of a topwater, a Carolina rig and a square-bill crankbait and that would catapult him all the way up to 4th place before the day was over, was complete by 10 o'clock.

"I spent the next 6 hours practicing, but I never found one spot. I was just thinking it was my best day ever on Wheeler and I'd never have another one like it." The size of the fish he caught on day 2 and the knowledge that they were feasting on shad prompted to add a swimbait to his bait rotation on day 3. He boxed 22 pounds by 9 o'clock and went looking again, eventually finding one more locale where he enticed a pair of 4-pounders. He'd have four places to exploit on the final day. He had more than 20 pounds by 8 o'clock on day 4. He made his lone cull at 9:30, replacing a 3 with a 6 1/2. He still had one 3 left in his well and missed two opportunities to eject it shortly thereafter as two 4-pounders came unbuttoned. "I'd overestimated my weight the last 2 days and I was thinking that if I could get rid of that 3 for a 4, I'd have 25 pounds," he said. "That would mean (leader Dave) Lefebre would have to catch 21. "The next 5 hours I only caught one more keeper. The whole time I was thinking I needed another 4-pounder, but it turned out that I didn't."

Winning Pattern:

Omori said his bait rotation was totally random - he'd throw one for a few minutes and then pick up one of the others. The fish came from 3 to 5 feet of water. "They'd come up (onto the shell bed), but they wouldn't always be on the highest spot," he said. "Sometimes they were in a dip. The spots they were in weren't bigger than two boats." The bite was entirely a morning deal and he could tell whether they were there within the first few minutes of the day. "I'd look at my waypoint on the Lowrance and put my trolling motor down, and it was almost like the first cast I'd get bit. Within five casts, I'd know."

Winning Gear:

Topwater gear: 6'6" medium-heavy Daiwa Black Label rod (marketed in Australia), Daiwa Zillion casting reel (9:1 ratio), 46-pound Sunline Super P.E. braided line (marketed in Japan), unnamed 6" walking-style topwater bait (chrome).

Swimbait gear: 7' medium-heavy Daiwa cranking rod (out of production), same reel, 20-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon line, 6" swimbait (shad, out of production).

Carolina rig gear: 7'3" heavy-action Daiwa Black Label flipping/pitching rod, same reel and line as swimbait, unnamed 1-ounce weight, 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG hook, unnamed creature bait (green-pumpkin).

Main factor: "I didn't see but one or two boats on the Flats, and usually if it's good there, there will be 50 or 100. I didn't go with what everybody was saying about them - I went with my gut feeling and did my thing and stuck with it."

Performance edge: "All the stuff was important, but especially the Lowrance HDS Gen3 and, of course, the Power-Poles."

Wheeler Lake Winning Pattern BassFan 5/3/16 (John Johnson)

Lefebre, the former FLW stalwart who's in his initial campaign on the Elite Series, had visited Wheeler just one other time when it contained pre-spawn fish. He'd had some success with a bladed jig on that occasion, and the first thing he did when practice opened was to run to some creeks near the Ingalls Harbor launch ramp to see if they contained lily pads. He didn't find any pads where they'd been before at his first stop, but they were plentiful in the farther reaches of the pockets. One such place produced a 7-pound bite on a buzzbait, but a journey to the end of the creek was unproductive. He returned to the place where he'd gotten the big bite and connected with a pair of 4 1/2-pounders. Try as he might through the rest of practice, he was unable to locate any place that was better Ð or even comparable. He caught strong bags on each of the first 3 days and topped the standings on the middle 2, but his weight fell off a bit on the final day and the steamrolling Omori rumbled past him. The buzzbait and a frog produced on day 1. He primarily flipped a jig on days 2 and 3 and threw a swimjig on the final day. He ended up regretting that he backed off his fish with several hours remaining in day 3 in order to conserve them for the final day. He had no way of knowing that Omori was clobbering them for a second straight day. "I quit when my two smallest were just over 3 pounds (each)," he said. "I should've stayed in the area and tried to catch a couple more 5s. "It'd be nice to know what's going on and to be able to adjust based on what other guys are doing. You always hear people say that we're competing against the fish, but we're really not. At the end of the day, we're competing against the other competitors."

Swimjig gear: 7'3" medium-heavy 13 Fishing Omen rod, 13 Fishing Concept casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 65-pound Sufix 832 Advanced Superline braided line, 1/4-ounce Yamamoto with a 4/0 hook, unnamed craw-type trailer (black/blue).

Flipping gear: 7'11" medium-heavy 13 Fishing Muse Black rod, 13 Fishing Concept A casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 20-pound Sufix Castable Invisiline 100% Fluorocarbon line, 1/2-ounce Terminator flipping jig (black/blue), unnamed chunk-type trailer (black/blue). His buzzbait was a 1/2-ounce Terminator model (black with a copper blade). The black and red frog, another Terminator product, was a prototype that will be introduced this summer at ICAST. "It's really good," he said.

Main factor: "I liked the fact that I didn't find anything else and I had to put all my marbles in that one basket."

Performance edge: "That flipping rod, which I helped to develop, was perfect for what I was doing. I don't think I lost a single fish while I was flipping."

Wheeler Patterns 2-5 BassFan 5/4/16 (John Johnson)

John Crews set the early standard with the lone 20-pound bag on day 1, then fell off the pace with a much-slower day 2 before rallying back into the Top 5. He junk-fished in two areas throughout the derby. "I covered a lot of water in practice and kind of stumbled onto one of the areas," he said. "The other place was one I fish every time I come here - it always has something, either chips or decent fish. "The two areas were way different. One was way off the (Tennessee River) channel and the other was on the main channel." He said an abundance of shad was the only common denominator between the locales. "Some of the fish came off bank grass, some from bushes, some on points or cut banks - just all kinds of different stuff." His arsenal included large and smaller topwater baits, a creature bait that he flipped and a Fluke.

Topwater gear: 7' medium-heavy Cashion rod, Lew's Tournament Pro casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 30-pound Sunline SX1 braided line, unnamed 3 3/4- and 4 1/2-inch topwater walking baits (shad).

Flipping gear: 7'6" Cashion flipping stick, Shimano Chronarch Ci4+ casting reel, 25-pound Sunline Flipping FC fluorocarbon line, 3/8-ounce River2Sea weight, 5/0 Gamakatsu Heavy Cover Worm hook, Missile Baits D Bomb (green-pumpkin/red).

Fluke gear: 7' heavy-action Cashion rod, same reel and line as flipping, 5/0 Gamakatsu offset round-bend hook, Zoom Fluke (white). He caught one key fish on day 2 on a Spro Bronzeye 65 frog. He also picked up a couple of keepers by dropshotting a Missile Baby D Bomb.

Main factor: "I'd say I maximized the key areas I found that had quality fish in them."

Performance edge: "I like to keep the HydroWave on the 'schooling blitz' sound whenever the fish are active on shad Ð I think it keeps everything more active. Then I'd also say the SX1 braid because I could get a ton of casting distance with the topwaters. That line is very supple and it casts really well."

Wheeler Patterns 2-5 BassFan 5/4/16 (John Johnson)

1Steve Kennedy fished from one end of the lake to the other and at depths ranging from just a few inches of water to 20 feet. The shad spawn was the foundation of his program. Unlike many in the field, he had no trouble catching quality in practice. And that was despite having limited time due to fishing the final day the previous week at Bull Shoals/Norfork, where he finished 7th. "I went out Monday at about 4 o'clock and could've had 17 or 18 pounds," he said. "Then on Tuesday I went down to the lower end and caught somewhere in the mid-20s. "I didn't even go out on Wednesday - I just stayed in and worked on tackle and all that." He went all the way up to the Lake Guntersville tailrace on the first day of competition, but found that Edwin Evers had beaten him to the hot spot, so he plied other places in the vicinity and boxed three 4-pounders along with a couple of fish that barely met the minimum-length requirement. He spent most of the next 3 days on the lower end, fishing creek arms from the mouth all the way back. He swam a jig through and around all kinds of cover. "I wasn't keyed on anything - I was just looking for big structure. It didn't have to be on the bank. There was really no rhyme or reason two it." He endured what he described as a "painful" day 3, when he missed more than 20 bites. He said the fish were extremely finicky that day. "I was swimming the jig along a dock and they were just biting the tails on the trailer. I could see them doing it, and I had to sit there and shake the rod to try to get them to get it all the way in their mouths."

Jig gear: 7'6" extra-heavy Kistler flipping stick, Shimano Curado casting reel (older green version, 6.3:1 ratio), 65-pound PowerPro braided line, unnamed 25-pound fluorocarbon leader, 3/4-ounce D&L Advantage jig (white), Zoom Super Chunk trailer (white). He caught one or two weigh-in fish on a swimbait during the course of the event and one on a football jig on day 1.

Main Factor - "We had back-to-back events and that gets under the skin of a lot of guys - they don't want to do that. Going straight into the next one with no breaks works well for me."

Performance edge - "I really like the setup with the braid and the fluorocarbon leader. It's so much easier and when I set the hook I don't end up out of position with the rod back behind my head."

Wheeler Patterns 2-5 BassFan 5/4/16 (John Johnson)

Bobby Lane needed a good finish to reverse the momentum of what had been a lackluster campaign through the first three events. He was one of the steadiest competitors throughout the derby, with just a 4-pound variance between his largest and smallest bags. He fished from the mid-lake region to the Lake Wilson dam and burned at least 40 gallons of gas each day. "One of the keys was my Humminbird electronics with the Lakemaster mapping. I'd set it to show less than 3 feet of water, and that would show up as red. Some of the channels had just a tiny bit of red in them, but I'd try to find ones that were loaded with red all the way to the back. If it had laydowns, all I had to do was mark it because I knew where the fish were." He had close to 10 such places marked across a 25-mile stretch. "The fish were in about a foot of water. A laydown would look like it was halfway out of the water, up on the bank, and you'd swear you could see anything that was swimming around it. But I'd flip up there and a puffball would show up when they hit the bait." His primary weapon was a homemade jig, but he caught a few on various frog imitations and a key specimen on a Yo Zuri Hardcore Shad Two Plus crankbait.

Jig gear: 7' or 7'3" medium-heavy Abu Garcia Villain 2.0 rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier casting reel, 15-pound Spiderwire UltraCast 100% Fluorocarbon fluorocarbon line, 1/2-ounce homemade ball-head jig (blue/orange), 5" Berkley Havoc Craw Fatty (green-pumpkin). He dyed the tips of the Craw Fatty's claws with orange JJ's Magic.

Main factor: "Just staying confident in my areas."

Performance edge: "The Minn Kota 112 (trolling motor) plowed through a lot of wood and my Gillz jersey, with the vents on the arms and the sides, came in handy when we had cooler mornings and warm afternoons."

Wheeler Patterns 2-5 BassFan 5/4/16 (John Johnson)