Lefebre comes up large at Kentucky Lake
Pennsylvania pro rides swimbait to FLW Tour victory
On Saturday, Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes pro Dave Lefebre of Erie, Pa., weighed 23 pounds, 15 ounces of bass – the heaviest limit of fish at the FLW Tour on Kentucky Lake presented by OFF!. Lefebre didn’t duplicate that effort Sunday, but it turns out he didn’t need to. At the end of the day, Lefebre’s five bass worth 19 pounds, 5 ounces gave him a total four-day weight of 77 pounds, 3 ounces as well as a championship trophy and $125,000.
“This feels good,” said Lefebre, who hasn’t won an FLW Tour event since 2004. “I can’t believe it because the Potomac (River) and (Lake) Champlain are the two I look at and say, `Those are the ones I have a chance to win.’ And after the Potomac, where I let one get away, this one is a shocker to me.”
Lefebre said he started the final day of competition the way he had previous days – about a mile from the takeoff ramp fishing a swimbait. In past days, he fished that area until he had a limit at about 8:30 a.m., but on Sunday the bite wasn’t as good and he left the spot with three fish at 7:30 and made a 12-mile run to look for more fish. He fished a Tabu 1-ounce brown jig with purple tinsel tipped with a green-pumpkin Yamamoto trailer on ledges and inlets into the main river channel.
Lefebre then gambled and returned to his starting spot, an area he said he had never fished after he left it in the morning. The move proved fruitless and he relocated. Lefebre then returned to his starting area again at 1 p.m.
“The wind had calmed down just a little bit and I was able to make the exact cast I wanted to make,” Lefebre said. “It was substantially different conditions, and I think it was the first cast that I caught the 5 1/2 (pounder).
“I tried a million different things today,” Lefebre added.
Lefebre said he caught 15 to 20 keepers during the course of the day, and his three biggest fish he weighed Sunday came on a swimbait and the other two were caught on a jig.
Snickers pro Chris Baumgardner of Gastonia, N.C., posted a total weight of 70 pounds, 11 ounces to claim second place. Baumgardner won $33,287 for his efforts.
The remaining top 10 pros finished the tournament in:
3rd: Kyle Mabrey, McCalla, Ala., 20 bass, 68-4, $28,720
4th: M&M’s pro Jim Moynagh, Carver, Minn., 20 bass, 67-2, $23,753
5th: Chevy pro Jay Yelas, Corvallis, Ore., 20 bass, 67-0, $18,987
6th: Straight Talk pro J.T. Kenney, Palm Bay, Fla., 20 bass, 64-15, $16,377
7th: Todd Hollowell, Fishers, Ind., 20 bass, 63-6, $15,173
8th: Fatheadz pro Jacob Wheeler, Indianapolis, Ind., 20 bass, 61-8, $14,220
9th: Snapple pro Jacob Powroznik, Prince George, Va., 20 bass, 60-1, $13,267
10th: EverStart pro Ron Shuffield, Bismarck, Ark., 20 bass, 59-3, $12,313
A complete list of results can be found at FLWOutdoors.com.
Overall there were 50 bass weighing 148 pounds, 14 ounces caught by pros Sunday. The catch included 10 five-bass limits.
Casey Martin of New Market, Ala., won the co-angler division and $25,000 Saturday with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 51 pounds, 6 ounces followed by Terrance Smith of Fishers, Ind., in second place with 15 bass weighing 42-14 worth $7,134.
In FLW Tour Major tournaments, pros and co-anglers are competing for valuable points that could help them qualify for the 2012 Forrest Wood Cup presented by Walmart, the world championship of bass fishing. The top 35 pro and co-anglers in the point standings from the six FLW Tour Major tournaments will qualify.
The Tour stop on Kentucky Lake presented by the OFF! was hosted by the Marshall County Tourist Commission and the Murray Convention & Visitors Bureau and was the sixth of 10 Walmart FLW Tour tournaments of the 2012 season. The Walmart FLW Tour on Lake Champlain presented by Chevy will be the next tournament and will be held June 28-July 1 in Plattsburgh, N.Y. The event will be hosted by the City of Plattsburgh, N.Y., and the Adirondack Coast Visitors Bureau, and boats will launch from Dock Street Landing in Plattsburgh. For a complete schedule, visit FLWOutdoors.com.
Coverage of the Kentucky Lake tournament will be broadcast in high-definition (HD) on NBC Sports Network when “FLW” airs Aug. 19 from 1-2 p.m. ET. “FLW” is hosted by Jason Harper and is broadcast to more than 559 million households worldwide, making it the most widely distributed weekly outdoors-sports television show in the world.
For complete details and updated information visit FLWOutdoors.com. For regular updates, photos, tournament news and more, follow us on Facebook at Facebook.com/FLWFishing and on Twitter at Twitter.com/FLWFishing.