BROOKELAND, Texas – The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats kicked off the Southwestern Division season on a familiar venue in Sam Rayburn Reservoir. While the fishery is no stranger to tournaments, it offered some twists and turns this year: The water is nearly 10 feet low, anglers were limited to just three hours of forward-facing sonar each day, and the second day of the event was cut in half by an extended fog delay.
Still, someone was going to win, and that turned out to be Nick LeBrun with 60 pounds, 15 ounces over three days of fishing. Here’s a deeper look at how LeBrun and the rest of the Top 10 adjusted with the conditions and caught ’em on Big Sam.
1. LeBrun leans on full suite of electronics for the win
While forward-facing sonar has rightfully dominated much of the talk about electronics lately, LeBrun found key areas with his Lowrance StructureScan to get his week started. What he found kept him in the hunt and allowed him to jump to the top of the standings with the biggest bag of the tournament on the final day.
“I found a little hard spot – basically just one side of a point – the first day,” he said. “My co-angler caught a 2-pounder, then I caught a 5, then he caught a 6-pounder. That told me some fish were there, and they were all white and fresh, the way you want them to look this time of year, because that means they are just moving up.”
That key area, within proximity of the Highway 147 bridge, carried LeBrun the first two days with the help of a 3/4-ounce green pumpkin Buckeye Lures football mop jig paired with a matching Yamamoto Yama Craw as the trailer.
“That dragging stuff dried up on me the final day, and I bounced around fishing history, and my wheels were turning because I didn’t have a fish at 9:30 on the final day,” he said. “I knew that if I was going to win, I’d have to get out in the wind on the main lake. I went looking and found a place with a bunch of fish on my Lowrance StructureScan on a main lake point close to a spawning creek, and right off the bat, I caught a small keeper, and then in 15 minutes, I had 19 pounds, and that was even before I turned on my ActiveTarget.”
Once he turned on his forward-facing sonar, he was able to cull up to the biggest bag of the tournament, 26-2, with the help of a 6-inch Yamamoto Hinge Minnow in both sexy shad and rainbow shad. He fished it on a 3/16-ounce Buckeye Lures G-Stroll Head and 12-pound Sunline Sniper leader.
2. Frankens comes close yet again
Wyatt Frankens now owns 11 MLF Top 10s on Rayburn, including five runner-up finishes. He used his wealth of experience to secure another second-place finish in this event. He mixed it up, catching fish shallow and deep, with and without forward-facing sonar, but the bite without it produced better weight.
“I felt like coming into this event that you’d have to maximize those three hours, but what really carried me was the shallow fishing,” he said. “Out of 15 that I weighed in, only four or five were caught with ‘Scope, and my biggest bag on the first day was all shallow fish.”
When fishing shallow, he went with a gold or red 6th Sense Duke 65 lipless crankbait and a 6th Sense PD10 or PD13 crankbait in blue-treuse shad and morning dawn.
“I switched it up between those baits just depending on the depth I was fishing in,” he said. “Later in the day, I was literally throwing up in the dirt at times, and there were big schools of them moving up. A lot of them were bucks, but there were some females mixed in, and you had to weed through all the fish to find some bigger ones.”
While the shallow bite was key, his forward-facing time was still important, and he caught those fish on a 6th Sense Shindo minnow and 6th Sense Provoke jerkbait.
3. Mueck successfully mixes and matches
The runner-up at last year’s opener on Rayburn, Kaden Mueck had another excellent showing, catching fish both with forward-facing sonar and without it. Sticking to the middle of the lake, he caught more fish on his shallow approach, but his electronics helped him catch key, bigger bass, as he eclipsed 20 pounds on the first and last days.
“I was utilizing ‘Scope the first three hours of the day to try to catch a couple of big ones, because I knew I could only catch fish up to 4 pounds up shallow,” he said. “I was banking on catching two a day with it and did that the first and last day, but didn’t catch any with it the second day.”
With forward-facing sonar in play, he threw a 5.25-inch green gizzard Rapala CrushCity Freeloader on a 3/16-ounce head, as well as a Rapala CrushCity Mooch Minnow and targeted areas outside of spawning areas.
“They were out in front in those drains, staging and getting ready to move up in anywhere between 10 and 20 feet of water,” he said. “After that, I switched it up and went shallow and targeted channel swing banks, hard bottom and secondary points with a 1/2-ounce red BOOYAH One Knocker lipless crankbait.”
4. Shortened Day 2 bites Morrison
No stranger to success on Sam Rayburn, 2023 Toyota Series winner Alec Morrison started off the event with more than 20 pounds and did it again on the final day to finish fourth. A 13-pound Day 2 kept him from truly challenging for another win. His top bait was a Megabass Vision 110+1 jerkbait.
5. Bennefield drags ’em up
A Rayburn local, Barrett Bennefield sampled just about everything the lake had to offer in preparation for this event and spent a good deal of time scanning for areas. His main goal was to find places he could use when forward-facing sonar was not available.
“I side-scanned a lot and looked for places where the fish would use before they moved up,” he said. “I found some areas but didn’t have a lot of success and knew going into the event that ‘Scope would be very important. I was focusing on places the fish were staging – hard places that they were using like a highway in 10 to 15 feet of water.”
While he relied on electronics, he wasn’t necessarily targeting individual bass; he went old-school with a Carolina rig and a jig to catch them. A 7-11 kicker helped him put together a 24-10 sack on Day 2, which he parenthesized with 15-pound limits.
“I was using it to find hard spots and had the confidence to slow down and drag around because I felt like they were sitting there,” he said. “I caught my fish on a green pumpkin 6th Sense Hogwalla with a 3/4-ounce weight and a 4-foot leader. Then, I also caught them on a 3/4-ounce green pumpkin jig with the same bait as my trailer, which is what I caught that 7-11 on.”
6. Martin nabs first career Top 10
Louisiana’s Bryant Martin secured his first MLF Top-10 finish by mixing in a shallow approach to start the morning before switching to forward-facing sonar and targeting bass suspended around stumps.
“I’d start shallow every morning throwing a red Strike King Chick Magnet crankbait, and then I’d use my ‘Scope period mid-morning,” he said. “I caught fish on an A-Rig, a Megabass Vision 110 Jr., and a Megabass Vision 110+1. After I turned it off, I went back shallow with a crankbait but didn’t catch much.”
Fishing north of the bridge, Martin said another key to his week was having his areas to himself.
“I didn’t see another boat in there all week,” he said. “The fish were setting up on a flat in 8 to 12 feet of water and suspending around stumps.”
7. Mrazek keeps it simple with Rayburn staple
Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit pro Chad Mrazek had an up-and-down event, starting with 11-12 on the first day and ending with 14-15 on the final day with a 26-1 bag sandwiched in between. The end result was his fourth straight Top 10 dating back to last season. Through it all, he kept his approach simple and primarily relied on a lipless crankbait without the need to use forward-facing sonar to catch his fish.
“I was pretty much just targeting channel swings with big groups of fish on them on the northern end of the lake,” he said. “I did it with ‘Scope and without it, it didn’t really seem to matter. Most of my bigger bites came when I was ‘yo-yoing’ a 6th Sense Duke in gold reactor and boiled crawfish.”
These key areas along the channel swings had hard spots mixed with gravel.
“I kept it simple on those areas, and most of my weight came on those swings with the lipless, but I did catch a couple that I weighed in on a 6th Sense Whale swimbait,” he added.
8. Lee maximizes FFS time
Another local from nearby Diboll, Texas, River Lee notched yet another Top 10 on his home waters. He made the most of his forward-facing time and caught them with a trio of different baits – a minnow, a Neko rig and a jerkbait – on the southern end of the lake.
“My plan the first day was to fish offshore and catch them dragging something since I couldn’t find them cranking like I wanted to do,” he said. “Those offshore fish left, and then I switched to my ‘Scope period midday to use it as practice for the rest of the event. I found them on stump fields around bait in the mouths of spawning pockets.”
Depending on how the fish were positioned, he’d throw different baits at them.
“If they were hanging tight to a stump, I’d throw a Rapala PXR Mavrik 110 jerkbait in a shad pattern at them,” he said. “If they were closer to the bottom around the roots, that’s when I would throw the Neko rig at them. If you could find them up higher in the water column or cruising, you could get them to eat a minnow.”
His Neko fig bait of choice was a Rapala CrushCity Janitor worm in oxblood light red flake, and his minnow was a 6.25-inch green gizzard CrushCity Freeloader.
“I was fishing a 3/32-ounce head in 12 feet or less with that really big Freeloader the last day, and they were all over it,” he added.
9. Despino another successful dragger
Louisiana’s Randy Despino had a consistent week, bagging three limits in the mid to upper teens. He did it by focusing on hard spots along the river channel, an approach that worked for him with and without forward-facing sonar.
“I was mainly focusing on the river channel in the mid-section of the lake, and the 15- to 18-foot depth range was the best,” he said. “Naturally, we only had three hours of ‘Scope, but I had all of my hard bottom areas marked with waypoints and was able to cast to these areas when I wasn’t using it. I’d fish one spot and move on to the next.”
His top baits were both things he could drag along the hard spots.
“I was throwing a 1/2-ounce green pumpkin Buckeye Lures football jig with a watermelon red Yamamoto Yama Craw on the back,” he said. “The other bait was a Yamamoto Oki Worm in red bug and fire and ice with a 3/8-ounce weight on a Texas rig.”
10. Big bites power Stevens
Rounding out the Top 10 was Louisiana’s Walt Stevens, who saved his best for the final day when he weighed in more than 20 pounds. He used a targeted approach during his forward-facing sonar period and stuck with a tried-and-true prespawn approach the rest of the time.
“I would spend the first few hours of each morning fishing hard spots around drains, and that worked for my kicker the first and last day,” he said, referencing a 9- and 8-pounder he caught on those days, respectively. “With the amount of fishing pressure the lake gets, I tried to stay as stealthy as possible. I also opted to wait to use my forward-facing time until later, when I felt like I’d exhausted my starting areas. Then, once it was over, I’d go back shallow and would make a few culls.”
His top baits were 1/4- and 1/2-ounce red lipless crankbaits and a 3/4-ounce green pumpkin football jig.
“The lipless did most of the catching during the week, but the football jig accounted for all of my big bites,” he said.