BROOKELAND, Texas – The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Southwestern Division event at Sam Rayburn was predicted to be excellent fishing and turned out to be better than many imagined. Over the course of the event, five bags of more than 30 pounds were caught, 10-pounders were seemingly normal and the top-end weights were extremely good. Winning the event, Riley Harris weighed a total of 82-10, while Cody Ross finished second with 79-12, blasting the biggest bag of the event, 36-2, on the final day.
Throughout the event, bass seemed to be rolling toward the bank, ready to spawn. With the water high, it was like fishing a new lake for some out-of-towners, but in the wheelhouse of plenty of Rayburn locals. And so, as the bass snapped up anything they could eat on the way to the bank, the pros gave them a variety of delicious morsels to pick from.
1. Drains into spawning areas key the win
Fishing the sides and middle of drains that rolled into spawning areas, Harris relied on some new-school standards – baits that allowed him to precisely target fish and trigger them in individual ways.
His best bets were a 6th Sense Ozzie, a Neko-rigged 6th Sense Divine Shakey Worm with a 1/10-ounce weight, and a 6th Sense Divine Umbrella Rig with three 1/8-ounce heads, two 1/4-ounce heads and 6th Sense Divine Swimbaits.
2. Super-sized Day 3 lifts Ross
Catching the biggest bag of the event on the final day, Ross roared up the leaderboard and nearly won.
“That is the biggest single-day bag that I’ve ever caught,” Ross said. “That’s the biggest bag I’ve ever weighed in the tournament, for sure. I mean, the biggest bag I’ve ever weighed in a tournament before that was 29.80 or something like that – blew it out.”
To do it, Ross almost exclusively used a Neko-rigged Rapala CrushCity Janitor in green pumpkin magic with a 1/16-ounce 6th Sense Tungsten Neko Nail Weight and a 1/0 Owner Sniper Finesse (weedless) hook. He threw it on a 6-foot, 9-inch Pride Rods spinning stick with a Lew’s HyperMag spinning reel. Ross also caught a few fish on a Megabass Vision 110+1 Jr.
Fishing for bass that were prespawn, Ross and River Lee dialed in the pattern ahead of the weekend’s Bass Champs event and it held through the Toyota Series.
“It was all staging stuff, they were all staged and getting ready to spawn,” Ross said. “They were in 6- to 12-foot of water, but my main deal was 8 to 10. I mixed in floaters, mixed in fish on the bottom, a little bit of everything, but it was all 8- to 10-foot for me.”
3. Thompson stays steady for third
After Day 2, Dylan Thompson was sitting in second, with a total of more than 53 pounds. You wouldn’t think catching 23 pounds on the final day would move you down in the standings, but in this one, things got a little out of hand.
Thompson fished shallow for staging fish and also some brush. For the brush fish, he used a 1/16-ounce Reneau Tackle Minnow Helmet and a Rapala CrushCity Mooch Minnow. His jerkbait of choice was the venerable Megabass Vision 110+1 in wakasagi.
On Day 1, a brush pile put out some big minnow fish for Thompson, but after that he was on the hunt.
“Every other fish I weighed in came out of some shallow drains with scattered grass on the edge of the hay grass,” Thompson said. “Just on the edge of the grass and the drains in like 5 to 10 feet.”
4. Castledine makes another Top 10 on Rayburn
Solidly in the Top 10 in the event and the Fishing Clash Angler of the Year standings, Todd Castledine was excellent as always in Texas, catching a big bag on Day 2 and more than 30 pounds on Day 3.
Castledine caught fish on several baits, but one of his key players was a 3/8-ounce Strike King Tour Grade FluoroSpin with a Strike King Baby Z-Too. He threw it with a Lew’s HyperMag on a 7-6, Team Lew’s Signature Series Mark Zona swim jig rod with 18-pound Sunline Sniper. He used the heavier line to help float the bait a little more.
“I never caught a 4-pounder in practice,” Castledine said. “Then I found out later that guys were saying it was the most unbelievable practice ever. I just went and did what we had done in Bass Champs and luckily, I caught a 7 1/2-pounder, which saved me. And on Day 2, I tried it and it got worse.
“Then I went to a different part of the lake,” he said. “That’s the No. 1 thing about Rayburn … if you’re not where they push up, you are screwed.”
5. Ebare’s pattern fails him on final day
Running a similar game plan to Lee Livesay, Dakota Ebare stayed fairly shallow with a jerkbait for most of his damage.
Ebare’s bait of choice was a Strike King Elite 200 Jerkbait, which he threw on a 6-8, medium-light Team Lew’s Elite Series rod with a Lew’s Custom Lite Shallow Spool with 10-pound fluoro. He also caught some fish on an umbrella rig.
“I was just targeting prespawn areas in 8 to 12 foot,” Ebare said. “And, really, I ran new water the first two days, and, I felt like I had a pattern going. I thought on Day 3 with the change in weather and wind direction, I could run it in a new area. And I did that and did not successfully do so.”
6. Worms carry the weight for Satterfield
Finishing in the Top 10 for the second time with MLF, Ryan Satterfield hammered out big limits in the backs of drains and pockets.
“I was targeting the bigger females in 7-foot or less in the very backs of drains,” Satterfield said. “I felt like everybody was kind of fishing out front, so I went to the back of every drain or pocket, to find the fish that were almost pulled up to spawn, and I was just LiveScoping them right out in front of the bushes. And if it was a clean bottom, I would throw the shaky head, and if there was grass around, I would throw the Neko worm.”
Satterfield used a 1/4-ounce Santone Piglet Football Shakey Head with a Zoom Trick Worm or a Neko-rigged Big Bite Baits Nekorama with a 3/32-ounce weight. He used Lew’s reels and sticks from Brad’s Custom Rods & Tackle.
7. Livesay couldn’t replicate the magic of Day 1
Livesay is one of the most well-accomplished pros you can find when it comes to Texas waters, so when the Lake Fork local dropped 34-11 on Day 1, the odds were good that he could follow it up. However, some near misses and changing conditions kept him from going the distance.
For the event, Livesay caught fish on forward-facing sonar, Humminbird MEGA Live 2 in his case, as well as cranking offshore. For his cranking fish, he relied on a 6th Sense Crush 300DD plug thrown on a 7-6, medium heavy, 6th Sense Movement rod with 14-pound Sunline Sniper. For fish he “saw,” Livesay used a 6th Sense Draw and a 6th Sense Provoke 106DD in live gizzard flash. For the glide, he used 25-pound Sunline Shooter and a 6th Sense Broomstick. He wielded his jerkbait on a 6-9, medium-heavy 6th Sense Response with 12-pound Sunline Sniper. He matched everything up with fresh BKK trebles.
On Day 1, Livesay blasted them in calm, sunny conditions, catching some fish deep on a minnow early, and then moving in and targeting fish up in the water column in drains. At the end of the day, after taking his bait away from a few big fish while he had more than 30 pounds in the ‘well, Livesay spotted another big fish.
“I pulled up on the very tip of a point within a cast of hay grass, right where those fish were transitioning, staging on these points and getting ready to pull up in the bushes and hay grass to spawn,” Livesay said. “I see one out there, under the water 80 feet from me, and I throw Draw out there, and it splashes down on it, and it just takes off swimming all the way to the bottom in 10- to 14-foot of water.”
Livesay assumed it wasn’t a bass.
“Whatever it is, I scared the hell out of it,” he said. “It swam all the way to the bottom. So, I’m not even thinking anything about it. I just start cranking my glide in, as fast as I can reel it in without burning it out of the top of the water. I was getting ready to leave.
“And I looked back down at my Humminbird, and that fish is on the bottom. And I can tell it sees it, and I’m burning it almost like a multi-jointed swimbait. It shoots up off the bottom and literally eats that Draw headfirst, 5-foot in front of my trolling motor.”
According to Livesay, he’d fished his way into a perfect storm of bass.
“The sun was out really good,” he said. “I think all those females were really sunning themselves, high in the water in these drains. We were getting a lot of new fish coming in because of that sun, fresh fish. Like, that fish that ate my glide, the way it ate the bait, it had not seen a bait since last May.”
On Day 2, Livesay started cranking deep, and whipped up a quick limit, catching fish cast after cast. Then, he headed into the drains with high hopes. After running through a handful, with darker, cooler conditions, Livesay hadn’t seen a substantial bass. Finally, late in the day, after trying everything he could think of, Livesay returned to the drains.
“I go in the drain where I caught a 7 and a 6 the first day, and it had got a little hotter, the clouds had dissipated just a little bit, like the sun was trying to shine through,” he said. “I go in there, and, there’s a high school kid practicing. He kinda beats me in there, gets to where I caught the 6-12 on the glide, and he hooks one. It jumps all over the place and comes off – like a 10-pounder, and the kid’s devastated. Anyways, I’m like, ‘OK, there’s still fish in here.’
“I’m throwing a ChatterBait at the bushes and stuff, just kinda fishing hay,” Livesay said. “And sure enough, I see one out there floating. A great big one. I throw the Provoke over there, she follows, and I can tell she’s an 8- or 9-pounder. I get her all the way to the boat, and I just can’t get her to eat. I go literally 40 feet, another cast or two, and I see another one out there floating. I got the Provoke on her, working her. She eats it about 10 feet from the boat. She comes up jumping. She’s only got the very back hook. My co-angler gets the net, and the net’s hung up in my ChatterBait that I’ve laid down. He can’t get the net, she’s jumping at the boat. It comes off.”
Then, it was time to go in – after Livesay had lost the fish to be leading again in a matter of minutes. The final day, with lots of fog and less warmth, Livesay never saw any floaters, despite fishing around other anglers catching big ones.
“The clouds put them on the bottom, and I didn’t adjust,” he said. “A lot of the guys were catching some of the same stuff I was just on the bottom, and I was going through there too fast trying to catch them up in the water column.”
8. One drain produces for Campbell
The winner of the wintertime Toyota Series on Rayburn, Brody Campbell knocked down another Top 10 on the big fishery despite a lack of practice and the need to chase down a new pattern.
“I just started running shallow drains, and I found one drain in the very back where they were loaded up pretty good,” he said. “That first day, I should have had around 30 pounds, I jumped a 9-pounder off and broke a couple big ones off. So, I realized there were some big ones in there. Day 2, I ran back in that same drain, and I got five big bites and just landed them all. I kinda stuck with that drain the whole tournament, just going back and forth. It had some standing timber, a couple of trees. Some fish were holding on trees, some were just floating around.”
For baits, Campbell used a Megabass Vision 110, a Damiki rig and a drop-shot with a 6-inch Roboworm Straight Tail Worm and a 3/16-ounce weight. He used Bird Dog Rods for all his presentations.
9. Umbrella rig carries the weight for Kincaid
The first man in the Top 10 without catching anything crazy, Nick Kincaid put together three solid days to end up with a standout finish.
Kincaid did most of his work with the standard YUM YUMbrella Flash Mob Jr. with 3.3-inch Keitech Swing Impact FAT swimmers. He used blanks on top, 3/16-ounce heads on the bottom and a 1/8-ounce head on the middle wire. Kincaid slung it on a 7-6, heavy Kincaid Custom Rods stick he made himself, with a 7:1 gear ratio reel and 20-pound fluoro.
“It changed every day,” Kincaid said. “There were some areas that were getting a lot of pressure, and it was hard to catch fish in. I just had to keep covering a lot of water, trying to find those areas where I wasn’t fishing behind somebody else. I fished fairly shallow, I was looking for those prespawn fish, in the spawning pockets and just outside of them.”
10. Neko does the damage for Mrazek
Chad Mrazek is no stranger to Rayburn and added another solid finish to his résumé, running a similar program to many top finishers.
“I was fishing flatter prespawn areas at the mouth of major spawning areas,” Mrazek said. “Just 5- to 8-foot, pretty much just casting at catfish until they turned into bass.”
Mrazek’s Neko of choice was a 6th Sense Bamboosa in green pumpkin blue with a 1/16-ounce nail weight and a 2/0 Hayabusa FP Straight. He used a 7-foot, medium 6th Sense Response and a 12-pound Seaguar InvisX leader.