Lane started the second day of practice in the back of Duck Creek , catching a handful of fish that weighed between 2 1 / 2 and 4 pounds before moving on to Horse Creek , which produced a pair of 5-pounders on the same pattern . By the end of the day , he knew he would wager his REDCREST chances on the backs of Drowning , Duck , Horse and Honey creeks and Woodward Hollow , and that an HD brown Frittside 5 would be his key bait .
“ Two days of practice and I didn ’ t catch a single fish on a spinnerbait , one fish on a jig and everything else on the brown Frittside – I was all-in on the Frittside ,” Lane admitted .
GAMEDAY ( S ) — March 24 – 26
After a day off for pre-event kickoff activities , Lane ’ s shallow-cranking pattern developed according to plan on Day 1 of REDCREST . He started the morning with a quick bite ( a 2-9 ) in Duck Creek before moving to Drowning Creek , which quickly rewarded him with a 5-3 and a 4-4 in a two- minute span . He connected with a scorable fish in Horse Creek , a few more in Woodward Hollow , and finished his day with two fish just north of the Wolf Creek ramp . Lane finished the day in sixth place with eight fish for 26-12 .
Lane entered Day 2 with a comfortable ( 12-pound ) cushion on the 20thplace position , needing only a couple insurance fish to earn a spot in the Knockout Round . He didn ’ t connect with anything in Drowning Creek or Horse Creek but then added a 2-0 and a 2-6 after a move to Woodward Hollow , virtually guaranteeing himself a spot in the Knockout Round . Lane added a couple more scorable largemouth before the end of the day , finishing the two-day qualifying round in eighth place with 36-5 .
More importantly , though , he ’ d sniffed out a potential change in the order of his daily creek run .
“ I felt like I was hitting Drowning Creek too early ; I needed to switch things up a little bit ,” Lane said .
The Knockout Round saw Lane run to Woodward Hollow at lines in ; he quickly picked up a couple 2-pounders and then moved to Horse Creek , where he caught a 4-1 and a 3-13 , which put him in good shape for a Top 5 finish in his group and a berth in the Championship Round . He dabbled a little more in Horse Creek before finally moving to Drowning Creek where it was “ Katy bar the door ” ( per Lane ) as in the second period : He quickly added 3-6 and a 3-12 in a 10-minute span , and two more at the start of the third period that brought his total to 27-13 and temporarily gave him the lead .
Lane would eventually finish fourth in his Knockout Round , but even before the competition day was over , he had made his choice for Championship Sunday .
“ At the moment that I caught my last fish in the Knockout Round , I told myself ‘ You do not need to leave Drowning Creek ,’” Lane said . “’ These fish are moving in as the days go on and the water temperature goes up . You need to be in one area and fish it really hard .’ That area was going to be Drowning Creek .”
Bobby Lane in high spirits on the morning of his eventual victory .
COUNTDOWN TO 3:46:45 p . m . — March 27
In the 16 years of tour-level competition before REDCREST , Lane had invested innumerable hours and sweat equity into becoming a versatile , wellrounded angler who could apply the best techniques possible to the messages that his natural God-given instincts and experience were telling him . Already a world-class power fisherman thanks to his tournament upbringing in Florida , Lane learned the ins and outs of finesse fishing and became just as comfortable with a spinning rod and shaky head in his hand as a flipping stick , 5 / 0 hook and 2 ounces of tungsten .
PHOTO BY JOSH GASSMANN
Lane leaned on all that valuable knowledge and skill in the final few hours of REDCREST .
He started the morning with a 3-3 Frittside bite just eight minutes into the competition ( the first scorable fish of the Championship Round ) and added another fish 90 minutes later . But even as he released that second fish , Lane could tell that a change was afoot . Fish were responding to the Frittside , but they weren ’ t committing to it with the same ferocity as they had the previous three days . They were nipping at it rather than biting it , and several fish attacked the Frittside without even biting .
“ I was cranking some really good areas and I had several fish just knock the fire out of the Frittside , but they weren ’ t eating it – they were just slapping at it ,” Lane said . “ In my years of fishing , I ’ ve found that when fish start slapping at a bait , you ’ re either throwing the wrong color or they ’ re starting to make their first move to the bank . I knew I had the right color , so something else was clearly changing . The water was way up and was getting warmer . I figured it was time to go back ( to the back of the creek ) and take a look .”
Lane slid back to another pocket in Drowning Creek , picked up a jig rod with a 1 / 2-ounce green pumpkin jig and a green pumpkin Berkley PowerBait Meaty Chunk Jr . and began to pitch to laydowns , submerged logs , docks and individual pieces of brush that were out of the water earlier in the week but now underwater as Grand ’ s waters rose .
He picked up a couple 2-pounders on the jig before the end of the second period , entering the final period 11 pounds out of the lead as Jacob Wheeler , Dustin Connell and Luke Clausen dueled for the top spot . But despite the double-digit deficit , Lane was now armed with the confidence that the winning fish had indeed moved shallow .
Lane caught fire in the final 90 minutes of competition , connecting with a 3-10 and a 6-3 on the same submerged log in a span of 4 minutes , hooking and losing a 4-pounder , and adding a 3-9 to climb to within 4-10 of Wheeler in the lead with 45 minutes to go . And while Wheeler , Clausen and Connell labored to reignite their jerkbait and crankbait bites as time ticked down ,
36 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | JUNE-JULY 2022