Coming off a lousy 2017 campaign that got off to a horrific start, Takahiro Omori felt it was important for him to cash a paycheck (i.e. finish among the top 51) in this year's Bassmaster Elite Series opener at Alabama's Lake Martin. He got paid, all right. And quite handsomely. The former Classic champion won his second Elite event within two calendar years by finding - and then brilliantly managing - a small shallow-water area up the Tallapoosa River that he was forced to share with nobody. He took over the lead on day 2 and never let anyone get close to his weight total the rest of the way. He won a tight-weight limit-fest by 7 pounds - a figure that would've been deemed almost impossible to achieve at this time last week. "After the last day of practice on Wednesday, I read on BassFan and Bassmaster.com how tight the tournament was going to end and how everybody was going to catch a limit of (spotted bass)," he said. "I thought I'd made a mistake by not practicing deep, and by then it was too late.
"I rarely say I have to fish for a check, but I told (his marshal) on day 1 that this was one I have to survive. I never felt safe all through the event, even when I had a 4-pound lead going into the last day. I never knew what to expect - if I had enough fish or how my backup stuff was going to work out. "To end up winning by 7 pounds - that's just crazy." His 59 1/2-pound total over four days gave him his fifth career victory at the tour level and the $100,000 payday pushed his career B.A.S.S. earnings over the $2 million mark. He'll sit out next month's Classic, but has a big leg up on qualifying for next year's edition (which would be his 13th) - a far cry from a year ago when he started the season with back-to-back 108th-place finishes.
Practice:
Omori found the out-of-the-way place that would surrender most of his weight late on the second day of the three-day practice period. It was a creek mouth located nearly as far as he could run up the Tallapoosa - just below the boulder-strewn rapids that require a jet boat to traverse. "I'd never been that far before," said the winner of a 2001 FLW Tour event at Martin. I thought I might find some big spots because the current was so strong. I was thinking it might be like Lay Lake or the Alabama River. "I caught some spots, but I never found any big ones." On his way up he'd explored the back ends of quite a few creeks. They looked real fishy, but he had little success enticing bites. That gave him the notion that the fish up there might still be in their winter mode and had not yet transitioned to pre-spawn, so he began checking out current breaks near the mouths of creeks. "I made a couple casts on that one point (that would become his sweet spot) and caught fish on both of them. They were both like 2-pounders. I never caught anything like that on the first day of practice."
Competition:
Omori's spot was about a 15-minute run from the take-off and he was the first boat to leave the Wind Creek Marina launch on day 1. He was thrilled when he arrived and shut down and heard no other engines heading his way. The mouth of the creek was about two boat lengths wide and largemouths were stacked up where the current formed an eddy on the point. Using a Lucky Craft 1.5 square-bill crankbait in the T.O. craw color, he boxed 15 pounds within a half-hour - a haul that included a fish that weighed nearly 5 1/2 - and pulled out. He was in 2nd place after the initial weigh-in, trailing only Florida's Cliff Prince, who'd caught nearly 13 pounds on back-to-back casts (a 6-11 and a 6-03). Prince fell way off the pace when he caught only three squeakers on day 2, however, and Omori, who sacked 14 1/2 pounds in the second round, was in command the rest of the way. He added a few ounces to his advantage on day 3, and then caught the heaviest stringer of the tournament on the final day. The day-4 weigh-in served only to determine the order in which the other 11 finalists would line up behind him.
Pattern Notes:
Omori spent less than a hour cranking his sweet spot on each of the first three days in an effort to conserve the fish there for the entirety of the derby. After departing, he'd head downriver and use jigs (he employed both flipping and finesse models) to try for an upgrade or two. He kept an eye out for places that were similar to his honey hole, but never found any. The maximum depth of the water around his cranking area was 5 or 6 feet and the level decreased with each succeeding day. The fish were sitting in 2 feet, and he parked his boat his boat close enough to the shoreline that the send held it in place while he made long casts to avoid spooking them. His flipping targets included docks, laydowns, shallow trees - any type of shallow cover he came across. He threw the finesse jig on rocky points, river-channel bends and other current breaks.
Winning Gear:
Cranking gear: 7' medium-heavy Daiwa Tatula Takahiro Omori Signature Series rod, Daiwa Zillion casting reel (9:1 ratio, sold only in Japan), 20-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon line, Lucky Craft 1.5 (T.O. craw).
Flipping gear: 7'3" heavy-action Daiwa Tatula rod, same reel, 22-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon, homemade 3/8-ounce flipping jig (green-pumpkin/orange), 5" Yamamoto Double Tail Grub trailer (green-pumpking with tips of tails dyed orange).
Finesse jig gear: Same rod, reel and line as crankbait, 1/4-ounce homemade jig with Eakins-style head (green-pumpkin), Strike KIng Twin Tail Menace Grub trailer (green-pumpkin).
Omori makes his jigs using skirts manufactured by Minnesota-based Skirts Plus Corporation.
He swapped out the standard hooks on the crankbaits in favor of No. 3 Gamakatsu Round Bend trebles..
Main factor: "Day by day I did the best I could to manage that spot. I'd catch a good limit and then go somewhere else and upgrade with one or two more fish."
Performance edge: "I can't pinpoint one thing - it was all my equipment packaged together."
Bassmaster Elite Series Lake Martin Winning Pattern BassFan 2/13/18 (John Johnson)
"Come tournament day, I figured my odds of catching a big bag were better up in that river section - there was more of a chance to tie into a bigger largemouth. I'd just stay up there and get to work and figure it out." He treated each day as a continuation of practice, constantly seeking new sweet spots within his larger general area. He ended up weighing 13 largmouths and seven spots, most of which came off natural woody cover. He pulled only one fish from a dock, but it was a beaut. "It was a 5-pounder on a crankbait. I pitched it up underneath the dock and it ate it. "The day I caught 17 pounds, I got most of them on laydowns with the crankbait. In places where I couldn't throw the crank, I'd flip a jig in there." The vast majority of his fish came from 3 to 6 feet of water.
Gear:
Cranking gear: 7'2" medium-action Taipan Roy Hawk Signature Series rod, Quantum Tour Magnesium casting reel (6.3:1), 12-pound Yamamoto Sugoi fluorocarbon line, Duo Realis M62 5A (scarlet).
He lost all of his scarlet-colored baits during the tournament, so he took to using raid nail polish to repaint some that were originally chartreuse. "I got them as close as I could get," he said.
Flipping gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Taipan flipping stick, Quantum Smoke casting reel (8:1 ratio), 20-pound Sugoi fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Pepper Custom Baits jig (black/blue), Yamamoto Flappin' Hog or Yamamoto Double Tail trailer (black/blue).
Main factor: "In my mind, it was staying close and spending all the time I had casting. Compared to some guys, I had an extra hour of fishing every day because I was doing so little traveling."
Performance edge: "I think it was my Lowrance unit. Being a new lake for me, I was using the trails (feature) a lot each day to see where I hadn't been yet and also the map to find places I hadn't been to."
Bassmaster Tour Lake Martin 2-5 Patterns BassFan 2/14/18 (John Johnson)
His spotted-bass work was strictly vertical fishing while paying close attention to his Lowrance HDS9 unit. He caught those fish in 30 to 45 feet of water on a Berkley Gulp! Minnow. "I'd be watching the 2D and I'd see one, and then I'd kick the trolling motor into reverse and drop down and try to entice it into biting." In the shallows, he threw a 3-inch swimbait and flipped a jig to wood targets. He caught one largemouth on a Berkley Cutter 110 jerkbait (elegy bone).
Shaky-head gear: 6'10" medium-light Abu Garcia Fantasista rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier 35 spinning reel, 8-pound Berkley Fireline Super 8 braided line (main line), 6-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon (leader), 3/8-ounce VMC Moon Eye jighead, Berkley Gulp! Minnow (smelt).
Swimbait gear: 7' medium-heavy Abu Garcia Villain 2.0 rod, Abu Garcia Revo ALX casting reel, 6- or 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, 1/4-ounce custom-made ball-head jig, unnamed 3" swimbait (shad).
Flipping gear: 7' medium-heavy Abu Garcia Fantasista Premier rod, same reel as swimbait (8:1 ratio), 17-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, 3/8-ounce All Terrain Tackle swimjig (black/blue with skirt trimmed for a finesse-style presentation), Berkley Havoc Pit Boss Jr. trailer (black/blue).
Main factor: "Having that 1-2 punch approach."
Performance edge: "I always thought the HydroWave was kind of a gimmick and I'd never buy one, but I was given one to put on my boat and there were a couple of situations where it made a difference and proved to me that it's legit. On the second day I only had one line-burner in my livewell and I turned that thing on, and within 45 seconds I had a school of spots right under my boat. They were just coming up to my trolling motor and I
"Knowing the history of Nacimiento," he continued, "you can go catch a limit of spots and then fish shallow for two to four bites the rest of the day. If you got them you did well, and if not you finished in the middle of the pack." He used a small swimbait to do a number on the spots in 10 to 20 feet of water during the early part of each day. He couldn't establish a flipping bite for the largemouths, but was able to get them to react to crankbaits and rattlebaits pitched at close range. "The deepest I hooked a largemouth was probably 2 feet and I was always surprised where I got bit," he said. "Wherever it looked like I should catch one, I never would. Then I'd just be going down a bank and there'd be one stick and I'd catch one off it, and that was right after I'd just fished 40 laydowns and never had a bite."
Swimbait gear: 7'5" medium-action G. Loomis GLX 892 rod, Shimano Metanium HG casting reel (7.6:1 ratio), 10-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, 1/4-ounce homemade ball-head jig, Jackall Rhythm Wave (albino shad) or Keitech 3.3 (pro blue red).
Rattlebait gear: 7'6" medium heavy fiberglass Shimano Zodias rod, Shimano Metanium XG casting reel (8.2:1 ratio), 16-pound Sunline Reaction fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Jackall TN 60 (spawn tiger).
He also threw another "old school" Rat-L-Trap that was productive for him at Clear Lake years ago.
Cranking gear: 7'5" medium-action G. Loomis GLX 893 rod, Shimano Metanium MGL casting reel, 14-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon, original (out of production) Luhr-Jensen Speed Trap (delta craw).
"I only have four of those Speed Traps left and I'll go diving after them if I have to," he said.
Main factor: "Fishing what looked good based on my home lake that was 2,000 miles away."
Performance edge: "The Panoptix on the Garmin unit for catching the spots - I could put the trolling motor down and find the bait and see the fish out there, and then bomb the bait out where they were at and catch them. Also, I think having the HydroWave on when I milled around in the shallow water helped. If nothing else, I think it distracts from the trolling-motor and boat noise."
He eventually honed in on an area that covered about a square mile. "It had better average quality than the other places I found," he said. "It seemed like there were more 3-pounders in there than anywhere else." He threw a shaky-head when fishing around brush and a wacky-rig in more open water.
Shaky-head gear 7' heavy-action Phenix Feather rod, unnamed spinning reel, 10-pound Yo-Zuri Super Braid (main line), 10-pound Yo-Zuri Top Knot fluorocarbon (leader), 1/4-ounce Z-Man Shaky HeadZ jig, Z-Man FattyZ (green-pumpkin).
Wacky-rig gear: 7' medium-action Phenix rod, unnamed spinning reel, 10-pound Yo-Zuri Super Braid (main line), 8-pound Yo-Zuri Top Knot fluorocarbon (leader), 1/0 Owner Weedless Wacky Hook, unnamed 5" stickbait (green-pumpkin) with 3/32-ounce nail weight inserted into head.
Main factor: "Identifying that one area and staying there and just rotating through stuff."
Performance edge: "I'd say it was the new Phenix rods I'm using. The action, sensitivity and weight really allowed me to feel the bites."