Quick tip for any Northeasterners driving in TX – don't "think and drive" like where you're from. I've learned I can't make NJ assumptions here because I almost slam into folks that way. Tying to retrain my brain....

Also, if you ever have a female dog in heat and a male (intact or not) in the same house, be prepared for some of the most insane and exhausting times ever in your life. It's been bonkers man, dang!

Alright enough of that, let's git to the feesh!

Gitcha Blaster video fix here:

The short version is Roger and Drew Gill tied, and instead of a fish-off they had a tiebreaker deal which Roger won.

The longer version is that Roger is your new non-FFS hero because he fished a spinnerbait and a jig in an unrestricted FFS tourney to win against younger guys like Drew who were FFSing.

Here's how he got it done and put $200K (before taxes!) in his pocket.

One more thing: Roger is a stud in the "am" ranks. He's got 13 wins and 68 top 10s in MLFLW events, and has fished 9 BFL All-Americans. He also finished 1st in the Toyota Plains Division points this year.

So it wasn't like he came outta nowhere...unless Eldon, MO is nowhere lol. 😁 Here we go.

Going in and practice

> "Grand Lake is 3 hours and 45 minutes from my door, and I usually get there a couple times a year at least. This year I spent quite a bit of time there – I had a tournament there this spring and then I had a BFL Regional there 3 weeks ago.

> "I spent the week there for the Regional and had a really good chance in that tournament, it just wasn't mean to be. I lost some really key fish [he got 18th].

> "I felt good about the Toyota Series coming up. [In the Regional] I caught them all on docks fishing a jig. A little bit deeper docks than usual....

> "My wife and I went back down there for 2 days the week before the cutoff, and I told myself I'm just gonna fish brand new water and try to expand upon that dock thing...fish towards the dam a little bit further.

> "The 2nd day I had a really good day. I had a couple good fish and quite a few numbers. So that's what I thought I'd be doing when I got back down for the official practice.

> "I didn't go back to those exact spots again. I tried to duplicate it and it wasn't very good...fishing docks with a jig in general. I could catch a limit but it wasn't really easy and the size wan't that great.

> "So the last day of practice...I launched at Wolf Creek, where takeoff was out of. The water's a little bit dirtier there. I went to the Elk River and caught a 5-lber behind a dock on a spinnerbait.

> "My brother in law and son both qualified for the co-angler side and were both practicing with me that day. My brother in law caught one almost 4 lbs on a ChatterBait also real shallow, and my son Chase had a bite but didn't set the hook on him.

> "So I'm like...there's some stuff going on here....

> "About 4:00 I went back close to takeoff...and I caught another 5-lber real shallow on a spinnerbait. And I went a little further and caught another one. So my son was like, 'Dad you need to put that rubber deal on your hook'....

> "I put that on there and had 2 more bites the next 15 minutes. One no doubt was a big one because it wouldn't drop it.

> "...we had the off day and I'm thinking, What am I gonna do? The safe bet is to run down to the dam and catch those jig fish. I had plenty to fish down there. But I thought, You know what? I didn't catch any 5-lbers, this is the championship – what if I just kept that spinnerbait in my hand all day."

Tournament

>"I caught one the first half of hour of the tournament off a sunken boat in 6'. In the morning they were out a little bit, but in the afternoon they got really shallow. Everything I did the first 2 days was on that 1-oz Omega Spinnerbait.

> "I was covering all depths back to the boat in up to 6' of water [keeping his bait on the bottom]. It's hard to do that with a 1/2-oz spinnerbait.

> "...these fish were on the bottom, and it's just a more efficient way to fish. I did not put a trailer on [because he didn't want the bait to rise]. That big bait moves a fair amount of water, and the water had a fair amount of stain.

> "Plus nobody else was doing it. ...I saw a lot of guys were throwing jigs, they were throwing shakey heads, Neko rigs and light line and stuff. But nobody was power-fishing with a big spinnerbait. I think that made a huge difference...something they hadn't seen.

[He doesn't just mean that tournament. Grand has like a million tournaments a day!]

> "I was mostly keying behind docks and a lot of the time it had to do with shade. We had sunshine for the most part the whole tournament...the shade that's under the catwalks on the docks is where a lot of the bites came from. ...where the cables ran in the water is another target they would be on, and any brush behind those docks.

> "You could scan and see some that stuff under the docks with your LiveScope too.

> "[If the fish doesn't bite the first pitch] I'll try a time or 2 and I'll even throw a jig in there.

> "The last day I had a very small limit. I had 3 bass in there that didn't weigh 2 lbs and we had no wind. I went to a stretch of docks I hadn't been to all year that are very shallow and I've caught em there before. I was just was hoping I could cull out those fish [with a jig]. I culled 3 times there [by maybe 1/2 lb each]...actually the move that probably won me the tournament.

> "I still had 10 or so docks left I could continue to fish, but with an hour and 15 minutes left in the tournament, the wind started picking up...but it really wasn't hitting the banks I'd been fishing the first 2 days.

> "I thought the only chance I've got [to win] is to catch a 4-lber because I still only had 11 lbs. I abandoned the jig and docks, went back to the spinnerbait and ran a lot of new water where the wind was hitting. The same area, but just new water thinking I would surely run into one. ...I never caught another one."

He thought he'd blown it but nope!

Baits

> 1-oz Omega Spinnerbait (#7 and #4.5 willows, white or chart/white – "also day 2 I had good luck on 'coleslaw' til I hung it on a cable that I couldn't reach"). No trailer ("I didn't want the buoyancy of that rubber: "Omega skirts...it's almost like a trailer is already on there...it goes back and pulsates real good.

> "In the mornings I had a trailer hook on it because they were not aggressively eating it. The reason I took it off in the afternoon is I was throwing it behind a lot of docks and fishing brush...and that trailer hook would get hung up a lot. ...I don't think I missed a fish at all in the afternoons."

> "I was pitching or roll-casting it, and I was using a 7' 4 rod – basically a flippin stick with 20-lb P-Line 100% Fluoro and could drop it in there pretty soft. I wasn't making long casts with it....

> "In the afternoons they got real shallow. In reality I guess I could've had 2 rods laid up there and maybe switched to a 1/2-oz, but it doesn't move as much water even with the same blades as that 1-oz...feels so much different coming through the water, the amount of vibration it puts off."

> 7' 4" H F St Croix Legend Elite Rod ("I needed something heavy to throw that big spinnerbait – once you hooked one back behind the cables you had more leverage and control"), Daiwa Tatula Reel (8.1 "because when you hooked one behind the dock, you could catch up and have more control").

> 1/2-oz Omega Flippin' Jig (brown, green, couple strands chart = MO craw?) with a Bojangles Z-Daddy (gp), same line, same reel, 7' 4" H F St Croix Legend Xtreme Rod.

😁 Had to know a couple more things, here you go:

1. Did you ever felt like it might be won by guys spotlighting somewhere?

> "Absolutely. They're so good at it and I saw those fish in those deep docks...so I knew that would play for somebody. That's how Justin Luetkemeyer, the leader the last day, was catching them."

2. You said on the MLF site, "I can’t believe there’s a God that’s so big that he listens to a prayer of a fisherman." What was your prayer?

> "Just the 2nd day I was struggling so bad. It was 11:30 and I've got a 14-inch bass in there and that's all. The run to the Elk River was about 10-12 minutes. And it's glass so it's easy running.

> "I just said a prayer – 'Just give me wisdom. Give me wisdom to pick up the right rod, to make the right stop at the right time, just give me something. Give me a chance to do the right thing.'

> "I caught 3 in the Elk...then I caught a 4 and a 5 in the last hour, running that spinnerbait in some of the same water I'd already fished.

> "Not only my prayer, but the prayers of my family – my wife and my son the last day, continuous prayer there.

> "It's so humbling to think that He hears all prayers. A prayer of a simple fisherman, with all the things, terrible things, that are going on in the world – people dealing with cancer and everything else. To also listen to a simple prayer of a fisherman is overwhelming to me."

How beautifully said is that, wow. ✝️🙏 Chris Wells get that man to testify when you're out thataway!

Is it weird seeing Drew at the top of the standings? Yep if you're just waking up from Rip Van Winkle land, otherwise no! 😁 To lose on a tiebreak is a gut-punch for anyone, here's 3 with him.

1. How did you find and catch your fish?

> "We had 4 days of practice, so I fished the lake from the dam to as far as anyone is about willing to run a bass boat. I found a couple deals...some really deep, like 18-20', some fishing around takeoff skipping docks, some fishing brush on gravel places.

> "I ended up fishing mostly around takeoff. I didn't weight a fish in the tournament further than 6 miles from takeoff, either up or down.

> "A lot of what I did was finding a place where there was flat water [meaning a gravel-type flat] near a main river channel swing...adjacent to the channel swing.

[He said the flats weren't big, like 30' sections to 250' max.]

> "In those place there'd be a ridiculous amount of bait. The first half of the day the bait would be in the river channel and the fish would be really accessible – easy to see, easy to hit.... The back half of the day, the bait would get on top of those flat places and they would actually school on the bait a little bit...little groups...be dozens of 'em....

> "I caught everything I weighed shallower than 6-7' and I caught 'em off docks, I caught 'em off brush, I caught 'em just floating down the banks.

> "The first half of the day, most of them I caught were [singles] relating to something – a dock, a piece of brush, some sort of rock on the bottom. The back half of the day when the bait would show up, they'd kind of float up, swim around a little bit, but I was still catching them the same way [groups of 3-8 fish]."

His main baits

> Big Bite Baits Nekorama (gp), 1/0 Roboworm Rebarb Hook, 1/16-oz weight, 22-lb braid to 15-lb Seaguar Grand Max Fluoro, Johnny Morris Platinum Spin Reel (2000), 7' 6" ML F Phenix K2 Spin Rod.

> "Seaguar Grand Max is approximately the diameter of 10-lb Red Label and is the same as 12-lb Tatsu. It's really strong and extremely narrow. I had that on just because at Grand there's always the possibility of running into a 5+ lber, and I was fishing around lot of docks and brush.

> "I'm really I'm kinda a [line] diameter snob. I wanted to have the additional strength but still keep that diameter narrow [because] with the Neko I wanted it to sink down [fast]...maintain a quick rate of fall but having additional strength."

He also Neko'd an unnamed dice bait (gp) with an 1/8-oz weight, and everything else the same as for the Nekorama.

2. How well do you know Grand?

> "I know Grand I would say okay. This is my 4th time being here. I just liken it to...I've had a lot of experience on Lake of the Ozarks. It's just Ozarks if you put more dirt in the water.

> "[Grand] fishes exactly the same way as LOZ – which is why Roger, Justin Luetkemeyer and a bunch of the LOZ guys did really well...."

3. What's your main takeaway from this one? [Drew always has some mind-blowing insights.]

> "Most of my main takeaways from this tournament are mental. ...the main takeaway from this one not in a direct fishing manner is – over time when you're doing well and you're fishing well...top 10s, making checks, doing well in AOY, but you don't have a realistic chance to win in those situations, you forget how much winning matters. Til you're in the moment, in the situation.

> "...this is the first time I ever told myself I was gonna win and it didn't happen. This one is different. I've not experienced a tournament like this heartbreak-wise where I had myself fully convinced it was going to happen.

> "Really my main takeaway from this one is winning is never guaranteed until the tournament's over, it's an opportunity that you're never guaranteed to have again, and after having a heartbreak like this...winning in the future will have a lot more of a presence in the forefront of my mind.

> "Because man – I've never come so close to winning and not done it...that was pretty heartbreaking.

> "I think the silver lining for me is it was very motivating. Because I've not had the taste of that close of a call ever, and I don't want to ever again."

Does Drew really dance to Saturday Night Fever? Oops what I meant was: Are dice baits really plug 'n play? Just like with the minnows, the whole dice deal is getting refined by the top guys in the top tourneys. Like when Trey McKinney said at St Clair that certain dice/fuzzy shapes work better.

Here's where Drew's at with 'em right now, plus some 🎯 Neko insights since that's his primary weapon most times.

How did you decide on the Nekorama vs the dice bait?

> "Really it was just kinda based on convenience to the bottom. If the fish was in a situation where I didn't feel like I could pul it to the bottom, that's more of a dice situation. But a fish that was positioned more bottom-adjacent or on an object, I would throw the Neko just because I knew I could pull him to the bottom.

> "If I could work with them on the bottom, I could make a lot of them bite. I just had to get them there."

When you say you could work 'em and get 'em to bite, is that working the worm in some fashion?

> "Yeah. With the Neko, I'd make the cast, pull them down, then once they got to the bottom with how dirty the water is at Grand, it's really important to not leave that Neko perfectly motionless because they really struggle to find it.

> "I would hold my line in my right hand and shake the rod with my left. That way I could make sure there was no actual movement of the bait across distance [meaning toward the boat].... I'd just shake my line. If I shook it in place, it'd allow them to continue to know where it is and be able to find it."

Have you ever put a rattle in it?

> "I have not, But in situations like that I think it could be helpful.

> "...you'll notice sometimes they lose track of it. You'll be shaking it and you'll go to snap it up, and you realize your bait's about 2' in front of them and they never knew your bait had moved. ...they totally lost track of it.

> "So I haven't tried it but I think it probably will work."

The dice – do fish reject it?

> "You definitely have fish that don't show an interest. But it was the best thing I could find for the situation – because if needed to take that bait and try to get one to bite it without going to the bottom, it's good about just staying in place.

> There's definitley fish that don't care about it, and the unfortunate thing about it is this tournament was one of those rare scenarios where you don't have to catch a 4+ lber to win the tournament. And if you throw that [dice] in front of a 4-lber, it does not bite it. You are choosing not to catch 4-lbers.

> "But you can catch anything under 4. An occasiohnal 4+ lber will bite it, but percentage-wise – fish under 2.5, your bite percentage is really high. With 4-lbers, I think I threw it in front of 8 or 9 in the tournament that were over 4 and I never got a single one to bite.

> "So far that's generally true with largemouth. Spotted bass and smallmouth are different. You can make the biggest smallmouth or spotted bass...eat dice. But with largemouth, it's a real struggle to make 4+ lbers bite it."

"If you throw that [dice] in front of a 4-lber, it does not bite it. You are choosing not to catch 4-lbers."

Alright here's all the baits of the Top 10 Yota Champeenship finishers broken down – bear in mind it had zero FFS restrictions:

Jig 'n minnow = 40% – 6" Yamamoto Hinge Minnow, Rapala CrushCity Mooch Minnow, 6th Sense Shindo Shad, Deps Sakamata Shad

Jig = 30%

Neko rig = 20% – Big Bite Baits Nekorama, Rapala CrushCity Janitor

10% each = Spinnerbait, Dice bait, A-rig, Buzzbait, Football jig, Small swimbait (Keitech Fat), ChatterBait

Shoutouts

1. Tucker Smith got 3rd mostly pinging minnows including that new Yamamoto Hinge Minnow:

2. AL's Hayden O'Barr (6th) – a recent college grad – fished 8 Toyotas this year, not including the championship. His finishes included 3 2nds, 2 more top 10s and a top 20.

3. TX's Chad Mrazek (7th) had motor trouble the first 2 days so it was troller only. Not a bad finish!

4. Invitationals destroyer "Steep" Banks Shaw got 8th, which MLF says is his FIFTEENTH top 10 this year – dang! He was Neko-ing that CrushCity Janitor Worm.

1. Last chance to win Randy Howell's $123K boat!

Tix that support the King's Home charity (and thus tax-deductible) I believe are $100. Drawing is this weekend so last chance!

2. Opens angler Tai Au latest casualty of no-info poly?

AZ dude who made the EQs and is 16th in the EQ points going into Okeechobee, which is this week. Seems like he could protest and still fish, and maybe he will, but mentally he seems pretty crushed in that vid.

He gives his take on what went down, and says he now feels like he does not want to make the Elites because the poly deal is so sketchy.

2c: This is a pattern for B.A.S.S. Patterns mean something. They indicate something. Hope they figure it out before '26 because more folks than usual (is there a usual?) have gotten 3rd degree burns this year.

3. Bassin' Hall of Fame awards 6 more grants

4. Outdoor America going big-time with country stars 👀

> Field & Stream, the outdoor lifestyle brand whose owners include...Morgan Wallen and Eric Church, is wading into the streaming TV era.

> Field & Stream and media company Outdoor America inked a strategic partnership under which Outdoor America's free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel will be rebranded as Field & Stream TV in late Jan 2026.

> The 2 companies also plan to distribute programming on broadcast TV, available to 90 mil households weekly through broadcast syndication, with additional details to be announced.

Dang, good to hear! The BassBlaster Top 5s vids (and all the Target Walleye stuff) are on there fyi.

5. TX: Bois d' Arc's new lake record is a 12.62

Caught in Oct. That lake is basically brand new so that was fast!

6. TX: City of Austin has put 2,300 grass carp into Lake Austin

So far just this year. Here's an artist's rendering of what that lake will look like 3 years from now:

That pic is brought to you by Stanley Kubrick – that's for you, conspiracy peeps! 😁💪

7. LA: Bussey Brake launch named after...

...William Kinnison "Kinny" Haddox, who has passed on. Sounds like he is the reason the public can fish that body of water. Thank you bassin' brother! ✝️🙏

8. UT has $1.5 mil of ramp and other projects in '26

9. CA: Worst year for water hyacinth in the Delta in a while

10. IA DNR spraying Clear Lake for milfoil

11. MD: Most East Coast stripers come from the Chesapeake

> "...no matter where the fish were caught, the Chesapeake consistently contributed the most to the population."

Headline of the Day

Missile Jigs declares fall and winter as jig season

Heck yeah! Good job Johnny "going on a" Crews and Mike Ike 'n Ellie!

PSA

The TW Black Friday sale is already on!

Do you have 'window baits' in your boat?

Here's a couple from Drew "line" Cook, from a good deal on Bassmaster.com:

> Obviously, a lipless rattler is a common staple from Dec to Mar on grass lakes in the South. However...'Traps tend to be put aside after Mar. For that reason, I keep a box of these baits in my boat at all times because that rattling window can open back up at any time.

> I remember catching some big bags of bass in May on [a SPRO] Aruku Shad at Lake Fork at one of the Bassmaster Texas Fest events. I was fishing a very shallow shell bar, and the lipless...was the only lure I could fish over the bar efficiently.

> After the event was over, I discovered pretty much no one else was throwing a 'Trap in that event. We were at the 'Trap capital of the world in TX, but a lot of the noisy rattlers had been put away for the year.

> ...I still carry...a box of Johnson Silver Minnows. Yeah, I know, this one is kind of a stretch, but there is a tournament day coming when I'm going to smash them on a Johnson Silver Minnow and no one else is going to have one.

[You got that right! lol]

> I've had some crazy good days on that lure while just fun-fishing. Its best window is during the shad spawn in heavy vegetation when bass have already wised up to swim-jigs and frogs....

> I carry the Silver Minnow in a 1/2-size in the standard colors of silver, gold and black. I usually tip it with a twin-tail grub or some kind of worm tail.

I feel I have to do this as a public service:

😁 But seriously – I'd have way more confidence in a Johnson Beetle Spin than a Silver Minnow, you?

"They got so pressured in the area I was in. There were a lot of boats...probably 15 boats on day 1 and day 2 in like a 100-yard stretch."

- That's Hayden O'Barr talkin' after the Toyota Championship. Must've been some stretch! Anyone try the, "You're not part of the community" line? 😁 Full quote:

> "They got so pressured in the area I was in. There were a lot of boats...probably 15 boats on day 1 and day 2 in like a 100-yard stretch. A lot of people caught them on day 1, but by day 2 those fish were hard to catch."

How many things can you see wrong or odd with this Ben Milliken pic? 🤔

Seagulls know when you're angry – and it does scare them away

> The birds can detect differences in the tone of human voices and are more likely to fly off when you express annoyance, a study finds

Once again I gotta ask – who pays for these things?? Who is reading that grant proposal and is like, "Yep, that's it! Give them money!" 🤪

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