Bassmaster Elite at Sabine River Delivered Moreof What Bass Fans Want

Bassmaster Live coverage of last week’s Bassmaster Elite event at Sabine River in Orange, Texas delivered loads of what bass-fishing fans have been craving. Big bass? Not really. The heaviest bass and the heaviest one-day bag of the tournament were both caught by SEVIIN Reels and Missile Baits pro, John Crews, which weighed 4-14 and 12-7, respectively. Non-stop zen-level sniping with forward-facing sonar? Nope. Not so much.
 
Instead, what the Sabine River gave fans was four straight days of intuitive bank-pounding, calculated junk-fishing, and every-ounce-counts power-fishing drama where subtle and seemingly imperceptible differences in presentation and strategy would make all the difference. Oh yeah, and a historic record-breaking performance from St. Croix Rod and Scheels pro, Pat Schlapper.
 
Schlapper set the standard on day 1 with a limit of 12-2. The four-time Bassmaster Classic qualifier from Wisconsin would go on to lead the event all four days with subsequent bags of 8-7, 8-9, and 9-10, for a winning total of 38-12 – two pounds and four ounces heavier that the second- and third-place tying weight of 36-8 entered by Patrick Walters and Kyoya Fujita. Schlapper’s performance not only earned his first-ever Elite Series win, but it also made history as the lowest winning weight ever recorded at a Bassmaster Elite event.

Perhaps the defining aspect of this year’s Sabine River Elite event – the primary takeaway and the reason it was so entertaining and interesting to watch – was that decision making clearly mattered. Decision making. Thoughts followed by actions; not simply who found better fish or were more adept with their forward-facing sonar.

Logic follows that Pat Schlapper made the best decisions on the stingy, equalizing waters of the Sabine River. Starting at practice.
 
Perfect Practice
 
“When we got here for practice, I literally put the boat in the water and the first place I stopped I started catching fish, which is not common down here,” says Schlapper. “So, I had a really good first day of practice which was good for my confidence. I figured out the buzz bait bite right away… then the flipping bite.”
 
Schlapper says he started the second day of practice in a different part of the system. “I gave it a couple hours and it was (not good), so I came back to the first area and started getting bites again right away. The third day I dialed it in a little bit more,” recalls Schlapper. “I found a new spot where I’d end up catching my biggest bag of the tournament on the first day and my biggest fish of the event on the second day. It was a spot with pipes going over the water with pylons on it. It looked like a bridge with some brush washed up on it. So, by the end of practice I had three or four key spots I was catching them on. My confidence was in a good place. I just knew I’d need to pad my bags with a couple fish that were a little bit bigger and felt like I could do well.”
 
Tournament Adjustments
 
Schlapper made hay in his practice spots during day 1 of competition – the pipe crossing location, specifically – with a gold-bladed Brazalo buzzbait with a black toad trailer and a 3/8-ounce homemade jig and Big Bite Baits Chunk trailer. “Clouds and the wind were perfect for the buzzbait,” Schlapper shares. “I was fishing it on the St. Croix Victory The Marshal rod, which is a 73MHF and probably the most versatile model in the Victory lineup.”

When the topwater bite slowed, he switched to the jig. “I actually fished the jig on the same Victory rod and another 73MHF Legend Tournament Bass rod I had rigged on deck,” he says. “I don’t normally flip with a rod that light, but that was one of the adjustments I made because of the smaller-caliber fish in that system. I just didn’t need anything heavier, and the lighter tip really put me in the zone in terms of accuracy.”

After catching 12-2 and leading after day 1, Schlapper returned to same spot on day 2, but also did more fishing on the banks – something he’d continue on days 3 and 4.
 
“You know there were about 80 of the hundred or so boats out there all in the same area. I was trying to keep on different banks than everyone else, when possible, but when I had to fish the same banks, I was deliberately flipping to stuff that didn’t look as good that other people probably passed up,” Schlapper says. “Stuff that other guys just might blow right by. Some of the banks I caught them on I don’t know if people even fished because they just didn’t look very good.”
 
So, Schlapper would keep an edge on Walters, Fujita, and everyone else breathing down his neck by making conscious decisions to fish a smaller jig to specific targets that just didn’t look as good as everything else along the banks. In doing so, he earned willing bites from less-pressured fish.
 
But he also made two other adjustments.
 
“They started biting a bit funky towards the end of the second day – a few that wanted to eat but just didn’t quite get it – so I switched from the jig to an even smaller creature bait,” Schlapper says. “The other thing I did was start fishing a lot faster to cover more water than everybody else. I’d see guys on a bank for like an hour. In that same hour, I would fish five or six stretches. I was just going down the bank on like six on my trolling motor and pitching at everything. Some of the bites did come at predictable spots but a lot of them came from spots where I was like, ‘I’m never going to get a bite in there but I’m going to shove it in there anyway’ and I’d get one.”
 
Keeping with his pre-tournament strategy of worrying less and simply trying to have fun, Schlapper rode slim leads each and every day of competition, trusting in his own judgement, confidence, and abilities.
 
From the Blues to a Blue Trophy
 
“My confidence just kind of built right away from practice and grew each day with the adjustments I was making, even though the whole deal stayed really tight,” Schlapper says. “You know you’re never safe but it’s always powerful knowing you’re in contention.”
 
Looking back, Schlapper points to the fifteen-minute period when he caught his first four fish on the first day of the tournament. “That did more for my confidence than anything else,” he says. “It really doesn’t get any tougher than Sabine. Everyone realized that going in, so when you get them choking your lure like that so early, you feel like you’re in great position to stay at or near the top.”
 
And then there’s the blue-trophy. In his five seasons in the Elites, Schlapper has come close many times, but never wone one.

“I’ve been pretty public about the place I’ve been in mentally this year,” Schlapper says. “I haven’t been happy with the inconsistency, so this helps a lot. I’m also really grateful that my family was there to support me during this win. We’ve needed something like this to rally around and I’m just so happy  it came when it did.”
 
He’s also proud of his new record.
 
“Tournament bass fishing has changed so much in the past couple years, I feel like having my name next to a record like this (lowest total winning weight in a Bassmaster Elite event) is something that reflects well on me as an angler and a competitor,” Schlapper says. “Fans who watched the weigh-ins heard how many times the competitors called this tournament ‘a grind’ or ‘a grinder.’ So many times that Dave Mercer (Bassmaster Elite Emcee) jokingly suggested that fans turn the weigh-ins into a drinking game anytime someone said it. But the point is you have to tap into everything you’ve got in order to do well at these events where the fishing is really tough. I don’t know how long I’ll be considered the king of the low-weight tournaments, but I think it’s a good accomplishment. I also think it’s cool that it happened here in South Texas where they’ve really got some of the best bass-fishing fans in the world.”
 
Schlapper says he’s excited to get home to Wisconsin and spend some time with his family. “I’ve been on the road since the Pasquotank event, so a month and a half or whatever. It’ll be great to be home for a couple weeks. Then we’ll get prepped and just try to try to keep it rolling in Oklahoma on Tenkiller next month. I mean that’s all you can do is just try to try to keep it going.”
 
Follow Pat Schlapper on Facebook and Instagram. Learn more about the Bassmaster Elite Series at bassmaster.com.

About St. Croix Rod
Headquartered in Park Falls, Wisconsin, St. Croix has been proudly crafting the “Best Rods on Earth” for over 75 years. Combining state-of-the-art manufacturing processes with skilled craftsmanship, St. Croix is the only major producer to still build rods entirely from design through manufacturing. The company remains family-owned and operates duplicate manufacturing facilities in Park Falls and Fresnillo, Mexico. With popular trademarked series such as Legend®, Avid®, Premier®, Imperial®, Triumph® and Mojo, St. Croix is revered by all types of anglers from around the world. The St. Croix Family of Brands includes St. Croix Rod, SEVIIN Reels, St. Croix Fly, and Rod Geeks.