April 08, 2008
Zapata, TX - Formed by the Rio Grande River, Falcon Lake's waters are shared by Mexico and the United Sates, and collectively form 98,000 surface acres full of super-sized largemouth bass. Falcon Lake was home to the third stop of the 2008 Bassmaster Elite Series tour. Consensus was that it would take a record-shattering performance to have a shot at winning. Those predictions proved powerfully accurate as veteran Mississippi angler Paul Elias eclipsed the four-day record in route to winning his first Elite Series title, but Toyota Tundra pro Terry Scroggins put plenty of pressure on Paul the final day, as Scroggins brought in the heaviest bag of the week, weighing 44-4.
With a four-day total weight of 132-4, Scroggins said that his week at Falcon - despite being just five ounces away from winning the tournament - was nothing short of amazing. "I have never been so worn out from fishing in my life," he said. "My hands are shredded to pieces and my arms are sore. I'm just worn out. That's what I would call a pretty good week of bass fishing."
Scroggins was nine ounces away from being out of the tournament all together after three days of competition, but he didn't earn the moniker of "Big Show" by being a Broadway vocalist, but instead for his on the water heroics. Starting the day with a 28-pound deficit, and in 12th place, Scroggins went back to the transitional area he'd focused on all week - and brought home near record-setting results.
"I caught the fire out of them first thing, but I actually would let the spot cool for a little bit, and come back in and whack on 'em some more," Scroggins excitedly explained. "It's been that way all week, which was really the key to the whole deal."
With 20 minutes left in his fishing day, Scroggins once again returned to the area that had produced the bulk of his weight over the course of the tournament, and had hooked the monster bass that would likely have given him both the win and the single-day record. "Dean Rojas really escaped one today, that's for sure," Scroggins said to the weigh-in audience, referring to the still-reigning single-day record holder." "I lost one that would have gone 11 pounds or better. If she would have stayed buttoned, I would have shattered the record."
Ending the tournament in 11th place was fellow Tundra pro Mike "Ike" Iaconelli, who remained near the top of the standings all week. Iaconelli started the tournament's final day in sixth place, and knew that in order to have a shot at winning everything would have to go his way. "I had a giant mountain to climb Sunday," the former Classic champion revealed.
Like Scroggins, Ike was targeting post-spawn fish that were transitioning to their summertime haunts, which made it difficult to maintain contact with the giant school of bass. "Post-spawn bass just move around so much," Ike explained. " I actually had to go to the bushes to finish out my limit - which I didn't have to do at all this week until the final day." "Still, I had a great week. I mean, what can you say - Falcon Lake is just unreal," concluded Iaconelli.
