Toyota Life Articles

LAKE WALES, FL
April 2008

It seems that with each tournament there is a potential spoiler waiting in the wings. Looking back into the annals of BASS over the last 10 years, that spoiler has many times been Toyota Tundra pro Kevin VanDam. You do not want him hanging around the top heading into the final day, because chances are, you’ll be fishing for second.

The Citrus Slam at Central Florida’s Kissimmee Chain of Lakes, the second stop of the 2008 Elite Series regular season, lived up to all the pre-tournament expectations as anglers brought in some giants throughout the contest. As the week wore on, it became apparent that the need to have large “kicker” in your tournament limit was critical. If you were successful in nabbing a heavy female, you stood a chance of moving up...if not, you just moved on.

With bedding bass being a factor the first two days of the contest, by the close of the third day it was clear that the sight bite had all but died. Replacing the bed fishermen at the top of the leader board were those who had been able to mount a run-and-gun offense, and there’s no one better at that style of fishing than Kevin VanDam.

Kevin took control of the tournament on the third day, but with the warmest night of the week occurring on Saturday night, it stood to reason that the fishing would hotter than ever Sunday. The day was anything but easy, and KVD crossed the stage for the final weigh-in unscathed and chalked up his 13th BASS win – his third Elite Series win in two years.

Fishing in Florida hasn’t always suited VanDam. In fact, he’s had to learn to approach Florida tournaments perhaps differently than he might those in other states. “Florida has always been sort of bittersweet for me over the years,” VanDam explained. “The one thing that I’ve learned is that I have to be fishing my strengths in order to be comfortable.”

The win at Kissimmee required that Kevin make precision casts in order to catch the lethargic Florida bass. “I tried to focus on fishing the outside edges of grass that had wind blowing against it,” Kevin added. “For some reason they were holding so tight to the hydrilla that if you missed by half-a-foot you’d never get bit.”

Finishing the tournament in 10th place was Tundra teammate Terry Scroggins, who is widely known as one of the best fisherman on the Kissimmee Chain. Terry, who was in the hunt on the tournament’s first day, was unable to repeat that day’s performance as the tournament wore on.

“There wasn’t any consistency this week, but that’s just kind of how it is in Florida this time of year,” Scroggins explained. “The fish are coming off the spawn and they just haven’t gotten to where they need to be.”

Terry added that while he wasn’t able to climb into the leader’s chair during the week, he still had a fantastic tournament. “I really had hoped that the sight-fishing would last through the week,” he said. “Toho is able to kick out some huge bags of fish when it’s right, and we were just a little too late for it to be like that this year.”