Skeet on top at Smith Mountain

Huddleston , Va. – To succeed on the Bassmaster Elite Series requires skill, patience and determination. To dominate on the same circuit requires all of the above, and a seemingly inhuman ability to recognize a winning pattern, and executing it to perfection.

Some anglers dominate for a day, some for a week, others for a year, but to maintain the same level of consistency for multiple, consecutive years is special. Skeet Reese, the 2007 Bassmaster Angler of the Year and 2009 Bassmaster Classic Champion has been that angler on the Elite Series.

Since the inception of the world's toughest tournament trail in 2006, Reese has not finished out of the top 10 in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year Points Standings. He finished 7 th in 2006, claimed the title in 2007, finished 4 th in 2008, 2 nd in 2009 after leading the points race in the regular season, and following his crushing victory this past week at the Blue Ridge Brawl on Virginia's Smith Mountain Lake, leads the 2010 race by a wide margin.

“I start every season with the goal of winning a regular season event and the AOY,” said Reese of his plans for each season. “Along with the wins I've had, I've been around the trophy stand several times over the past few years, and many of those have been 2nd place finishes; I'm glad to have won one this year.”

His win on Smith Mountain Lake , the fifth of his career in BASS, was not only satisfying to him from a goals perspective, but also was one of the most dominating performances in BASS history. Reese started the event in 10 th place with a 17-pound, 9-ounce limit. Then moved to 2 nd place with an 18-pound, 13-ounce limit and jumped to the lead on day three with 21-pound, 13 ounces, giving him a six and a half pound lead.

He took his big lead, and turned it into a 14-pound, 9-ounce margin of victory with a 19-pound, 14-ounce limit that closed the door on his competitors. His final total of 78 pounds, 1-ounce bested the previously heaviest winning weight at Smith Mountain by nearly 17 pounds.

Reese used a combination approach that saw him throwing mostly a Rago Bait Company swimbait, but mixed in a Berkley PowerBait worm as well for a few isolated fish. “I covered a lot of water each day, mainly trying to find fish that would react to the swimbait,” said the five-time BASS winner. “I mixed in a little sight fishing when I needed, but relied heavily on the swimbait.”

The swimbait was a 6” Rago SKT Swimmer in Light Hitch color, with two different rigging systems, a top hook version for skipping around docks, and a line thru version that he used in open water. “I hit 40 to 60 spots a day; I was basically pre-fishing each day,” he said. “In fact, in all of the spots I caught fish on, I only had one where I caught more than one fish off of, and that was from one day to the next.”

Reese's pattern included fishing the bait around points and banks that had rock on them, and he fished them slowly, parallel to the bank to elicit strikes. The six inch swimbait was rigged on 20-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line on a signature SKT Revo reel and his 7'6” Wright & McGill Co. Skeet Reese Tessera Swimbait / Carolina Rig Rod; the swimbait accounted for 65-percent of his total catch.

The other 35-percent fell to a watermelon colored Berkley PowerBait Heavyweight worm that Reese impaled on a 1/0 TroKar drop shot hook tied to 8-pound-test Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. He used his signature 6' 11” Wright & McGill Co. Shaky Head / Senko rod matched with an Abu Garcia Sorön spinning reel. He caught his worm fish both on beds, as well as around hard cover.

Another key to his ability to target the productive areas was his ability to differentiate productive water from the rest because of his signature Skeet Reese Wiley X Xcess sunglasses. “I had to be able to see where the cover came together properly for the swimbait,” he said. “The Amber / Green Mirror lens also helped me see bedded fish more effectively, and that made a huge difference.”

“I've been able to put together good finishes at Smith Mountain Lake the last two times we'd been there, and to break through with a win this year was amazing,” he said. “It's not an exact match, but it really sets up a lot like Clear Lake does, and I feel really comfortable there.”

“I've grown really comfortable with the lake, and the fans there,” he said. “The first time we were there, I was dropshotting on a main point in front of the locals, and we kind of bonded. Since then, they've made me feel right at home, and Sunday was no different; it was a really special tournament.”