Sunday, August 24, 2008

By John Hayes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A few lost fish were all that separated Union City’s Dave Lefebre from reeling in $1 million — the biggest purse in professional fishing.

The Erie County angler placed second in last week’s Forrest Wood Cup, an FLW Outdoors event on the sprawling Lake Murray, west of Columbia, S.C. Lefebre’s total of 19 pounds, 12 ounces, was 5 pounds, 3 ounces shy of the winning haul brought in by California’s Michael Bennett.

On the pro angling circuit for only five years, Lefebre’s runner-up showing netted a $100,000 second prize and confirmed the Pennsylvanian’s status as one of the nation’s top big-league anglers. Heading into the Forrest Wood Cup finals, FLW Outdoors reported that Lefebre had already amassed more than $833,000 in four wins and 30 Top 10 finishes in FLW events.

The ones that got away likely cost Lefebre the win. Two hefty fish, he said, shook the hook.

“But I don’t want to dwell on that,” he said. “I did what I came here to do, and that was to catch a limit every day. I figured if I did that, I’d win, and I didn’t.”

The tournament’s top winners — Bennett, Lefebre and Arkansas’ Terry Bolton — had planned to fish deep, but quickly adapted to prevailing conditions and scored at shallow shoreline locations with particular habitat.

Lefebre concentrated on a five-mile stretch of the Little Saluda River, which feeds Lake Murray. The key to his pattern, he said, was fishing small depressions along the bank. Most of the water was 2 to 3 feet deep. Where it dipped to 4 or 5 feet in depressions with cover, Lefebre found fish.

“When I put in the boat, I noticed the water was up. Trees were flooded on the bank,” he said. “I started fishing shallow early that morning and WHOOM!”

It’s rare for pros to stick to a single bait, but Lefebre fished the entire tournament with just one lure: a Texas rigged 6-inch Berkley Powerbait Flippin’ Tail Worm in June Bug with a ³/₁₆-ounce Penetrator weight fished on a 12-pound test Gamma flurocarbon line.

Lefebre said his hook, made by Gamakatsu Sugoi for Yamamoto Custom Baits, was perfect for that type of light-line flipping and pitching. He threw to visible surface structure — bushes, downed trees and overhanging branches at small shore depressions.

“I was fishing a Tabu jig in practice,” he said. “I like it because you can skip it under the brush. But in the tournament, on the first day I felt the fish weren’t hitting the jig right. They were hitting hard and fast. I was getting bites and missing — I missed the first four or five bites I had. The fish were pretty good size, too.”

Lefebre switched to the plastic worm in the same color, already rigged on another rod.

“That made the difference,” he said. “When they hit that worm, it has the scent in it and they hang onto it. It was definitely the bait. It’s rare to be able to do something like that — stick to one bait for four days in a row. But I caught so many fish on it.”

Still considered a relative newcomer to pro fishing, Lefebre, 37, was a professional musician playing up and down the East Coast with his band Steel Justice before he began fishing full time. His favorite place to fish?

“Lake Erie,” he posted on a bass fishing Web site. “It’s loaded with fish. You can catch 50 bass before 9 o’clock in the morning, and any way you want to, so you can learn new techniques really fast.”

Coming within a couple of well-set hooks from the biggest financial haul in pro angling is disappointing, Lefebre said. But it’s all relative.

“On one hand, I’m disappointed. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — I was in a position to win a million dollars, and I may never be in that position again,” he said. “On the other hand, I thought second paid $50,000 and I just found out it pays $100,000, so I’m pretty pumped about that.”

Executives from the Benton, Ky.-based FLW Outdoors were in Pittsburgh in February scouting locations for the 2009 Forrest Wood Cup Championship. Spokesman Dave Washburn said then that several cities were being considered, but “Pittsburgh is definitely the frontrunner.”

Last week, Washburn said FLW would announce its decision this summer. Lefebre said people involved with the effort to bring the event to Pittsburgh were spotted at Lake Murray during the tournament.