2011 IN FOCUS

Story by Matt Pangrac - Photos  by Mark Jeffreys, Matt Pangrac and Dave Rush

The 2011 regular season started with a bang as Shaw Grigsby dueled with Grant Goldbeck for the Harris Chain title in Florida.  Making a dramatic comeback from nearly dead last after the first day, Goldbeck climbed into contention with massive limits on Day Two and Day Three. 

Although his comeback bid eventually fell short of Grigsby, this 7-pound bite on Day Three helped Goldbeck secure a 2nd place finish. 

Even though the second stop of the 2011 Elite Series season was held on the longest river in Florida, it was a battle for real estate on the St. Johns River.  With nearly half the field making the run to Lake George to key on sight fish, Elite Series pros were looking at each other almost as much as they were looking at the bass. 

In this photo, Takahiro Omori, Dean Rojas, and Scott Rook fish within flippin’ distance of each other. 

Each year, there are specific moments that reiterate just how talented the Elite Series pros really are.  On the second day of competition at Pickwick Lake, Jeff Kriet provided one of these moments.  With a small limit in the livewell around 12:00, Kriet abandoned his bite in the backs of coves and started flipping main lake cover on a hunch.

“Hey, watch me catch a 6-pounder out of this treetop,” he said as he approached a laydown.  On the first flip Kriet connected with this 4-pounder.  “It’s not a 6, but I’ll take it,” he said with a grin.  The kicker boosted Kriet to a 13th place finish. 

While the majority of the field at Pickwick Lake opted to fish shallow cover or ply the moving water below the dam, Skeet Reese methodically picked apart long stretches of bluff walls directly across from the weigh-in site. 

The gamble paid off with a 37th place finish and provided some dramatic photos of the California pro dwarfed by the large rock face. 

10 years after recording a Top 150 victory on Toledo Bend, Dean Rojas returned in 2011 and claimed victory by leading wire-to-wire.  In the season’s most dramatic final day weigh-in, Rojas held off a hard charging Gerald Swindle by a single ounce.

On the third day of competition at Toledo Bend, Fred Roumbanis divulged that he was using a unique tactic to climb he leader board. Rather than sight fish like eventual winner Dean Rojas, target post-spawn bass with a jerkbait like Gerald Swindle, or flip wood like David Walker, Roumbanis employed a 1-ounce football jig and paired it with a Double Diamond swimbait. 

Snapping the jig off the bottom to elicit a reaction bite, Roumbanis dissected offshore subtleties to finish in 5th place.  

At the 6th stop of the season on Lake Murray, Mike Iaconelli was one of the favorites to excel on a fishery noted for a finicky post-spawn bite and cruising wolf packs of herring chasing largemouth bass.  With a 3rd place finish, Ike didn’t disappoint.  On the final day, the New Jersey pro put on a clinic fishing within a mile of the launch ramp.   In typical Iaconelli style, he landed each bass with flair for the crowd of onlookers. 

Heading into the final tournament of the 2011 Elite Series season on Wheeler Lake, Ish Monroe was on a mission.  After a dismal 91st place finish at Lake Murray put him in jeopardy of missing the 2012 Classic, Monroe bounced back with a 4the place finish at the Arkansas River and kept it rolling at Wheeler.

These two bass on the final day of competition at Wheeler, where he brought a 13-14 limit to the scales, helped Monroe to his second consecutive 4th place finish to close out the regular season.  It wasn’t a Gatorade shower, but it was pretty close to one.