Top Flw Pro Hoping Foray Into B.a.s.s. Northern Opens Results In Classic Berth
Dave Lefebre has had an outstanding career in FLW Outdoors competition over the past 11 years – 46 top 10s, including five wins, and earning just shy of $1.6 million – but when he saw B.A.S.S. was going to finish the 2013 Northern Open schedule on Lake Erie, he had to cast a line in Bassmaster waters, too.
“You have to fish all three tournaments,” he said, “but if you win the Sandusky tournament you make the Bassmaster Classic.”
Lake Erie is Lefebre’s favorite fishing water and since the Great Lake is in his backyard at Erie, Pa., the Bassmaster Northern Open Series was “just something I could not pass up.”
Anglers can qualify for the Bassmaster Classic out of the Open Tournament series by winning one of the three tournaments in each division, but they have to fish all three. So far this year he has finished 29th on Oneida lake and 70th on the James River for 26th place in the standings.
“I am incredibly happy with FLW and I have no plans to leave,” Lefebre said. “I will retire from FLW someday, hopefully. But we don’t get many tournaments this close to home for me.”
Having qualified for the Forrest Wood Cup all 11 years of his FLW career, the longest streak on the FLW Tour, Lefebre would love nothing better than to add a Bassmaster Classic to his resume. He has three top 10s in the Forrest Wood Cup including a second place finish in 2008.
Lefebre is eager to fish the Northern Open on Lake Erie even though the tournament is being held out of Sandusky, Ohio, more than 160 miles southwest of his home in Erie, Pa., because he has a very good tournament record on the lake.
Al;though he finished 23rd in the Bassmaster Northern Open on the lake in 2011, he notched a 4th place in the EverStart Series tournament there in 2006, the year he was the Northern EverStart points champion, and he finished 5th on the lake in the 2005 Northern EverStart tournament.
Experience on the lake will play a major role, he believes, because the weather can mess up a fishing strategy very easily.
“The biggest concern this time of year is the weather Right now it looks good for the tournament,” he said. “But it takes a different animal to be comfortable out there. I don’t see it being calm this time of year.”
On a normal day the waves may kick up 3 or 4 feet, he noted, but on a windy day they could be 8 or 9 feet.
“You can always run somewhere else if the wind kicks up when you are fishing on a river, but on Lake Erie if you make a bad call you might not be able to navigate. It might take you hours to get somewhere, so you’ve got to prepare yourself for that and don’t take anything for granted.”
The mental part of it is a major factor in fishing the wide open waters, he said.
“We’ve had some time off since the Forrest Wood Cup (last month on the Red River at Shreveport, La.) so I’ve been trying to get into that mode. Lake Erie is a completely different style of fishing.”
And he has also spent that time preparing his equipment.
“I’ve been getting my electronics tuned in and getting all the nuts and bolts tightened down because of the beating you take out there.”
If everything goes to plan, he said, the fishing should be good. The tournament will probably be won in deep water, 20 feet deep and deeper, with drop-shots and other deep baits over humps, rockpiles, shipwrecks and other structure.
But in the end it will likely be familiarity, experience and mental and physical toughness that decide a winner.
Bassmaster Northern Open
Sep 12-14, 2013
Lake Erie
