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Gary Yamamoto 9th on Kentucky Lake
By Russ Bassdozer
Photos by Jeff Schroeder & Gary Mortensen, FLW Outdoors

May 14-17, 2003

2003 FLW Tour - Kentucky Lake, Gilbertsville, KY

Congratulations, Gary! Not only did you finish ninth on the pro level, Gary, but your 30-year-old son, Derek, of Mesa, Arizona made the final cut (top ten) and Derek finished seventh in the Co-angler Division. Did that make the tournament special for you, that you and Derek both made the top ten cut?

I think it made it more special for FLW. Their reporter staff made a big issue out of interviewing us every chance they got. As you know, Derek has his own independent tackle company, Kinami now. So it was good publicity for both of us from the standpoint of business. But as a father, yes it was special for me because there are not too many fathers and sons in bass fishing. Guido and Dion Hibdon of course maybe they are at the next level higher than Derek and I, since Guido and Dion both won the Bassmasters Classic. So I suppose that's something Derek and I should do too.

Gary, when the field goes from 175 pros and 175 co-anglers, when 350 contenders get reduced to the top ten finalists as it did on Kentucky Lake, how does that affect you? The spotlight is on you. Does that make you feel less pressure or more pressure?

That doesn't affect me that much. I've been through the pressure before and been there for so long that I don't think about it any more. What I did think was with only ten teams on Saturday and Sunday, it would be a lot easier to move around the lake to get to different spots. However, so many anglers were just out fishing for a good time over the weekend that Kentucky Lake was actually less crowded on Thursday and Friday with the full field of 175 boats (pro angler/co-angler pairs).

You are a strong competitor on both the FLW and BASS pro tours. In 2002, you ranked 11th on BASS and 54th on the FLW tour, Gary. Do you use different fishing strategies for each tour? With different competitors on each tour using different tactics (such as FLW angler Tom Monsoor's swimming jigs), do you find yourself fishing differently from one tour to the other?

No difference. Most guys, top pros, we fish our own unique style, our personal strengths or our best patterns that have been working, regardless of the tournament organization, regardless of what the other anglers do, even regardless of the particular lake at times.

Reducing the field to just ten, does this make the competition more personal between the ten remaining pros? Do you find yourself fishing more against the other nine?

If the field is 175 or 50 or 10 competitors, I just fish my strengths (soft plastics) and do my best. I don't fish differently, change strategies or have a different mindset based on who or how many the competition. I fish against the fish and against myself.

I can say however that I was fond of the traditional three-day accumulated score format. In the three-day running score, you are better able to demonstrate true skill with a winning technique that can hold up over three solid days. If you look at the elimination style format, it's not really four days. You fish two days to make the cut, then throw away those two days and start at zero for another day or two. It's more of a crap shoot who will win when you start over from zero on that last day or two. When you throw away the first few days, the final day reflects more good luck rather than whose skills/tactics held up best for three days accumulated score.

The water on Kentucky Lake reached 8 feet above normal pool during the tournament. Many of the anglers fished way back in flooded forest areas, where you made an important discovery...about bass and poison ivy, Gary.

As many trees as I pitched my Senko to over four days, that was a lot of trees! But it is funny that I did not catch one bass on a tree draped with poison ivy vines.

In the flooded forest, were there any other surprises you found besides the poison ivy? Was there anything you could single out as a high percentage spot? A low percentage spot?

Yes, the high percentage spots were the trees that had no underbrush cluttered around them. The low percentage spots were trees with a mess of stuff around the base. So it was not just the poison ivy, but any type of draping vines or underbrush. Think about it, if a bass wants to make a bed at the base of a good solid tree trunk, why would the bass want to mess around with a whole clutter and tangle of stuff? Those bass probably just wanted their tails tucked up against a good solid trunk, with a clear perimeter viewing distance around it.

Of course, we are all eager to know what baits you used and how you used them. So let us in on what you did to make the final cut and finish ninth for an $8,000 prize.

I was flipping most of the time to trees and buckbrush and caught most of my fish with 9-10-231 (Plum w/emerald flake) Senkos with 5/16 oz tungsten bullet sinkers, 5/0 Gamakatsu straight shank wide gap hooks and 20 lb Sugoi line. I also used 9-10-021 (black w/blue flake) Senkos. The fish wanted dark color Senkos. Importantly, the fish seemed to want a free-sliding sinker, they did not seem to want a pegged sinker, which would have made getting through the brush easier, but they wouldn't bite it.

I was on a lot of bedding bass during the pre-fish practice on Friday and Saturday the week before. There were a lot of fish, keyed on flooded timber and buckbrush. The buckbrush was clustered out in the middle of flooded pools or it was back in shoreline cuts. However, it was underneath about seven feet of water.

The fish either spawned Thursday or Friday, and were aggressively guarding the nests during practice. But by the time the tournament started on Wednesday, most fish had left and were not guarding the nests any longer. I was catching 50 a day during practice, mostly keepers, and I caught just enough keepers the first two days to make the top ten cut. But by the third day of the tournament, I had only 20 fish at most and only four keepers. So within a few days, the bass went from guarding beds to not having to do that any more.

I don't know what kind of pattern Kevin VanDam was on, but his could have been similar to mine since VanDam was in first place after day two and I was in third, and he fell to tenth by the final day and I fell to ninth. So he could have been on the same type structure and same fish pattern as I.

With seven feet of water over the buckbrush, the key was to place the Senko close to the bottom near the main trunk stem. The bass were near the base of the brush tucked under the limbs. Envision it just like you'd tuck yourself under an umbrella on a rainy day. The bass were tucked under the bushes, had probably scooped saucer-sized nests around the main trunk stem, and they weren't coming out to the edges of the brush. So I'd ease the bow of the boat directly over each bush, taking care not to hit the buckbrush with the trolling motor. Then I'd drop the Senko over the side, work it through the brush until it hit bottom, shake it a little bit and they'd grab it.

I saw a lot of other anglers trying to work the brush from the outside, but their baits were getting hung up too high in the limbs to be effective or pendulum-falling too far out away from the base of the stem. You had to get the boat directly over the brush, drop straight down through the crown to the open area beneath the bottom limb near the center trunk stem. Once you got your bait into this area, below the last limb, it often got bit before reaching bottom. As hard as it was to get the bait down through the brush, it was even harder to get the bass out. That's where the 20 lb Sugoi made the difference with its abrasion resistance. Also for flipping like this, the straight shank hook (without the offset bend in it) makes a difference as it slips through cover better.

Even though it was only seven feet of water, I could not wait for a weightless Senko to slow fall through the bush. Besides, it would not get down below the limbs but hang up too high in the brush to get a bite. So the tungsten weight on the Senko made the difference. Let's say a bass is guarding a nest three feet down on open bottom. Even that shallow, it takes a moment for a weightless Senko to reach bottom. It wiggles down, provides time for the bass to eyeball it as it falls. Most of the time, the bass is going to hit. Now put that bass on the nest under seven feet of water at the base of a bush. The weightless Senko becomes ineffective in this situation. The sinker allowed me to cover more water faster, penetrate the bushes with the Senko and get a reaction strike. Often they'd whack it just as it cleared the bottom limb, where there was a space of a foot or two with just main stem, no limbs. If I did not get a reaction bite as the Senko fell out of the bush onto bottom near the center trunk, I'd pick it up off bottom and shake it 1-2 times, then flip it to the next bush. So I fished faster and showed the weighted Senko to many more fish than a weightless Senko would have allowed me.

Gary, it is said that fishing is learning. No matter how good you get at it, you never stop learning, never know it all. What is the most important thing you've learned this year on the FLW and BASS pro tours?

That, over a four day tournament, chances are the style or pattern can change dramatically. Watch for the fish to switch. This is the key thing I learned this year on the pro circuits.

This tournament on Kentucky Lake, I should have changed gears because the fish switched by day three. But that late in the game, I just continued on the way I got to make the cut, flipping beds under trees and bushes. Starting over again at zero pounds on day three, this tournament was won on a Carolina rig on creek bends and gravel bars. The guys who won were catching females on day three and four, females that had pulled off out of the spawning areas by then. Some guys got fifty keepers a day this way. I could not get five because I did not change. Still it was good enough for me to get ninth.

An opposite example is Santee-Cooper earlier this season. The pre-fish practice was terrible for everyone, then the tournament worked out fine. The fish weren't on beds in practice. A few days later, the tournament started and they were on beds.

Fish can change quick, in a couple of days. Not just the spawn but all season long. Watch for changes from one day to the next, and choose the right tactics to keep catching them. Someone who doesn't detect and match the changes when they happen, they'll drop out if they keep doing what they did yesterday.

The $100,000 Pro Division winner Steve Kennedy fished a Carolina-rigged 5-inch green pumpkin Senko and crankbaits on the final day of competition. The $15,000 Co-angler Division winner Ryan Chandler fished a Carolina-rigged 5-inch green pumpkin Senko and caught all his fish on Senkos in Sunday's final round. And you may be interested to know that Florida BASS Federation's Jerry Shawver used a watermelon Senko to help him win $45,000 for first place in the BASS Federation National Championship this same weekend (May 14-17) in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. How do you feel personally when you see that the Senko has become such a dominant force in bass fishing today, Gary?

As an individual, for myself, I don't feel anything. I am the original designer, but it is the whole company who I feel proud of what they have accomplished. They made the Senko a success. I just wanted to use it to go fishing. Everyone in the factory, the office, the shipping department, the gals in the Texas pro store, the people in our Tempe and Toledo Bend stores. The whole team is proud of what's going on with the Senko. The other thing is it just works.

Do you think you will ever design a better bait in the future that can top the Senko, Gary?

I don't know about that. The new series of Cut Tails may be close. They're deadly. I've been using the newest release, the 5.75-inch 7C-series Cut Tail on a Carolina rig. It even impresses me how they just eat it. There are conditions and presentations when the Cut Tails will outfish the Senkos.

Gary, the Kentucky Lake tournament will be televised on the “FLW Outdoors” show this weekend, and we hear there's a segment where you chat with the FLW hosts. That show will be on The Outdoor Life Network (OLN) on Saturday, May 24 at 7 p.m. and again Sunday, May 25 at 1 p.m. Eastern time. We hope to watch you then, and we thank you for having spent your time to chat with us today, Gary.

It was my pleasure, all. See you. ~ Gary

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