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Tom Monsoor's Glowing 3rd Place Finish at Beaver Lake
By Russ Bassdozer
Photos by Jeff Schroeder & Yasutaka Ogasawara, FLW Outdoors

Tom Monsoor takes 3rd on FLW Beaver Lake

March 31 - April 3, 2004

2004 FLW Pro Tour - Beaver Lake, Rogers, Arkansas

Yamamoto pro Tom Monsoor from La Crosse, Wisconsin has 25 top ten FLW finishes since 1998. AOY from 1999 to 2001 in the BFL Great Lakes Division, 1st place on the EverStart Northern Division in 2001 (Mississippi River), 3rd place on the FLW Pro Tour in 2003 (Kentucky Lake), 2nd place on FLW Pro Tour on Atchafalaya Basin, Louisiana in February and 3rd place this weekend on the FLW Pro Tour on Beaver Lake, Arkansas. Most interesting thing is, he's won them all using his own homemade swimming jigs with grub trailers..

Greetings Tom and congratulations! You've had three top three finishes in the last five FLW Pro Tour events. On Beaver Lake, you came in 3rd and $50,000 richer this weekend, Tom. I hear you credited part of your success on Beaver Lake to using a luminous white Yamamoto grub trailed on a shad pattern jig you tied. What gave you the idea to try that?

Thank you, Russ, really because actually you gave me the idea, and it was a great one! It worked beautifully. I caught most of my fish and placed third on Beaver Lake using the luminous white Yamamoto grub trailers there. Thanks for sending them. I was tickled pink when they worked during practice. The bass just loved them. I don't know why? I just think it glowed and that helped me to get bites down around twenty feet. Some fish, I even walked the jig with the luminous tail down to thirty feet. They just crunched it. I'm really glad you turned me on to that.

Tom, a luminous effect works better than most anyone realizes yet. The luminous grubs work on the deep, clear waters of the Southwest desert lakes out here where I am. So when you told me you were fishing crystal-clear shad pattern jigs deep on Beaver Lake, it just seemed like a good situation to give the luminous grubs a go as jig trailers. A luminous white Slim Senko, the 9J, also excels to dropshot these deep clear lakes, Tom. Deep clear water makes the best use of the color's luminous character. In fact, it shines attractively in deep water where the sunshine doesn't reach, such as in the shadow of a van-sized rock or under the eave of a ledge. Because it is clear water but limited sunlight, the bass can see the luminous glow from far away. The luminous bait naturally attracts the attention of whatever bass exist down there. Bass really eat them, but what is even more seriously attracted to the luminous white baits are those cat-eyed walleyes, Tom. You can't keep the walleyes off it.

The walleye guys are going to go nuts over this, Russ. When walleye people up North hear about this, they are going to do great using it. I don't think a lot of people know about this. I'll find out myself this summer because I plan to do a lot of walleye fishing this season.

Tom, we talked about something else that a lot of guys do not know about either. That's marinating soft baits in a good attractant such as MegaStrike.

Obviously the attractant gets absorbed into a Yamamoto bait. If a fish bites the tail off a jig and grub trailer that's been marinating in a good attractant like MegaStrike, you will catch that fish on the next cast. The fish has the taste from the tail it nipped off, and it is ready to eat whatever is cast in next.

Absorbing the taste is only one of the many benefits of applying an attractant. Marinating Yamamoto soft baits softens them up even more. They get a slick slimy feel. They take on a living sheen coat. Especially the translucent color plastics become even more translucent and capture light better when glistening in attractant. Marinated baits don't stick to each other in the bag and therefore get smooshed and bent out of shape. In fact, marinating tends to let the baits want to straighten back out to their proper alignment. The baits want to go back to the way they were cured and solidified in the mold. Marinating in attractant is kind of like using a chiropractor to re-align bent or misshapen baits. They get more supple, limber up, back in perfect shape. The baits really want to be the way they were cured, not bent from being in the bag or stored improperly. In a pinch, even lake water will soften and re-shape baits back toward their original molded alignment and makes them slick and slimy just putting some lake water in the bag of baits you plan to use in the morning.

I like when the baits get spongy and bloated, Russ. I smile when I see that happen just from swimming the grubs through lake water for a few casts. The kinks start loosening up, they get a slick and slimy feel after a few minutes casting in lake water. However, using a good attractant like MegaStrike is far better than mere lake water. What I did at Beaver lake was take 3-4 bags of grubs I intended to use and put them all in a big zip-lock bag to marinate in attractant for five days before the tournament. By then, any kinks were coming out, they came back to shape really good, they swam really good and were soft and supple right out of the bag the same way as if they had been cast in lake water for a while. Plus the taste when they grab onto it, it's permeated all into the grub after five days.

Did you ever fish Beaver Lake, Arkansas before, Tom?

Once. This was my second time. I decided to rely on what I do best - swimming jigs and Yamamoto grub trailers. They worked pretty good. Good enough for $50,000. Each day, I left the dock with five jigs tied on and two Carolina rigs. After I had caught all I could out of a spot with jigs, I would go back over it with the Carolina rig just to make sure I did not leave a fish behind. Very seldom did I get bit on the Carolina rig, but sometimes I did, usually when I was desperate to get little fish just trying to fill out a limit. The bigger fish all came on my swimming jig and Yamamoto grub trailer.

I got a lot of confidence in what I was doing with the jig and grub when I drew a co-angler who had gotten a good limit the first two days shaking a worm in the back of the boat. The day before I drew him, the co-angler culled three limits shaking the worm whereas his pro only caught one keeper that day. It worried me the co-angler was going to do the same to me. Well, I drew him next day and I thought he was going to take me and my swimming jigs to school. I went and threw the jig and grubs and caught them all that way. The co-angler never caught one with the shaky worms. I felt bad for him, but I felt even better for myself and more confident in what I had been doing with the jigs and grubs.

Tom, you showed up at Beaver Lake with some baits you like to use, and what did you do next? How do you figure out new water quickly and beat a lot of seasoned pros who knew Beaver Lake much better than you? What is the key? Using good baits? Finding good-looking spots? Finding bass?

Most important is figuring out what the fish are doing that day - and it may be dramatically different than what they did yesterday or may do tomorrow. Until you uncover what the fish are doing and what kind of place they are doing it in, the best bait in the world cannot catch fish where they aren't.

Another thing on new water is I look for things that look good to me. Believe in yourself. Don't ever second guess yourself. If I am driving past a bank and it instinctively looks good to me, I try it. If it works, I seek for more of the same. If it works the same? Now I have a repeatable pattern. I'm essentially repeating fishing one type of spot with one type of approach over and over again wherever I find it on the lake. That's the definition of a pattern. With a pattern, I can cause some damage and have a good finish. Every time I get a good pattern going, I finish in the top ten. By definition, a pattern cannot not work. I think guys who gain local familiarity or much experience on a lake, they begin not to fish patterns anymore. They begin to fish from spot to spot that they know, go to their "honey holes" and don't put together a pattern anymore. Knowing ten good spots on a lake and hitting all ten during the day is not a pattern. Sitting in one or two honey holes all day is not a pattern. A pattern is figuring out what the fish are doing and looking for more of the exact same where it occurs up and down the lake. You may still hit ten spots, but because that's where the pattern is repeating itself ten times over - not because they are your ten favorite spots or honey holes.

What did you figure out the fish were doing at Beaver Lake, Tom?

I found fish chasing shad, busting them on the surface. This allowed me to methodically throw every bait in my boat at them and learn what they would bite - or in this case, what they would not bite because they hardly bit anything. So that exercise quickly eliminated numerous lure types from my game plan. So first I eliminated things they were not going to hit. Second, I put out a swimming jig with a pearl blue silver (031) Yamamoto grub trailer. That worked. So now I had a bait they would hit. I knew that shad surface-feeding pattern was not something I could count on to come back to day after day. Because when bass feed on shad like that, they become almost nomadic wanderers. If you find a bay full of shad, you've probably found a bay full of bass - but you cannot count on those wanderers to be there tomorrow, surely not for a four day tournament. They live with the shad and follow them wherever they go. Their whole life is to follow the food, and the bass are real good at sticking to the shad. Much better than the shad are at shaking the bass off them. About the only way the shad can lose the bass is for the shad to harbor out over deeper water, say 150 feet, during tough weather conditions. Bass don't like that and tend to quit off the shad schools then. But as soon as the weather is right again, the shad come back in to shore and the bass are sticking right on them again, following them anywhere.

So the shad are not very good at losing the bass. The bass are much better at finding the shad than the shad are at losing them. So what I patterned were deeper bass, 20 and even 30 feet down, that were sitting and waiting to hitch onto shad schools like fleas on a cur as shad would come into a bay. I guess it may be like waiting in a train station, jumping on the first train to arrive and riding it wherever it may be going. So you could say I patterned the train stations where bass were waiting to jump on shad schools as they pulled in.

Tom, you were swimming your jigs and grub trailers down twenty even thirty feet down. Had you ever used your swimming jigs down that deep before?

It was a first for me, Russ. I usually swim them shallower, often around thick grass and wood cover on riverine, wingdam and oxbow type shallow waters. This was the first time using my swimming jigs that deep in deep impoundments. I caught every species of bass that swims in Beaver Lake this way - smallmouth, meanmouth, spotted and largemouth bass.

Tom, have you run across any other people down South who have developed their own style of swimming jigs as you do?

I really haven't seen of or heard anyone who's doing it, but a lot of people have been coming up to me and asking to learn from me how I do it, asking what colors of jigs I use, and wanting all the details. Placing in the top three in the last 3 of 5 FLW pro events, at least 8 out of 10 of the other top 10 pros at each event come over to look in my boat, study my jigs for a long time. Some guys say to put my rods away, hide my jigs, but I am proud to show them. Right now, it is a big deal, kind of a sensation, and I'd say none of the other pro anglers seem to show any familiarity with it.

How much sharing of techniques and tackle tips do you see among the top pros on tour, Tom?

I'd say there probably is some. It may be more one-to-one than out in the open. I've given my jigs to pros when asked, and to my co-anglers. I've tried to be open and to help those who seem interested. If there are nice people who come up and ask in a nice way, I will help them. When I finished at Beaver Lake, I even cut my jigs and luminous grubs off my rods and gave them to a couple of pros who were nice about asking for them.

Is it going to hurt me for helping my top competitors? Maybe. But right now I am doing well, living my dream and it is an honor that guys who are my heroes and the best anglers in the world are interested in learning what I am doing. I'm tickled pink to be asked by them and most of them are such nice people that I believe they would help me if I asked.

Tom, you are certainly becoming one of our heroes and one of the best anglers in the world yourself.

Well that is my dream to become that.

Let's get back to the luminous grub trailer again. As you know, I personally think it is a bigger trigger than most anyone realizes. A lot of guys are scoring great with one of the newer colors I patterned about one year ago, a Senko with a luminous chartreuse core and tail tip. Since most guys only view it in daylight or in shallow water, most don't even realize it glows, but almost overnight it became and remains a top seller among our approximately 150 colors, Tom.

It's not a secret anymore, Russ. It will be on TV when FLW airs the Beaver Lake event. They had the camera right on the swimming jig and grub trailer coming through the water, and I explain on TV how it glows in the water. As you know, I had been thinking about it, talking to you, and when you sent me some, you convinced me to try them. I had been practicing with several other colors of white grub trailers, but the luminous white instantly and consistently far outfished the other whites.

I hope to work with the group here at Yamamoto to introduce even more luminous effects into the Yamamoto product line in 2004 and beyond.

Tom, what kind of jig skirt pattern did you combine with the luminous grub trailers you used to win third place on Beaver Lake?

When it comes to my jigs, I tie patterns according to standards of what fly tiers call matching the hatch. I just got some awesome new skirt material not long ago. It's got a glimmering blue sheen on a clear strand with flecks in it. I use 11 strands of that, 5 strands of clear with red flecks and 5 strands of pearl white. Like the best fly fishers, I stay up late trying to revise and improve upon patterns each evening after I've been on the water. That was about the best shad pattern I was able to tie for Beaver Lake. That dressing was tied onto a white jig head painted with yellow eyes just like a shad. Shad have yellow eyes. It's all about tying in order to match the hatch or what I observe on the water each day.

Tom, I asked Joe Rummelt from Laketown Jigs if he could send you samples of his work. Not necessarily that you would use the jigs he sent you, but I wanted you to see the quality of his craftsmanship. I feel Joe's the best jigmaker I've ever come across, Tom

I did get the jig samples from Joe at Laketown, Russ. The samples were impressive. And flawless.

I especially like the old school Gamakatsu O'Shaughnessy bend hooks Joe uses in some. You don't see that bend in a jig hook anymore. Used to be they were all jigs were O'Shaughnessy's back when. Now they are all perfect round bends. I still stick a heck of a lot of fish on those O'Shaughnessy jig hooks Joe still uses, Tom.

That's the way a jig hook should be. That kind of bend cants the hook point up a hair when the jig is mouthed. On my swimming jigs, I do like the hook point a little up above breaking an even plane.

Tom, when a jig is mouthed, do you feel that the bulk of the jig head mass and protruding hook eye can interfere with a good hookset?

That's something I have studied, Russ, although I haven't ever discussed it with anyone. Most people don't get into that depth, even those who make jigs. It's interesting you should ask. I've seen big fish grab onto a poor jig head and hook eye design, and you are unable to move the hook to set it because they clamp down on the head and eye portion so tight. Now with a good jig head design, no it doesn't affect the hookset. It needs to have the right angle of the hook eye, a smooth head so it slides out of the mouth and the point catches on the way out. My swimming jig I designed that way not only to slip through weeds and wood but to slip out of the fishes mouth thereby enabling the hookset. I don't haul off and powerset with my jigs. I just keep reeling on a bite, sweep the rod and the fish grabs down and the hook slides home. All these little things add up to the big picture with jig bites. And every jig bite needs to add up to the big catch. You are going to miss some bites, but misses should happen only because the fish screwed up, not because you or your jig messed up. Fish don't always strike right.  Bass can make mistakes but we cannot afford to - a strike is worth too much money for you to miss it.

Tom, we hope to see you in the top three at the next FLW Pro Tour event. In fact, we hope to see you win one of the next two, the last two FLW Pro Tour events for 2004.

That's my goal is to win one of those two. The next one is Kentucky Lake where I placed third last time FLW was there. I want that big trophy. If not Kentucky Lake, then one of these times soon, I'm going to get it too. It's going to be mine. What I've learned from other trails is once you get one win, you get more after that. It's like getting your sweetheart's first kiss. It's easier to get more from her after that first one.

See you in the winner's circle next time, sir. I hope you'll be holding that big trophy.

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