LeFebre - Bridesmaid No More
November 10, 2009
Looking over Dave Lefebre’s professional fishing accomplishments, you’d think he’d be proud of the résumé he’s logged in such a short amount of time. He’s a perennial AOY threat, a constant force to win any event and has amassed well north of a million dollars in tournament winnings.
What his record doesn’t show is the information needed to see just why Lefebre hasn’t been too happy with his success. You see, the data doesn’t reveal how close he’s been in the past at winning big events, AOY races and regular season events. It just states that he’s been consistent over the course of time with most of his finishes in the upper tier of his peers.
It’s always good to be consistent and place well ahead of the pack but Lefebre is happy with only one thing – being the best bass angler on the planet. And, in order to accomplish this lofty task, he not only aims to win every event he enters, he targets the most prestigious awards in every circuit he participates in: Angler of the Year and the season-ending Championships.
As stated, he’s been close a number of times in the past and won the AOY on both the Northern Stren Series and Eastern Series in 2006. Unfortunately, until recently, a Tour-level championship or Tour AOY has evaded him. Here’s a listing of some of his accomplishments since 2002.
> 2002: 2nd place AOY in Midwest Stren Series
> 2003: 3rd place at Stren Championship (this was actually a 2nd due to the fact ex- tournament angler Tony Christian won this event)
> 2004: 2nd place finish at BFL All-American
2nd place Stren Mississippi River
7th AOY Midwest Stren Series
> 2005: 5th AOY Northern Stren Series
5th AOY FLW Tour
> 2006: AOY for Northern Stren Series
AOY for FLW Eastern Series
> 2007: 8th AOY FLW Eastern Series
2nd FLW Tour Ft. Loudoun
> 2008: 2nd place at FLW Cup
4th in AOY for FLW Series
2nd Northern Stren Series AOY
> 2009: 2nd Place AOY Eastern Series by 1 point
5th place AOY in Northern Stren Series
Lead 2009 FLW Cup on 1st day. Dropped to 8th.
7th AOY FLW Tour
For a competitor like Lefebre, though, there is no other place in the standings than the pole position. To come so close to an AOY award or Championship award so many times had become the proverbial monkey on his shoulders – something he lived with every day and especially every time he was faced with the opportunity to win one of these coveted awards.
That all changed the week of October 12, 2009.
The monkey was still there but more around the periphery, taunting him and egging him on. Fortunately, he ignored the primate, did his job and walked away from the Toyota Texas Bass Classic as the PAA Series Championship winner.
So, how does he feel now that he’s finally won a major championship ring against the best anglers in the sport? Does he still feel the monkey’s presence? Is it all behind him? These are some of the many questions I asked Dave a few days after his win on Texas’ Lake Conroe and his answers are the subject of this article.
The Past
Lefebre has been close a number of times to winning a major championship or AOY. His first major shot was at the Wal-Mart BFL All-American at Lake Hamilton in 2004 – an event that could have propelled his career at the beginning.
“I never go out without giving it 100-percent,” he said. “But I’ve looked back recently at all the near misses I’ve had over the course of time it starts to get to you.
“The All American was one event that I still can’t get out of my mind. I was 5-pounds back from the lead and thought I needed a 12- to 15-pound bag, which on Lake Hamilton is huge, to be in contention.
“The last day the fish decided to move to the beds and I must have passed up 20 fish in the 2-pound range the last hour because I felt I needed a 4-pounder to help me. I even made two pitches at a 2-pounder and he ate it twice but I never swung on him. I had a limit of 10 pounds in the well and that 2-pounder would have allowed me to cull up some. Because of that mistake, I lost the tournament by 2 ounces.”
But that wasn’t the first taste of “runner-up” he experienced. It actually started early in his tournament career.
“The first painful event was an American Bass Anglers’ Championship on the Hudson River in 1991,” he said. “My partner, Lee Duer and I led the first day of that event and on the second day a team brought in a wicked limit and beat us. We lost a boat and I told myself I never wanted to experience second place again.”
He’s revisited the second-place blues numerous times since that time but the 2008 FLW Cup on Lake Murray started his recent run of seconds.
“My recent clash with second-place all started at the Murray Cup,” he said. “That second cost me $900,000. “Then I missed AOY in the Northern Strens in 2008,” he said. “That second-place finish in 2008 was tough because it cost me a 2009 Cup birth. I ended up making the Cup through the FLW Tour but it would have been nice to get it over with without the stress.
“This year wasn’t looking to be much better,” he said. “I lead the FLW Cup at Pittsburgh the first day and then fell to 8th. Then in the last Eastern FLW Series event, I was leading the AOY by 32 points and had to finish 53rd or higher in the standings to win. I ended up coming in 54th place and missed winning by one point. That one really hurt because I had a fish that I knew wasn’t going to make it so I came in 50 minutes early to weigh. I knew the 8-ounce penalty would be big and I wanted to do everything I could to win it for Kellogg’s. The fish didn’t make it.
“To make matters worse, the next week I went to the last Northern Stren event on Gaston and finished second there,” he said. “What kills me about that is I was leading the Northern Stren series going into Champlain and I bombed on day 2. All I needed to do was weigh in 10 pounds on day 2 and the AOY would have been mine in the Stren series. I weighed one fish for 1 pound 3 ounces, perhaps the smallest bag ever weighed by a pro on Champlain. It’s like, what do I have to do to win?
“All of this was going on in my mind as I headed to Texas for the TTBC.”
Lead-in to the TTBC
“Going into the event I was thinking my odds were pretty good,” Lefebre said. “There were 60 guys going for $250,000 and I went in thinking this was the one.
“I had no preconceived notions about the lake at all before heading there,” he added. “I didn’t talk to any locals and I didn’t start looking at the internet until we started driving to the lake.
“I had no idea the lake was so developed but when I started looking at it on Google Earth and saw how many houses and docks were around the lake it gave me some ideas.
“My game plan didn’t start until we got there,” he noted. “I have a local lake here in Pennsylvania named Conneaut and Conroe looked exactly like it. That got me excited and I decided to fish it like Conneaut.
“I knew there was a cold front coming through during the tournament but I felt good. I knew they’d eat a jig, especially during the cold front, and confirmed that in practice. My confidence got better and better each day.
“The buzz around the anglers was the event would be won deep but after practicing shallow one day, deep two days and then winning the sponsors’ event shallow the day before the TTBC started solidified my shallow bite.
“The only fear I had was running out of fish but the wind that we had the first two days of the tournament made it so we could only fish half the lake.”
Hard Work Pays Off
The first day of the event Lefebre vaulted himself into the leader board with a limit of fish that pushed the scales down to 24-08. Unfortunately on days 2 and 3 he had to grind it out.
“Day 2 I had a lot of spectator boats around me first thing,” he said. “Right off the bat I lost a big fish and by 10:00 in the morning I didn’t have a fish in the boat.
“I was uncomfortably hot and I knew I was fishing too fast so I did something I’ve never done before. I sat down in the boat, took some clothes off and took a break to gather my thoughts. I wasn’t worried because I knew it would be a good afternoon bite because of the front.
“Then I opened my rod locker and decided to go for a confidence bait,” he said. “I knew I needed to do something different because I knew I was on fish. That’s when I decided to fish a lighter jig. I have a confidence deal with a small jig on light line. Instead of fishing a 7/16-ounce jig I put on a 5/16-ounce TABU jig and tipped it with a Kinami Bug that I shortened up.
“I ran to a spot I’d already tried that morning and in 5 minutes I had a fish and within 50 minutes I had a limit. I changed my presentation from swimming the jig like I did on the first day to letting it soak. That limit gave me the confidence to go back to my big fish pattern and I put a 4-04 in the boat after that swimming the jig.”
The third day didn’t start out too well and almost ended in an all-too-familiar way.
“Right off the bat the third day I lost a fish around 7 pounds,” he said. “That fish didn’t bother me though. What did bother me was the 4-pounder I lost right at the end of the day. That’s the fish I thought cost me the tournament. But then a couple skips later, just minutes before weigh in I caught a 2 pounder that culled.”
Leading into the weigh-in his emotions were high, his stomach was in knots and all he could think of was another win may have slipped from his grasp.
“The TTBC was no different than any of the other times,” Lefebre said. “I opened the door and like before, I thought someone was going to go through it. It was another one of those times I thought I’d blown it. That would have been three in a row for me.”
But for his hard work and perseverance he was finally rewarded.
“I’ve had so many near misses in the past that it makes this win so much more special,” he said. “And I did this one in the same fashion I’ve done the others in – too close for comfort.”
“It was great to finally win something of this magnitude, not for my confidence but for the people who have supported me through my career. I have the best sponsors in the business and they’re like family to me. It feels really good to be able to win this for them and for my family.”
Future Goals
Being the competitive person Lefebre is, just because he’s won one of the biggest tournaments in the industry doesn’t mean he’s about to rest.
“I still have a lot of goals,” he said. “My main goal right now is to win the FLW Tour AOY and also an FLW Cup. I’ve been in contention four times for AOY and it’d be nice to add that to my résumé.
“I feel like everything is coming together and I keep learning,” he added. “If I had to change something about my ways, it’d have to be to take more chances on the water. I need to fish my gut more and not be so conservative at times.
“For example, if I have 16 pounds in the boat, I think it’s enough and fight those urges to make a 60-mile run to possibly catch a 5-pounder I know is there. I try to justify I have enough weight and not make that big of a gamble. I used to fish like that (gamble more) when I was younger and I need to get back to that.
“My other goal is to become one of the best bass anglers in the world,” he said. “I want to be in the highest group of anglers there is, and stay there. Actually, it’s my ultimate goal to make it into that group.”
“But right now it’s difficult to measure yourself with the best between the two tours,” he said. “I’m sure that the PAA events will soon attract all the best anglers from both tours, but until then, what we need is for the PAA points system to be adopted as the world ranking system. It’s the only true ranking system out there that’s right. I’m a numbers guy and the way their formula works, it accounts for everything. Other than actually fishing against each other, it’s the best way to measure your ability against anglers from different tours.
Reality
After driving the requisite 1400 miles from Texas to his home in Union City, PA., had it sunk in that he’d just won the Toyota Texas Bass Classic?
“I guess by now it has,” Lefebre said. “But it’s one of those things that may never become real. Five years from now I may look back and think, ‘I can’t believe I won.’”
Congratulations on your win, Dave, and may the future bring you more.
The Bug
Lefebre was using a new prototype Kinami Bug that he and Derek Yamamoto have been working on for a while.
“It’s almost ready to come out,” he said. “It’s changed quite a bit from the past and it’s been improved a lot. The two flaps, instead of being streamlines with the bait have been made more like a chunk by turning the paddles 90 degrees. It was a great before, but it’s even better now.”