Our Featured Anglers for June are 6-Man Winners Steve West and Jeff Edmonds

by Pete Robbins
(Who is Pete Robbins & what else has he written?)

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When not fishing, Steve West of Region 2's Leesville Lake Bassmasters works for Sonny’s Racing Engines in Lynchburg. He has worked there for eighteen years, supporting pro stock drag racing teams, and working on engines for racing boats, tractor pulls and truck pulls.

While on the surface it might seem that bass fishing and drag racing have little in common, one similarity is that both have brief bursts of excitement during which incomplete preparation can quickly be exposed. Just as an imprecisely machined engine might give way under stress, so too will a poorly tied knot or an ineffectual hookset likely result in a lost fish.

Steve West took his chosen profession’s required attention to detail along with him to this year’s first Chapter Teams tournament, and the result was a carefully crafted victory that will send him to Lake Champlain this fall as a member of the Virginia State Team.

Heading into the tournament, held the first weekend in May, Steve figured that a spinnerbait would be a key. The water was up in the bushes, and although he thought carolina rigging and flipping might play a role, he went into practice thinking that a blade would be his ticket to success. That seemed to be the case when he caught a five pound fish right off the bat, but as the day progressed the spinnerbait bite died. Realizing that it wouldn’t be as effective as he had predicted, though, Steve figured out that he could catch quality fish flipping a zoom baby brush hog.

On Saturday morning, Steve, a non-boater in the tournament, agreed to start on his partner’s water. That paid off, as he quickly caught 2 keepers there. They then moved to one of Steve’s spots, but the wind was howling there, so they headed to another one of his partner’s spots. On his partner’s water, Steve slowly and carefully crafted his limit. He noted that the key to their success was fishing "the back side of places, back in protected areas." By the end of the day he had amassed a 4 fish limit weighing 13.18 pounds.

He relayed that he was fishing the "lower end of the lake, but that’s as far as I’ll go." Normally, Steve prefers to fish in the midlake section, including Grassy, Rudds and Eastland Creeks, but adds that there is "an area in Nutbush that I like."

With his limit, Steve stood in 3^rd place after the first day, only about a pound behind the leader. He was "surprised that [he was] up that far," but noted that there were a lot of anglers bunched up in the 10-11 pound range. He was confident that he could catch a similar weight again.

On Saturday night, a fellow club member tipped Steve off to an area where he might be able to catch a quick limit, using a totally different technique. Steve and his partner spent all of five minutes there Sunday morning, before deciding that he would live or die with the places and techniques that had worked on Saturday.

Returning to their productive water from Saturday, Steve quickly hooked, and lost, a three pound bass. "It like to killed me," he says. Thirty minutes later, however, he landed one around four pounds, and forty five minutes later he caught another keeper. The jitters went away. Steve understates it when he says his "spot held up."

Included in Steve’s catch was the tournament’s overall big fish, weighing 6.44 lbs.

Ironically, for someone who is professionally involved with a lightning-fast sport like racing, Steve notes that the key to his victory was staying in a limited area. "A lot of guys catch good limits the first day," he says, "the hurt themselves when they move too much the next day."

Steve credits his partner [couldn’t remember name] with helping him attain the victory. After Saturday, his partner offered to let Steve run the boat, but Steve was content to leave his successful strategy in place, and told his partner he wanted to do the "exact same thing," so he contentedly (and successfully) continued to flip his green pumpkin brush hog from the rear deck. In return, his partner can now proudly wear a Sonny’s Racing Engines hat and t-shirt that Steve bestowed upon him.

In preparation for the Eastern Divisional, Steve has already talked to fellow club member Kent Stover, who won the Six Man two years ago. They’re in for different experiences, though....Kent’s divisional was on Buggs Island, while Steve will be making a long haul north to Lake Champlain.

With respect to Champlain, Steve knows "nothing yet," and in fact was just getting online to do some preliminary research when interviewed for this profile. He and Brian Harold, winner of the 2002 Fall Classic, are currently planning a prefishing trip for the near future. They won’t be towing the boats behind a dragster, but they’ll surely drive fast to get there.....but once there, look for Steve to slow down and methodically develop a pattern based on the prevailing conditions.

Steve West can be reached at a.stevewest@netzero.com

(Regions 1, 4, 5, 6 and 8)
Jeff Edmonds - Winner

The top four from Left to Right
Jeff Edmonds, Lee Allison, Chris Lucas and Vernon Wilson

When Jeff Edmonds, of Region 6's Lake Country Bassmasters, headed to Buggs Island for the second Chapter Teams tournament, the water was still up above full pool. That meant trees and bushes in the water, lots of ‘em. In the end, though, among the thousands of flooded trees, there was one crucial one that pushed him into the winner’s circle.

Edmonds, lives just outside of South Hill, and is a plant manager for an oil company. The married father of two has been a member of the Virginia Federation since 1996, and considers Buggs Island to be his home lake. He had fished a Region 6 tournament on the lake the weekend before, finishing 14^th overall, and that experience, combined with his wealth of experience on that body of water, led him to believe he’d be fishing the bushes.

It didn’t hurt, that a fellow club member had finished 2^nd in the previous week’s tournament, and told Jeff exactly what he was doing and where he had experienced the most success. Based on that information, when he started prefishing on Thursday, Jeff focused on certain pockets in the North Bend and Nutbush areas.

By the end of practice, he had a pretty good feeling about the upcoming tournament, and told his partner, Region 1's Mac MacDonald that "we could probably catch 25-30 keepers." He offered Mac half the day on his water, but when he had his limit by 9am or so on Saturday morning, Mac was content to stay on Jeff’s water. Mac, who Jeff described as "the best partner ever," did agree to take over the front of the boat, but Jeff continued to slay them from the back of the boat.

On Thursday’s practice day, Jeff absolutely "wore ‘em out" on a fluke, but on Saturday, the fluke didn’t produce much in his good pockets. Switching to a green pumpkin brush hog, the same bait used by first Chapter Teams tournament winner Steve West, the quality fish started coming into the boat quickly. [Memo to readers: if you don’t already have some, next time you’re at Greentop, Bobcat’s or Bass Pro Shops, BUY SOME GREEN PUMPKIN BRUSH HOGS].

Although Jeff caught plenty of legal-sized fish, most were in the 15" class. In order to upgrade his catch, he ventured a bit out of the way to a single laydown tree that has produced good catches for him in the past. Once there, he flung out a Strike King ½ oz. double willow leaf spinnerbait and latched into the big fish of the tournament, a 5.64 lb. lunker.

When the scales stopped spinning after the first day, Edmonds was in the lead with 13.94 lbs., about a pound ahead of the second place competitor. With major rain coming in, however, he "didn’t sleep well that night." He was most worried about catching another kicker.

When they took off on Day 2, Jeff and Mac headed straight for his close good pockets. Jeff meant to pick up his brush hog rod, but in the inclement weather accidentally grabbed his fluke rod. Deciding to give the fluke a try, he caught a keeper on his first cast.

Although the second day started with a bang, the bite was definitely off. That was the only fish he caught in his best pocket. He spent the rest of the day scrambling, and did not secure his 4 fish limit until 11:30. He did, however, make repeated trips to "my sweet tree. It’s really a unique spot, there’s nothing else there. Maybe that’s why it’s so good."

Over the course of his day, 3 of his 7 keepers came off Jeff’s lone tree. His best 5 weighed around 8 pounds, but with the overall catch way down, that was enough to claim the victory.

Even though Buggs Island is Jeff’s home lake, this is the first time in six or so tries that Jeff has gotten a check at the Chapter Teams tournament. He credits much of his success this time to his wife, who "doesn’t hold me back at all." He also thanks his club. "Their help goes a long way," he says, especially the free sharing of information. Additionally, a lot of the non-qualifying members of the club "showed up in the pouring rain to congratulate me."

Edmonds described the win as "exceptional" and claims that he has been so "overwhelmed" that he hasn’t had any time to prepare for the Eastern Divisional on Lake Champlain. "I don’t know anything about Champlain," he says. "Nada. Zero. Zilch. I just know where it is on the map."

In the months leading up to the Divisional, Jeff will have some "drastic decisions" to make. The first one is which GPS unit to buy. "I’m going to take my winnings and get one," he says. More significant is how he’ll get there. "I’ve got to go," he says, but he currently doesn’t have a tow vehicle that will get his boat up to Vermont. Accordingly, he’s only half joking when he says that he hopes this victory will earn him "a sponsorship with Ford or Chevy.....or Dodge, I’m not picky."

Maybe Jeff can start working on his trust fund by selling the coordinates to his "sweet tree." Certainly there are a lot of members of the Virginia Federation who might be willing to pay a little something for the coordinates.

If you’d like to contact Jeff, he can be reached at (434) 757-1664

Copyright 2003 Peter Robbins All Rights Reserved
robbins@vabass.com