2012 Classic Dean Finishes 33rd

43rd: Dean Rojas (2, 6-00) – "I'll try a couple different areas tomorrow. I ran down to Pool 4 today and all my stuff was blown out. I could tell pretty quick it wasn't happening down there, so I decided to come (back to Pool 5) early. I got to a spot where I'd caught some big ones in practice and caught a 4 1/2 and thought I would wreck them there, but I never got another bite. I fished slow today, but I'm going to slow down even more tomorrow. I'm pitching and flipping and throwing some swimbaits. It's mostly just a junk deal for me." Read More

4th: Frog Worked For Rojas

Rojas notched his second Top-12 of the year this weekend and will take a fair amount of momentum into Toledo Bend next month, where he’ll look to defend his title from last year.

“It’s awesome. I have a lot of fond memories from '01,” he said. “It’s really cool to go back out and have a Top-5 finish. These next four events are going to be fun. I’m looking forward to it.”

He went through 20 keepers today and had a 5-09 beast anchoring his bag. He weighed four fish today caught on a frog after he made a run up river to work on some shallow water. Read More

Bitty baits

If you sneak a peek into Rojas' bed-fishing tacklebox when his back is turned, you'll see a variety of little lizards, craws, worms, tubes, and other baits he refuses to discuss. Given the fact that Wave Worms is one of his sponsors, he does admit that the 3 1/2-inch Tiki-Drop (a reaper-type bait), the 3-inch Tiki Grass Craw, and the 4-inch Tiki-Stick regularly produce bedding bass for him.You'll also notice that all of these bitty baits are white, chartreuse and other obvious colors that help Rojas see them beneath the surface. He wants to know exactly where his bait is on a bed and in relation to the bass. When a bass picks up the bright bait by the tail, Rojas can see it.Sometimes a bass has to take a couple of slurps to get the whole bait in its mouth," Rojas says. "If I can see my bait, I won't set the hook too soon."

Rojas fishes his finesse baits with relatively heavy tackle, including a 7-foot medium-heavy Quantum PT baitcasting rod, 12-pound Izorline, and a 2/0 to 3/0 offset wide gap hook. If the bass are bedding in water no deeper than 3 feet, he opts for a 1/8-ounce bullet sinker. In deeper water, he may go as heavy as 1/4 ounce.

"I use the heaviest tackle that lets me fish those little baits efficiently," Rojas says. "I don't feel confident casting to bedding fish with light line and a wimpy rod."Finesse baits have duped bass for Rojas just about everywhere he has fished for them, from California to Florida. He used a "smorgasbord" of small baits when he competed in a Bassmaster MegaBucks event at Lake Murray. A major tournament on Murray the week before had hammered the bass on the beds. The remaining spawners had been hassled to the point that they were lure shy. During the first two days of competition, Rojas caught two limits of bass that weighed just under 28 pounds, and missed the cut by mere ounces.

Those bass were intimidated by regular-size baits," Rojas says. "But when I put something small in their beds, a lot of them would get the attitude that they could take that little runt. Bait and switc In most bed-fishing situations, Rojas employs finesse baits as well as larger baits with heavier tackle. He keeps several rods rigged with different baits in several colors so he can quickly show a bass the various offerings."I usually start out with a flippin' rod and heavy line," Rojas says. "I'd much rather hook the bass on that outfit. If the bass don't bite after five or six casts, I'll switch to a small bait. Sometimes I have to switch back and forth between large and small baits several times to get a bass fired up."

In many instances, it is the larger lure that works the bass into a frenzy and the smaller bait that actually induces the strike. This bait-and-switch approach came through for Rojas when he fished a major tournament on Lake Okeechobee in January 2004. Several other boats were fishing the same spawning flat Rojas was working, which made the bass less inclined to inhale big baits.

Rojas would first tempt these bass with a 6-inch lizard or a 5-inch tube. When they refused, he served up a diminutive offering. A 3-inch craw worm proved especially effective. Enough so, in fact, that it carried Rojas to a seventh place finish that included a 10-pound bass."One advantage with a small bait is that it stays in the bed longer when I'm shaking it," Rojas says. "I could add a heavier weight to a bigger bait to make it stay put, but then, it stirs up a mess down there and might spook the fish."Whatever size bait Rojas works in a bed, he never pegs the sinker. He claims to get more secure hookups when the bass sucks in only the bait. The sinker, he believes, forces the bass' mouth open when the hook is set and interferes with the hook's penetration.

Rojas imparts the same actions to large and small baits when he fishes for bedding bass. He tries shaking the bait in the bed, hopping it, darting it ahead in quick spurts, and other "secret" tricks."Getting a bedding bass to bite is a real cat-and-mouse game," Rojas says. "Every bass is different. I just go through a series of things to try and make the fish react. If I can figure out what trips her trigger, I can get her to bite."More often than not, it's a small bait that does the trick.Size mattersWhen Rojas fishes a lake where the bass average less than 2 pounds, few of the bedding bass he locates weigh more than 3 pounds. In this situation, he knows limits of bass that weigh 2 to 3 pounds each can place him high in the standings."As a general rule, small bass on the beds are more inclined to hit small baits," Rojas says. "However, many of the big bass I've caught wouldn't even look at a little bait. I had to show them something substantial to get their attention."

He went to the giant impoundment on the Texas/Louisiana border with a determination to sight-fish throughout the event. The result was a wire-to-wire victory – his second at that venue (he won a Top 150 there in 2001).

He bags decreased in size each day, but when the final fish had been weighed, he'd caught just enough to hold off a valiant rally by Gerald Swindle. His margin of victory was a single ounce.

The win was his fourth at the tour level and second since the inception of the Elite Series in 2006. It garnered him $100,000, an automatic slot in the 2012 Bassmaster Classic and 320 Toyota Tundra Angler-of-the-Year (AOY) points that improved his standing in that race from 31st to 8th.

Here's how he did it.

Practice

Even though the bass reproductive period was nearly complete by the time practice started and the lake was getting slammed by powerful winds, Rojas spent his entire 3-day practice period searching for bedding fish.

"That's what I designed everything around because I thought there would be enough of them up to see me through all 4 days," he said.

He threw a Spro Hydro-Pop ahead of the boat as he searched and found that tactic to be quite productive. It would play a key role in the tournament.

He covered a tremendous amount of water over the 3 days and discovered that just about all of the quality fish that were still on beds were in grassy locales on primary or secondary points just off the main lake.

"There was no reason to go too far back into the creeks – there was nothing there."

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 23-01
> Day 2: 5, 19-13
> Day 3: 5, 14-09
> Day 4: 5, 13-08
> Total = 20, 70-15

Rojas opened the tournament by catching a quick 16-pound limit of sight-fish. He spent little time his best area – where he'd staked out five females of at least 5 pounds each – because it was getting pounded by a strong westerly wind. He managed one 4-pound male there, but figured the females might have departed.

He culled up three times with the Hydro-Pop, and one of those fish was a 7-pounder. At the end of the day, his sack was nearly 2 pounds heavier than that of 2nd-place Fred Roumbanis.

The wind blew hard again on day 2, but it changed directions. That brought his primary area back into play, and he pulled an 8-pounder from it to go with four solid keepers to extend his lead to a little over 2 1/2 pounds.

His weight fell off by more than 4 pounds on day 3, but some of his closest pursuers suffered much worse fates and his advantage grew to 4 pounds. His stringer was topped by a 6-pounder that came from a bed less than 50 feet from where he'd roped the 8 the previous day.

He thought he'd been beaten when he found out how strongly Swindle had finished, but was able to celebrate when his sack landed on precisely the number he needed.

Winning Gear Notes