“I was using an old worm that’s not even made anymore,” Ashley said. “On the first day of the tournament, I decided to give it a try. I never threw it in practice. The first fish I caught on it weighed around 7 pounds. I stuck with it all week, and I probably used 100 of them. I had a great time.”

Ashley was working a couple main areas including points coming out from underwater roadbeds and areas with scattered timber. Sight fishing was not an option for Ashley, so he was casting areas on main channels in the backs of creeks. He wasn’t fishing around any of the other top-12 anglers, so fishing pressure was kept at a minimum.

Lucky Craft did come into play for Ashley during practice, as he tied on a topwater lure trying to catch some schooling fish.

“I had a Lucky Craft Sammy 100 [Ghost Minnow] tied on every day in practice,” Ashley added. “It was so windy the first two days of the tournament, I never could get back to the area I was working to catch those topwater, schooling fish. I did catch two 5-pound fish on it in practice, though. I just couldn’t get it going in the tournament.”

Word got out early that Falcon Lake could hold record-breaking fish, but most anglers, including Ashley, weren’t completely prepared for what they saw.

“I heard it was going to be great, but they say that about everywhere we go,” Ashley said. “I didn’t know what to expect, but after fishing it, all I can say is you have to see it to believe how good it really was.”

Ashley finished 10th with a four-day total of 113 pounds, 3 ounces, and will head to Del Rio, Texas, this week to fish Lake Amistad during the 2008 Battle on the Border.

“It was unbelievable,” Reese began, referring to the fishing on Falcon Lake. “I was hoping to catch 30 pounds a day, but I was one big bite away from that each day. You hear all the stories about this lake, but to actually get out there and catch that many 5- and 6-pound fish is unbelievable. I think those who pre-fished on the lake got to experience this already, but the rest of us who had never been here didn’t know what it was really going to be like. Now we do.”

The first two days of the Lone Star Shootout, Reese caught most of his fish flipping and had two 27-pound bags. On day three, however, Reese caught the majority of his fish on a Lucky Craft Flat CB D-20 in Table Rock Shad.

“I had been flipping in practice and during most of the tournament, but that bite seemed to be going away as the weekend approached,” Reese said. “I found an area that looked like a good flipping area, but it was too windy on Saturday, and I wasn’t able to fish it very well. It was a break with scattered rock and brush, so I decided I might be able to throw a crankbait there and do well, too.”

After catching a 5-pounder on the Lucky Craft crankbait, Reese went back and forth fishing both the Flat CB and a Carolina Rig for the remainder of the day. According to the California native, he would catch a few small ones with the Carolina Rig, but pick up the Flat CB D-20 and catch bigger fish. Four of the five fish Reese weighed in on Saturday came on the Flat CB D-20.

“Twenty-eight pounds is normally a pretty nice bag, but not here,” Reese said. “You don’t even get recognized for that weight on Falcon Lake. That’s just average here. I’ve never seen a fishery like this. For me to survive and catch more than 80 pounds of fish this week… I’ll take it.”

Fishing back-to-back tournaments in Texas is a treat for anglers, but according to Reese, Lake Amistad won’t be near as good as Falcon Lake.

“It’s going to be a good tournament with big bags, but not near as good,” Reese said. “It could be the complete opposite of this week, too. Amistad is a clear lake with a lot of bed fish. They haven’t spawned there yet, and the water temperature and weather will be right for them to do so while we’re there.”

Takahiro Omori had a much better week than he did while fishing the season opener in Florida. Finishing 22nd with a three-day total of 82 pounds, 3 ounces, Omori was much happier with this tournament than with the start of the season.

“I had a great practice and a good tournament,” Omori said. “It was definitely something I’ve never seen before, and it was a lot of fun. I caught more fish than I expected. I’ve caught big fish and large quantities on Lake Fork when I was a guide there, but I’ve never caught fish like this in a tournament. I think it was a special week for everyone.”

Omori had two main techniques on Falcon Lake – deep cranking using a Lucky Craft Flat CB D-20 (Chartreuse Shad) and throwing a Carolina Rig. However, his Carolina rigged Senko might have looked a little different than most of the other anglers using the same bait.

“It seemed like, because we were catching big fish, we needed big bait,” Omori explained. “I was fishing a slightly modified Senko, in either watermelon red or green pumpkin. I took two 7-inch Senkos and pinched off one end, took a cigarette lighter and melted the two pieces together. Then I had one big 10-inch Senko to catch those big fish.”

After his idea to fish a homemade Senko proved successful, Omori was pleased, as the biggest fish he brought in this week weighed 9 pounds, 6 ounces.

“It was very simple,” Omori admitted, “but I’m exhausted now from catching so many fish this week. It took a lot of adjusting for me to find the areas and the right baits, but it was so much fun.”

After his top-25 finish, Omori was pleased and ready to head slightly north to Lake Amistad, where he believes the fish might still be in the shallow water.

“I think the Lucky Craft Gunfish or Flat CB D-20 might be successful in Del Rio,” Omori said. “I might see some bed fish, but it all depends on what part of the lake I’m fishing.”

Much like teammate Reese, Kelly Jordon found it amazing to have 82 pounds in three days of fishing and not make the final cut. Jordon did have a successful tournament on Falcon Lake, making the top 50 and finishing in 24th with 82 pounds, 1 ounce.

Jordon’s main techniques were flipping trees and casting a 10-inch worm. His day-two weight, moved him up the leader board quickly, as he caught almost 10 pounds more than he did on day one.

“I had 24 pounds on day one and almost 34 pounds on day two,” Jordon said. “It was an awesome day. I caught a fish that weighed almost 10 pounds. I caught all my fish flipping first thing in the morning. From there, I culled a couple more times in various locations, and I was really excited about my day-two bag.”

Because he is a Texas resident, Jordon has several lakes to compare Falcon to but still admits other lakes pale in comparison.

“I had only fished Falcon once, for about a half a day last January,” Jordon said. “This is the finest lake in the country, in my opinion. There is no place better. Lake Fork is good, but the fish are smarter and there is a lot more pressure. It’s like fishing on a farm pond here. You can throw a worm by a tree and know without a doubt you’re going to catch a lot of fish. There are so many fish so willing to bite, and there are a lot of big ones.

Just behind Jordon was teammate, Gerald Swindle, finishing his week in 27th with 81 pounds. Coming into Falcon, Swindle’s expectations were high. As the story seems to go on at Falcon, he had no idea he’d see this much weight come across the scales.

Swindle fished shallow and spent most of his practice flipping bushes, only spending six hours total fishing out in deeper water.

“The flipping bite was so strong, and I couldn’t catch them cranking,” Swindle said. “Every now and then I’d get a bite on top too, but it seemed like the big ones were in the bushes. The only way to catch them was flipping. I spent my time gearing up for that and didn’t spend much time out deeper at all.”

The flipping pattern was strong, but Swindle knew it had the possibility to change because of the falling water. He had a choice to make and decided to stick with the flipping bite in the tournament.

“As the tournament started, I saw the number of flipping bites begin to go down,” Swindle said. “I still caught my fish flipping, but I struggled starting on day two. I was tearing my boat all to pieces. I had to change it up, but because I didn’t practice many other techniques in practice, I was behind. When Saturday rolled around, I decided to start fishing deep.”

The water had started to fall and getting close enough to fish those bushes was tough. Swindle caught one 6-pounder flipping on Saturday before he decided to change it up. He fished deep with a Carolina Rig, and it proved successful for him. Swindle weighed in his largest weight of the tournament – 29 pounds, 8 ounces – on day three.

“The place I was fishing out deep was loaded,” Swindle said. “I probably caught almost 75 fish. I wish I would have spent more time out there now. I weighed in more fish on a Carolina Rig this week than I have in 15 years of fishing. I just don’t do it much.

“This was a good learning experience for me,” Swindle continued. “This is the second time I’ve seen these conditions, and I should know by now what was going to happen. Because the water was falling, I should have known the tournament was going to be won out deep. I didn’t react well to the falling water, and that was my mistake here this week.”

Swindle again reiterated the feelings of his fellow anglers, commenting on how “unbelievable” the lake was and how he’d never had so many bites. It was so good that Swindle was tossing 3-pound fish back before he ever had his five-fish limit.

“If it wasn’t over 3 pounds, I’d throw it back,” Swindle said. “We have a five-fish limit here, and if a fish dies in our live well, we can’t cull him. Knowing I’d need at least 30 pounds a day to win, I didn’t want to risk throwing a 3-pounder in the live well and then having him die [and having to keep him]. If he dies, you’re stuck. After all, I was in a lake where I knew without a doubt I’d catch another one if I needed it.”

Bass Pro Shops angler, Rick Clunn, won this tournament back in 1963, but admitted it was a very different lake back then.

“Texas is the best state for consistently improving the quality of fish in its lakes,” Clunn said from the stage. “I won this tournament in 1963 with 36 pounds, but I wasn’t catching these types of fish back then. I saw a whole new breed of fish this week.”

Clunn admitted the tournament didn’t go well for him, but with 40 pounds of fish in two days, that sounds a bit strange, even to him.

“Forty pounds wouldn’t even put me in the top 75 here this week,” Clunn said. “I was catching them the way I love to fish, and I was having so much fun out there… Until it was time to weigh in.”

Clunn was throwing a new bait from Lucky Craft, the RC Wake. According to Clunn, the fish were killing it, and he was getting 20 or more bites a day.

“I never had anything that weighed more than 5 pounds, so that was the difference for me,” Clunn said. “I was fishing the RC Wake on and off all day. I’d do that for a while and then go out and try to fish deep. I knew the bigger fish were out there.”

Clunn didn’t stay out deep long enough and was able to admit that was his mistake.

“I might try and fish the way I like to fish too often,” Clunn explained. “I’ve never been a big bass fisherman. My whole career has been based on limits. My technique is to move fast, cover a lot of water and get more bites. That is pretty anti-big bass. For those big fish, you have to slow down, fish bigger baits and settle for fewer bites. On this type of lake, fishing my style kills you.”