Todd Faircloth Wins at Amistad

Faircloth alternated between a six-inch Yamamoto Senko and a swimbait all week. Another key for Faircloth was the Sebile Magic Swimmer 165 SK in which he used to locate the bigger fish.

Having already won once on the Elite Series, Todd Faircloth knew what it would take to come from the 10th-place position he started the day in and claim top honors…and he didn’t like his chances. “I know how quickly things can go down here at this lake, but I still never expected to win when the day started,” an emotional Faircloth explained.

“The Lord just really blessed me this week. I still can’t really believe it.”

As a result of no wind and bright skies, Faircloth explained that his morning didn’t amount to much. “The water had just slicked off bad, and was just super slow,” he said. “Every once in a while the breeze would pick up and it would create a little bit of ripple on the water and I’d pick one up.”

With time running out, Faircloth told his cameraman that he had one option left – go to the most reliable spot he could think of and hope for the best. “I pulled up on a tree that I caught 36 pounds from last year with less than an hour to go and caught two of my biggest bass of the day from it,” he said. “I told my camera man that I was saving my magic tree until the last minute.”

With a shortened workweek, Faircloth explained that the off day allowed him to refocus after the battering week before at Falcon. “The day off worked out good for me,” he confessed. “I just took some downtime because I was just wore out. It allowed me to refocus and look forward to the three days I had in front of me.”

Faircloth scored the win by alternating between a six-inch Yamamoto Senko and a swimbait all week. “I located a lot of these fish on a wake bait,” he said. “You could wake that bait on the surface and the fish would show themselves. But we had clouds during practice, so everything I weighed came on either the Senko or the swimbait.”

The win secured, Faircloth was able to use hindsight a little and admitted that without an early gamble, he wouldn’t have been able to put all the pieces together. “I was catching a lot of fish during practice, but wasn’t getting a lot of big bites,” the Skeeter pro said.

“The first day of the tournament I caught a limit pretty quick, and decided to pick up the swimbait and just swing for the fences. I actually had the opportunity Saturday to have a 30-pound bag, but you’re going to lose a fish or two on the swimbait – that’s just part of it.”

Key to the Win: “The spots that I had found reloaded every day, and didn’t seem to matter if the wind was blowing or not.”