Daily Limit: Oh, there’s Ott

Ott DeFoe and wife, Jennie, record their moment on stage.

Where’s Ott been? That kind of talk had been going on for a while as Ott DeFoe, who came into B.A.S.S. like gangbusters, started to blend in.

DeFoe had an incredible first two years on the Elites, when he recorded more than half of his 21 top 10 finishes. He finished 2011 as Rookie of the Year and won the All-Star event. In 2014, DeFoe added an Open win, but those white-hot beginnings had cooled. He was expected to win more blue trophies.

Winning the Plano Bassmaster Elite at the Mississippi River presented by Favorite Fishing answered questioners. But yeah, it has been some time. Yet it isn’t just anyone who wins an Elite title. For most, they are few and far between. 

“It kind of has been a long time coming. Six years,” DeFoe said on stage. “It’s not that long for some of these guys. A lot of these guys have fished out here a lot longer, a lot of guys I have a lot of respect for who haven’t won one yet.”

“But it’s awesome. The Lord blessed me so much this week. If you catch a 6-pounder on the Mississippi River, it’s probably your time to win.”

DeFoe caught the big bass of the event in the final moments of Day 2. The 6-pound, 1-ounce lunker from the Onalaska spillway was a 4-pound cull producing his largest bag (17-11) that led to his 63-10 total.

“It’s an incredible week and an incredible feeling and something I’ll never forget,” DeFoe said. “Something I want to feel again, too.”

That feeling is something DeFoe has worked for since he was 9 years old, attending his first Classic. It’s something he’ll probably get to experience sometime again, and he hopes before the next six years are up.

A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIEND

The spillway, where DeFoe had caught most of his weight the first three days, went dry early on Championship Sunday. With no fish after 10 a.m., he went searching and got by with a little help from a friend.

Gerald Swindle had caught a small limit and was heading from no-cull Minnesota waters to Wisconsin when he saw DeFoe and pulled up next to him. Their exchange, with Swindle telling him where to go and what to throw, was broadcast on Bassmaster LIVE.

“When I pulled up on him, you could see his expression, his body language,” said Swindle, kind of surprised DeFoe was at zero.

“I said I ain’t got one,” DeFoe said. “I’ll take any kind of bone you can throw.”

DeFoe followed Swindle’s suggestions and caught a couple small fish he’d later cull, but it got him back on course. With trophy in hand, DeFoe said he had to give Swindle a big assist for this win as well as his All-Star title in 2011 when G-Man turned him onto a drainage pipe that produced.

“Ott DeFoe would do it for me. He’s the nicest guy in the world,” Swindle said. “You pull for all these guys. I don’t pick one guy to win. I try to win myself. I wouldn’t pull against Edwin (Evers), I wouldn’t pull against Ott, but I would help them both if I could.”

Off DeFoe fished the Onalaska Spillway to victory.

AOY NOT QUITE IN THE BAG

While Swindle’s 43-point lead in the Toyota Angler of the Year race looks strong, he hopes to just keep focused on catching fish. He said he doesn’t really think much of the AOY title.

“Only when people ask me about it,” he said. “Here lately, that’s been a lot.”

Well, sure, G, you lead Keith Combs 843-800 and only need to finish 43rd out of 50 in this week’s AOY Championship on Mille Lacs Lake to tie, and that’s if Combs wins. Stay 43 spots ahead and you’ll get a bookend to your 2004 AOY.

Like Aaron Martens last year, Swindle could have wrapped it up early by finishing fourth or better Sunday — he ended 12th. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. He had eyeballed a backwater area all week and decided to go for it — of course to get in it he had to traverse a roadway.

Under the watchful eye of a local angler, Swindle said he “put the nose of the boat up on the road, just smashed it to the floor and blew over into that lake.”

The angler came over and offered his take.

“He said I ain’t never seen nothing like this before in my life,” Swindle said. “I successfully probably tore my lower unit off, ruint by prop and never got a bite in there so I wouldn’t advise that to ya’ll. But it was fun going in … It sounded like a winning strategy at 12 o’clock.”

G-MAN ENJOYS LA CROSSE ‘REDNECKS’

Swindle left impressed with La Crosse and its residents, saying they made him and wife, LeAnn, feel right at home.

“It’s as close as being in the south as I’ve ever been,” he said. “People are friendly … it means a lot, as much as we see the highway, to be embraced by a town. Ya’ll are some good folks. Ya’ll could be some rednecks.

“I did see a guy wearing a camo hat and girl in a red dress out to eat the other night, and I said, ‘Yep, we’re back home.’”

Seth Feider brought wigs for emcee Dave Mercer and tournament director Trip Weldon, who also got into the Wisconsin spirit.

AMAZING FEIDERMAN SCALES HEIGHTS

Minnesota’s Seth Feider had himself a week. He said so himself, and his Busch Light drinking buddies following his every move on the water was a real shot in the arm.

Feider, whose top finish in two seasons as an Elite was 12th, came 20 ounces from a career-altering win. The attention he received for coming close in his home state might help by itself. Doing things like bringing wigs for Dave Mercer and Trip Weldon, along with his “super jacked” attitude, appealed to many.

“I definitely had the bites to (win), but that’s fishing,” he said on stage after being introduced by Mercer’s new nickname, “The Amazing Feiderman.” “The Dude” also fits, and cashing his biggest B.A.S.S. check of $25,000 has him confident moving forward.

“I had a blast this week. It was really fun,” he said. “There was no pressure for me. Having all my buddies really helped. We went out and grilled and had a few beers every night. Really kept me mellow. I really honestly never got nervous until we pulled the boat out water today and I knew I had a chance of winning. Definitely a magical week.”

What he said belied his situation. Coming into the event 69th in AOY points, he should have felt pretty tense trying to climb into the Top 50 so he could advance to this week’s AOY Championship on Mille Lacs. He finished 50th and gets to fish on his favorite lake.

It would be a remarkable story if he climbs another 11 spots and qualifies for his first Bassmaster Classic. Don’t count him out as Feider is the favorite on Mille Lacs, and he’ll be loose as a goose as his friends and family are sure to be on the water rooting him on.

KVD SAID SPILLWAY WAS TOO OBVIOUS

Kevin VanDam, who exited the competition after two days, came on LIVE and gave his take. He was surprised to see DeFoe winning from the spillway, a spot known and visited by most all the anglers. KVD said it just seemed to get better the more water flowed over it.

“In the past, there’s been a jillion guys up there,” KVD said. “With that 5 inches of rain, that extra current brought all those fish up there and he was smart to capitalize on it. There was hardly a trickle coming over that in practice and now it’s raging. Those fish are stacked in there.”

DeFoe did go back there late Sunday and caught his winning fish, making it two events in a row won on the most obvious piece of structure on the fishery. On the Potomac River, Justin Lucas won plying a huge parking deck over the water.

“I like to get away from places like that because I don’t like to fish in pressure,” KVD said. “Sometimes, we overthink things.”

Mike Iaconelli posted the potential of Mille Lacs, along the region’s softer side.

OH MY, OH MY, AND A BUTTERFLY

Mike Iaconelli (above) shows off the quality type fish in Mille Lacs on Monday’s first day of practice, posting this pic to Facebook.

“The face you make when your first smallmouth of the day weighs 6.8!”

Save it for Thursday, Ike. And hey, you made almost the same face when this butterfly, possibly a harbinger for a good event, landed on your nose Sunday at Mille Lacs.

ONE-LINERS FROM LA CROSSE

“There goes Uncle Charlie. That hillbilly from Tennessee just yanked him out of his house.” — Ott DeFoe on what the fish he was catching at the spillway must have been thinking.

“I didn’t honestly feel like I had a chance. I felt like I needed 14, 15 pounds, because Seth is so good out here. That’s why this is so hard to believe.” — DeFoe after winning.

“I’d do a lot of stuff for $100.” — Shaw Grigsby on Skeet Reese paying Alan McGuckin for wearing a long blonde wig at the weigh-in.

“This is an awesome fishery, but the weather sucks today.” — Seventh-place Takahiro Omori, summing up his best English to describe Day 1 on La Crosse.

“The way he’s fishing right now, if you keep knocking on the door, you know one of these times it will open.” — Kevin VanDam on Jordan Lee, whose fourth-place finish was his fourth consecutive Top 12.