Believe it or not the primary spot chosen by leader Ott DeFoe has it’s own Facebook page.
The Onalaska Spillway page touts the spot as “one of the hottest fishing spots in the La Crosse area.”
No doubt. It’s where DeFoe put himself into the lead with the largemouth bass weighing 6 pounds, 1 ounce for the Phoenix Boats Big Bass award.
Before catching his first bass of the day DeFoe started ahead of the competition. As the first boat out this morning he went directly to the hot spot.
Yet today will be a turning point. The cold front passed sooner than later and the skies have turned bright with the sun coming up.
“The fish aren’t eating the bait real good but that’s the nature of this spot,” said DeFoe. “I’m just going to live with it for now.”
DeFoe’s experience tipped him off to stay with the plan despite loosing his mental confidence during the rain-soaked Day 2.
“The weather broke at 2:30 and that told me to go with what I have the most confidence in doing.”
With boats already weighing in DeFoe caught the 6-1 at 3:20 p.m.
Everyone is talking (or not because we cannot although you can see it) about the single lure used by DeFoe. The bait is key but more so in the very strong current is the Spot Lock feature of the Minn Kota Fortrex on the bow of DeFoe’s boat.
“I can catch a fish, activate Spot Lock and the boat will stay in position until I can unhook the fish, weigh it and get set up to make another cast,” said DeFoe.
Spot Lock is basically an electronic GPS anchor and key feature of the i-Pilot and i-Pilot Link systems. Without the feature DeFoe’s boat would drift far below the spillway, forcing him to waste precious time idling or trolling the boat back in place.
“With all this technology I’m just the dummy up front making the casts,” said DeFoe.
