Local angler Cameron Foster of Wagoner, Okla. crossed the stage with five bass Friday weighing 15-11 to win the three-day Southwestern Toyota Series event at Fort Gibson Lake. Foster’s total of 15 bass weighing 56-11 earned him the win by a commanding 14-06 margin over the runner-up, Bass Pro Tour angler Zack Birge of Blanchard, Okla., and earned Foster the top payout of $27,149.
Foster says he’s probably walked most, if not all, of the shoreline of Fort Gibson over the years, he chose to run up the Grand River to a single bend with brush piles, pea gravel and mud. Nearly all of his keeper fish came from that spot – one he had never fished before.
“I had been catching them on the lake [in practice],” Foster said. “But I knew 80 percent of the field was going to be fishing the lake, so I needed to find some different ways to get a big bite. I hadn’t seen a 4-pounder out here in weeks, but I had seen a lot of 3s. So, I knew if I could get 13 or 14 pounds in the boat and get a kicker fish that I would be alright, and that was my goal.”
Foster found the honey hole the weekend before the tournament. He rolled up, shook about 20 fish off – including two big bites – then left.
“I didn’t know what was there,” he recounts. “Or if anything else was there.”
Now, he figures that hole is just about fished out after three days of pounding through tough conditions that left many experienced anglers in the field scratching their heads. While most of the field chased shallow fish with topwater baits, Foster enticed bass hugging the bottom with a 1/2-ounce Okeechobee craw Bass X football jig with a wire weed guard and a green-pumpkin Strike King Rage Craw trailer.
Foster guessed that fish in the area see a lot of jigs with weed guards, but very few with the two-pronged wire version he utilized this week. That primary bait, along with a white 1/2-ounce Z-Man ChatterBait with a white 3.8-inch Keitech Swing Impact FAT trailer did the majority of his damage throughout the event.
The spot was so productive that only four of Foster’s 15 keepers came outside of the bend.
For Foster, the win is the culmination of years of work on the water and countless hours of studying off of it. And it’s a double victory of sorts – in less than a month, he’ll finally start work at a dream job: a full-time position as a firefighter in the city of Muskogee, one that required a year of intense preparation, as well as EMT and firefighting classes. However, the job means Foster’s podium finish comes with a bittersweet price.
“I will be on probation for the next year, so I won’t be fishing a lot of multi-day tournaments,” said Foster. “After a year passes, I'll be able to take off days and get back to fishing again.
“It’s a dream come true,” Foster said of the win, the job and getting it done this week on the lake that meant so much to him as a product of Wagoner.
Here are the final totals for the Top 10:
1. Cameron Foster: 56-11
2. Zack Birge: 42-05
3. Terry Hawkins: 42-01
4. Dakota Ebare: 39-09
5. David Curtis: 38-15
6. Brett Brumnett: 38-12
7. Kyle Cortiana: 38-05
8. Jacopo Gallelli: 35-06
9. Darrel Robertsonk: 31-14
10. Blake Capps: 29-15
