OSAGE BEACH, Mo. – As the only angler to catch a limit three days in a row, it’s fitting that Cole Breeden of Lebanon, Missouri, took the win in the Toyota Series Plains Division event at Lake of the Ozarks . Weighing bags in the low teens every day, Breeden managed 13 pounds, 7 ounces on the final day and totaled 40-13 win a derby that featured incredibly tough fishing.
For the win, which is his second at the Toyota Series level, the young Missouri pro takes home $33,727, which will doubtless bolster his bank account amid the start of a busy tournament season. The win also automatically qualifies him for the Toyota Series Championship, which will be held in the fall on Grand Lake, where Breeden won the 2021 College Fishing National Championship.
Finishing second with a 39-1 total, Andy Newcomb of Camdenton, Missouri, blasted 20-11 on the final day to move up from 11th place. Another Lake of the Ozarks stalwart, Brad Jelinek, of Lincoln, Missouri, finished third with 37-5.
A master with his forward-facing sonar, it was no surprise to see Breeden in the hunt this week. But, as the weights proved, simply pointing a transducer at a fish didn’t put it in the boat. Plenty of anglers talked about fish blowing through umbrella rigs and never getting hooked or fish biting a jerkbait or jig and still getting off. Add in frigid water and a major shad kill (think pizzas steadily falling from the sky), and the fishing was extremely tough.
A stunning 43 pros double-zeroed, failing to bring a keeper bass to weigh-in across two days of fishing. That list included some real luminaries, both locally and nationally – Dennis Berhorst, Casey Martin, Eric Olliverson and even the great Rick Clunn couldn’t catch one.
All told, it makes the fact that Breeden caught five every day seem pretty monumental, even though it’s ordinarily the bare minimum for tournament fishing. According to Breeden, even in practice, he was clicking with the lake at an above-average level.
“I practiced for three half-days, and on my third day, I started finding fish, and I didn’t catch very many, but I was seeing groups of a lot of fish,” he said. “Like 10 to 30 bass on a spot, which was just crazy. So, I actually felt pretty good because I had been talking to a lot of people that were talking about how tough it was, and nobody was really catching any bass. So, I actually did feel good going to the tournament – not for winning purposes, but maybe just making a check or a Top 10.”
The key for Breeden was fishing a lot of new water that fit the pattern he increasingly dialed as the event went on.
“The way I started finding fish was kind of on flat, secondary points,” he said. “And then in the tournament, I ran a mixture looking for new stuff – flat secondary points and creeks or a real flat bank or a pocket in a creek. That’s the kind of stuff I was running – just looking for brush and looking for fish on the brush.
“I know there were fish on other stuff, too, but that was just a good way for me to find numbers of fish,” he outlined. “And I think that was the important thing – throwing in front of as many as possible. Because if you talk to anybody in the Top 10, they found a ton of fish also, but it was almost impossible to get them to bite.”
Fishing brush in 12 to 18 feet, Breeden did the vast majority of his work with a jerkbait.
The key bait was either a Berkley Stunna 112+1 or a Berkley Stunna 112 in a worn out Table Rock color. For both baits, he used a 6-foot, 10-inch, medium-light Abu Garcia Fantasista X paired with an 8.3:1 Abu Garcia Zenon MG-X and 10-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon.
“Most of them were on the bottom or close to the bottom,” he said. “Every now and then, there’d be one up in the top of the pile. But if there was a lot of fish there, most of them would be on the bottom, and then one or two would be high. And then it seemed like if there was a lot of fish there and I could throw my jerkbait in there for the first time, then if I got the attention of one, the whole school would come up. That was when I started catching them, whenever I could get the attention of all of them. Usually the first one or two or three to come up to it wouldn’t eat it; it would be one that comes up from behind and gets to it.”
Getting the fish in the mood to feed required the perfect bait and the perfect presentation. A challenge considering the windy conditions, Breeden had to use all his wiles to put the bait where it needed to be.
“A lot of times I would be fishing it 15-foot deep, trying to get it down there,” he explained. “I had to make really long casts and just let my line sink. So, every cast was several minutes. And you couldn’t throw a weighted jerkbait because they were moving so slow that if you threw a weighted jerkbait, it would sink past them by the time they really got to it or wanted to eat it. So, you really needed a suspending jerkbait, but you needed to let your line sink so that it would get deep enough to the fish. It was just a kind of a painful way to fish.”
On Day 3, Breeden added another wintertime trick into the rotation – a float ‘n’ fly. Using a homemade jig with bucktail and feathers on a 1/8-ounce Picasso head with a slip bobber, Breeden actually nabbed the key 5-pounder that gave him the win.
“I didn’t throw it all week because I was just trying to be efficient with my time,” Breeden said. “But today, I knew that I was going back to stuff that I had caught fish on and where I saw some bigger fish. So, I wanted something that would hopefully generate a bite.”
Essentially casting it out and letting it sit above the brush until a fish got interested, Breeden watched his 5-pounder eat on the ‘Scope while his co-angler watched the bobber go down.
“I’m watching on LiveScope, and there’s so much slack in your line between the fish and your rod because the bobber is floating 15-foot above the fish,” he said. “So, the 5-pounder I caught today, I saw her eat it, but I didn’t feel it. And I just kept reeling, and finally, it got tight. But my co-angler said that my bobber was down for several seconds before I pulled into it.”
While Breeden seems to have a real knack for Grand Lake, as many Ozark anglers do, he hasn’t previously considered himself to be a favorite at Lake of the Ozarks.
“These guys here, they always catch them, and they catch big ones,” he said. “And I don’t know how they do it, but they do it pretty consistently. So, I pretty much did what I always do at Lake of the Ozarks, which is catch 13 pounds a day and take my check and go home. This one was just a bigger check.”
Now, he’s earned a big win on a historic fishery in maybe one of the toughest tournaments ever held there.
“Finally getting a big win against the competition that we have here just feels amazing,” Breeden said. “It’s a great start to the year, and obviously, I can use that as momentum. And, man, I’m fishing so many tournaments this year that my bank account was looking a little thin.”
Here's how the Top 10 finished:
1st: Cole Breeden, Lebanon, Mo., 15 bass, 40-13, $33,727
2nd: Andy Newcomb, Camdenton, Mo., 14 bass, 39-1, $14,069
3rd: Brad Jelinek, Lincoln, Mo., 13 bass, 37-5, $10,118
4th: Adam Boehle, Warrenton, Mo., 10 bass, 36-12, $8,432
5th: Travis Fox, Rogers, Ark., 11 bass, 35-7, $7,589
6th: Jordan Hirt, Council Bluff, Iowa, 12 bass, 34-14, $6,745
7th: Michael Harlin, Sunrise Beach, Mo., 13 bass, 33-11, $5,902
8th: Justin Luetkemeyer, Osage Beach, Mo., 10 bass, 32-1, $5,559
9th: Nathen Luce, Claremore, Okla., 11 bass, 30-12, $4,216
10th: Drew Gill, Mount Carmel, Ill., 11 bass, 28-10, $3,373
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Justin Luetkemeyer of Osage Beach, Missouri, earned Thursday’s $500 Berkley Big Bass Award with a bass weighing 5-5. On Friday, Austin Culbertson of Moberly, Missouri, caught a 6-10 bass and earned the award.
