By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

Jeff Reynolds took a bit of a break from tournament fishing after leaving the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2009, but he got back into it after he moved to Lake Texoma a few years ago. Now it seems as if he's back to being about as good as he's ever been.

The 48-year-old Oklahoman won the recent Plains Division Toyota Series event at Grand Lake in his home state, which garnered him $76,500 with the hefty Phoenix Boats contingency bonus thrown in. He's also returned to tour-level competition for the first time in 13 years and was 25th in the MLF Pro Circuit points race entering this week's event at Lake Guntersville.

He qualified for the Pro Circuit by finishing 8th in the Southwestern Division Toyota points last year (he was 2nd on that list the year before).

"I wasn't fishing the Toyotas trying to qualify, but afterward me and my wife started talking about (the Pro Circuit)," said Reynolds, who also won a Toyota Series event at Texoma in 2017. "The guy I was traveling with for the Toyotas (Lance Crawford) was fishing it, so we prayed about it a lot and decided it was what we needed to do.

"I feel like I'm fishing now better than I ever have. I'm a lot more mature about things and I feel like mentally, I'm a lot better than I was before."

Not Completely Content

Reynolds' position in the Pro Circuit standings is anchored by a 9th-place showing at Florida's Harris Chain of Lakes in March.

"It should be better," he said. "I should've won at Harris – I had the fish on the last day to win but I didn't get them in the boat. And at Rayburn (59th), I felt like I should've done better there. I'm not going to brag about being 25th."

He doesn't fish Grand all that frequently, but entered the Toyota Series derby because he figured it would be dominated by sight-fishing. That assumption proved correct – he looked at every fish he caught during the tournament.

He located quite a few actively spawning fish during practice, but not many of considerable size.

"I didn't think there was any way I had enough fish to win – not even close," he said. "I thought I could catch a pretty good sack one day and I did that the first day when I had 21 1/2 (pounds).

"The second day I kind of went looking because I knew I could catch a limit (and make the Top-25 cut). I was fortunate that I found a 4 1/2-pounder right at the end of the day and I caught that one."

His day-2 bag was 7 pounds lighter than the one he'd weighed the previous day, but he bounced back in the final round with a 18-03 haul that gave him the victory by 11 ounces over runner-up Cade Alsbury.

"On the second day I found a pair that were rubbing and I played around with them for a minute, but I knew I couldn't catch them," he said. "Then on the last day I had four keepers in my livewell in the morning and I was just going to fish the rest of the day, but about 2 hours of that was all I could handle. I wasn't getting bites and I knew they were on beds.

"I went back to looking and right off the bat I found a 3 1/2-pounder and caught it, then I caught another keeper. I decided to go check on that pair and when I pulled up they were both there and they weren't rubbing – they were kind of swimming around the bed. I flipped in there and the male (a 3-pounder) smoked it and I caught him."

It took him about 10 minutes to entice the female (a 4 3/4-pounder) and add her to his bounty. A 4-pounder that a fellow competitor who didn't make the cut had told him the location of prior to the conclusion of the Day-2 weigh-in gave him enough to win.

Gear Notes

Reynolds used both a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver (Okeechobee craw) and a Strike King Game Hawg (white) to induce strikes from the spawning fish. The Sweet Beaver is his mainstary.

"To me, (sight-fishing) baits don't usually matter a lot, although some baits are better in certain situations," he said. "I use that white one when I'm sure they're locked onto the beds because I can see it better and I want to make sure I hook them in the mouth. Any other time I use the Sweet Beaver because it looks more natural."

He employed a 7'3" heavy-action Crotalus Custom rod, 50-pound Sunline FX2 braided line and a 22-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon leader.