NO. 1 Finleyville fisherman Matt Becker lands his first win in a key national tournament

“I had never done that before. Nobody knew who I was. I placed 31st out of 196. That was a confidence builder for me,” he said. “I remember driving home from Lake Champlain thinking, ‘These guys aren’t any better than you. You can compete. You can win one of these someday.’ I never imagined it would be thenext tournament.”

The 1000 Islands region of northeastern Lake Ontario, where its waters flow intothe St. Lawrence River, is world-renown for its bass fishery. The key to his win, Becketsaid, was scouting.

“Living here in Pittsburgh I fish a lot at Lake Erie. When I showed up at 1000 Islands I felt right at home and fished it like I wouldLake Erie,” he said.

Becker said he expected the guys who live on the lake to hurry to their top spotsand hit them hard.

“I made the decision during [the three-day] practice to scout out some of the areas where they weren’t going,” he said. “I found some areas where the local guys don’t normally fish, but they looked similar to me to Lake Erie and I knew there wouldbe fish there.”

Floating over rocky slopes adjacent to steep drop-offs, Becker tipped his 30-pound braided fishing line with 6-8 feet of 6-pound Fluorocarbonleader. When his electronics marked a fish, usually at 20-30 feet, he dropped the lure straight downoff the gunwale.

“The smallmouths are on the bottom hiding from the current behind rocks,” he said. “Another reason they’re on the bottom is the invasive gobies they’re eating can only get about a foot off the bottom because of their swim bladder. Smallmouths have no reason to everleave the bottom.”

Eight of the tournament’s top anglers relied on soft plastic lures. The others used swimbaits.

The competition was the second Northern Division meet of the 2017 season. The next Costa FLW Series tournament also will be a Northern Division tournament Aug. 2426 on the Potomac River in Marbury, Md.