Snowden Traps His Way to Victory on Toho

Brian Snowden hurled one of my favorite baits on the Kissimmee Chain, the xr75 Xcalibur Rattlebait in the Foxy Shad color to earn the victory at the inaugural PAA tournament. He was fishing open water hydrilla on Toho and had one of the most consistent bags of the tournament with 15.47 on day one, 19.22 on day two, and 17.75 on the final day. 

I was really pulling for Shaw Grigsby who hasn’t won anything in a while. I’m a big fan from watching One More Cast. He seems like such a nice guy and he’s even gotten rid of his weird mustache. I know he likes to fish for bedding fish and it held up for 2 days. He was leading the tournament after day two with bags of 22.10 and 15.92, but faltered on the final day with just 1.5 pounds which dropped him to 10th place. C’mon Shaw, anyone can go out on Kissimmee and catch more than one fish.

Notable locals in the tournament were Bobby Lane who finished 30th and Micah Silverman who finished 31rst.

Here’s a recount of the final day by Brian Snowden according to BassOnline: 

“It was slow but steady today. I didn’t get a bite until about nine this morning and then I ended up catching two real quick and then caught a 6 ½ pounder to fill my limit out by about two in the afternoon. 

“I caught every fish on an XCalibur Xr75 rattle bait in 6 to 8 feet of water fishing the hydrilla and eel grass in Toho. I found the bite a little bit in practice and then when it got colder during the tournament, I decide to just stay out there and throw the rattle bait. Each day I’d get about seven bites and have five to six keepers.

“Even though they were spraying grass on Toho, they hadn’t sprayed the area that I was fishing in recently so it actually probably helped the way that I was fishing. The key was to find the grass that was still kind of green. Some of the bass were post-spawn and some were pre-spawn, so I caught a little mixture of both.

“It’s really just a great honor to win the first PAA Series event. I think this is something that is going to be really great for the future of our sport so it’s an honor to be part of the PAA. To get the win in the first one is a great feeling. I’m really looking forward to the rest of the year and the growth of the PAA. It’s pretty exciting times for the anglers I think.”

Here’s Steve Kennedy’s recount:

“This morning started out perfect. I went running down to my trap fish and I fired out there on my first cast and caught a bass outside of where I was expecting to catch one. When I got over to the little edges of the grass, I called my shots three casts in a row. My cameraman said that I was ‘Babe Ruth’en them.’ I had another little sweet spot off shore and it took me three casts to catch my fifth one. Within 15 minutes I had a limit. “I fished my trap for about an hour after than without a bite and went to my flipping stuff and the little ones were biting good. I probably had eight bites in the first hour and I had one big bite and she shook her head and came off so I don’t know how big it was. As cold as it was, they were just really finicky.

After that, I went all day without a big bite and was only able to cull up a few ounces. The morning was as good as it gets. Yesterday morning I did the same thing – it just so happened that they were four pounders then.

There were several other boats that had worked through the general area and I think we just beat them up. I was throwing the KVD special, the Strike King Red Eye Sexy Shad – I watched him do it on TV down here. When I came down here I thought, ‘If Kevin can catch them on it, I can do it.’ It almost worked out. I was flipping a Kinami Palm Tree and a Beaver both in black and blue color.

I didn’t win it but it worked out pretty well for the amount that I practiced. I put in Monday at one in the afternoon and found those fish around three. I also went out Tuesday around ten in the morning just looking for a flipping bite and I didn’t practice Wednesday.

“Overall, it was pretty awesome and I really hope this turns out to be something big.”

And here’s what Todd Faircloth said: 

“I started out today with a flipping rod and that’s what I did all day. I had a limit by around eight this morning and caught a ton of fish today. I just only caught one big one right at the end of the day and I think the bigger one started biting later. I probably caught 25 fish today. I caught more today than any other day. 

“I had two patterns that I was working. One was fishing a Sebile Flat Shad in the hydrilla and the other one was flipping a Yamamoto creature in the gnarliest stuff I could find. It seemed like the hydrilla bite faded on me and the flipping bite got better as the tournament went on. With the exception of the first day, all my fish came from flipping.
I fished Toho the whole tournament but the fact that they were spraying the grass really didn’t affect me at all.

“Overall, I think it was a good start for the PAA organization. We had 147 guys there, guys from BASS, FLW, and some guys who don’t fish either. I think that overall it was ran really well and a good start.

see full field results: Carrot Stix PAA Event on the Kissimmee Chain