2002 US Open

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US Open - Mike Folkestad Wins 2nd In Row
Gary Yamamoto 12th; Roy Hawk 9th; Dave Nollar 13th; Rob VanderKooi 18th
By Russ Bassdozer

September 9-11, 2002

US Open - Lake Mead, Las Vegas, Nevada

US Open Kick-off Meeting

On Sunday we drove 565 miles round trip from Page, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada to kick-off the US Open. Yamamoto sales manager Jeremy Riley and I met up there with Vern Price, owner/operator of Lake Mead's Bass'n Times Guide Service.

As each contender came "down the line" at the pre-tournament meeting Sunday morning, many friends and familiar faces were embraced! Jeremy, Vern and I gave each pro and amateur angler a sample of new Core Shot Senkos (#913 & #914) and wished each man good luck. All the fellows were excited about the new Core Shots and we showed them many other recently-released colors and products too (9B & 9C Senko, 7F Flat Tail, 7L & 7S Cut Tail, new colors 323, 908, 326, 912), including the new Yamamoto dropshot rods, wind suits, vests and jackets. All were impressed with these new products.

Most guys confided they found tough conditions during the practice week. As in a card game of poker, you can read a face when someone is holding back a good hand. Indeed a few fellows acted spooky and held back on talking about the fish they may have found in practice. You could tell they were "in the zone" as it is called, and were going into day one of the US Open feeling they had found a chance to win it. Catching confidence during prefish, it is a good thing to have going into a major event like the US Open.

It lasted four hours as each man came down the line and met us. Jeremy, Vern and I wished every one good luck. We saw many old fishing friends and made many new ones.

"To win the US Open is the ultimate victory in the West. It's an annual gathering of the biggest names in bass fishing from the West, and it's the biggest title of the year, second to none."

The US Open is more than a tournament. In its 21st season, it is more like a reunion of the top Western pro fishing fraternity. Many of the pros have fished the US Open for years if not decades. Forrest and Nina Wood, founders of Ranger Boats were there Sunday. Forrest enchanted the 340 pros and amateurs reminiscing of his experiences at one of the very first US Opens, practice fishing with Fred Ward, running out of gas first, trolling motor power second. As Fred disappeared out of sight over the top of a peak, hiking off through the desert to get help, Forrest suddenly got incredibly hungry and began to eat all the food he could find in the boat. He wondered if Fred would ever make it back?

Forrest also encouraged the field to dismiss any concerns about low water levels on Lake Mead. He said low water levels only mean the fish have moved closer together to each other!

Kira Yamamoto, daughter of Amber and Derek Yamamoto was called up on stage with Dad by Mike Kennedy, president of WON BASS. Kira was born during a US Open several years ago, so she is a US Open baby of sorts. Kira helped Mike Kennedy draw some names for prize awards, and Kira wished everyone in the field "Congratulations!" The US Open had started!

Day One

Many of the anglers had said they found prefishing to be hard, and low weights on day one (day one leader didn't break 10 pounds) seemed to justify what we had heard from the guys coming down the line the day before.

Team Yamamoto's Roy Hawk hit big bass for day one, a 5.57 pounder that held up as the biggest bass brought in for the entire tournament, winning Roy the US Open "Big Bass Award" from Forrest Wood, founder of Ranger Boats - a special Signature Edition of a Ranger 175VS with a Mercury 90 horsepower engine, Lowrance Electronics, MotorGuide trolling motor and Trojan batteries - a package valued at $20,000. Roy's primary pattern was to flip a Big Boy jig with Yamamoto 3-Series Craw trailer tied on 16 lb. test Yamamoto Sugoi line, a Quantum PT reel and St. Croix flipping stick, but he caught his fish on a diversity of lures (see details in sidebar below).

Day Two

A series of autumn line storms are moving quickly through this part of the country every day now, accompanied by steady winds that push them through, so there are chronic wave swells being produced by these strings of line storm flurries. This makes boat running and boat positioning a constant difficulty for the anglers. Hard to fish, hard to hold the boat in place, and hard running conditions seemed to be the situation going into day two.

When day two was over, Roy Hawk was in first place, hauling in the heaviest stringer of day two (10.96 pounds) and his second big bass of the tournament, a 5.50 pounder, bringing Roy's total purse he would win in cash and prizes to $32,000 for the US Open.

Gary Yamamoto finished in a strong ninth place at the end of day two, in what was turning into a challenging US Open race!

That evening while they were on their way to dinner after day two of the US Open, I spoke by phone with Roy Hawk and Team Yamamoto's Ron Colby.

Roy Hawk was making a run up lake to the Virgin River area to whack the daily big bass of the tournament every morning, after which he would come back down lake to try to fill a limit.

Ron Colby rolled a big bass on day two without being able to stick her. He intended to go after her again on day three to try to win some of the big bass money instead of Roy Hawk again! Roy Hawk was going for broke too, going back up to the Virgin to whack yet another five pounder he hoped on day three.

Topwater has always been a popular pattern during prior US Opens, but it didn't seem that a topwater bite surfaced at the US Open this year, said Ron Colby, adding that there didn't seem to be much of a deep worm bite either, which left a lot of guys to focus on shoreline cover, shoals, weed pockets, and brush banks.

Ron felt most of the 170 boat field was still finding it tough on day two, with not a lot of keepers for anyone all day.

That night, the weather forecast for day three continued to be windy, swells, and resultant boat-handling difficulty.

Day Three

Indeed Ron Colby was right. By the end of the final tournament day three, there hadn't been a whole lot of keepers for hardly anyone. Only 10 pros out of 170 were able to bring in 15 fish (5 fish limit each day). Still, despite the tough bite, to win the US Open is the ultimate victory in the West. It's an annual gathering of the biggest names in bass fishing from the West, and it's the biggest title of the year, second to none.

Mike Folkestad won it his second year in a row, winning $120,000 this year and $115,000 last year in his back-to-back triumphs, capturing the biggest crown in western bass fishing two years in a row.

Final Top Thirty Pro Finishers

Here are the Top 30 pro finishers in the 2002 US Open. Anglers who have formal or casual associations with Team Yamamoto or are friends of the company who enjoy fishing our baits are highlighted (in red). It's reported that several of the top finishers from day one and two had found their fish suspended under floating tire reef breakwaters and fished out the rest of the tournament on the floating tire reefs. A special shout-out also to Murph McBride who finished first on the amateur side winning $10,000 first place AAA money.

Place	Name	Hometown	Fish	Big Fish	Total	Money
1	Mike Folkestad	Yorba Linda CA	14/14		22.56	$120,000
2	Mark Tyler	Concord CA	14/14		22.46	22,000
3	Mike Baldwin	Mohave Valley AZ	15/15	2.44	21.19	17,000
4	Robert Lee	Angels Camp CA	13/12		21.14	12,000
5	Don Williams	Mesa AZ	15/15		21.01	10,000
6	Boris Antolos	Torrance CA	15/15		20.83	8,000
7	Fred Ward	Peoria AZ	15/15		20.61	7,000
8	Byron Velvick	Boulder City NV	13/13	3.40	20.29	8,500
9	Roy Hawk	Salt Lake City UT	7/7	5.57	20.06	32,000
10	Mark Dotterer	Scottsdale AZ	10/10	3.21	19.89	4,500
11	Rusty Salewske	Alpine CA	11/11	2.57	19.34	6,300
12	Gary Yamamoto	Mineola TX	14/14	2.45	19.05	4,000
13	Dave Nollar-RC	Redlands CA	15/15		18.96	3,900
14	Steve Molinari-RC	Glendale AZ	15/15		18.89	3,800
15	Donald Kleifgen	Lakeside AZ	12/12	2.35	18.87	3,700
16	John Mackey	Boulder City NV	13/13	2.17	18.84	3,500
17	Larry Cross-RC	Calimesa CA	12/12	2.31	18.77	3,400
18	John Morrow-RC	Placentia CA	14/14	3.08	18.75	3,400
18	Rob VanderKooi	Mesa AZ	15/15		18.75	3,400
20	Gary Robson	Corona CA	10/10	2.74	18.61	3,400
21	David Peltier	Simi Valley CA	14/14		18.41	3,000
22	Kota Kiriyama	New Milford NJ	11/11	2.31	18.27	3,000
23	Skeet Reese	Auburn CA	12/12	2.76	18.13	3,000
24	Don Payne-RC	Modesto CA	11/10	4.35	17.90	5,000
25	Yusuke Miyazaki	Bellevue WA	15/15		17.87	3,000
26	Mark Kile	Payson AZ	11/11	2.57	17.86	5,000
27	Steve Davies	North Edwards CA	13/13		17.69	3,000
28	Frank Powell	Tonto Basin AZ	14/14		17.54	3,000
29	Bobby Lanham-RC	Scottsdale AZ	11/11		17.26
30	Stan Vanderburg	Chatsworth CA	14/14		17.13

For more information on the 2002 US Open, including a history of the US Open, full field Pro and AAA results, and other information, visit: http://www.wonbass.com.)

What Gary Yamamoto Used

Practice: On his first day of practice for the US Open, Gary Yamamoto got onto a dropshot bite in the Narrows near Greg's Basin but many other anglers were on this same bite too. On his second practice day, Gary went looking for a less crowded location to dropshot, which he found towards the Temple Bar area. Gary also discovered whenever the wind would arise, that active fish moved up onto the rocky shoals in this area, aggressively feeding and hitting crankbaits in the wind.

Day One: Gary lit out straight for the windy shoals near Temple Bar, and had a limit in the boat by 9 o'clock in the morning. Overall, he caught ten keepers for the day, nothing too big, mostly dropshotting 5-inch 7L-Series Cut Tails in purple and/or watermelon color patterns. Gary used his size #4 53-Series Splitshot hooks, which are self-setting under windy conditions. He also used the small swivels which come with the Splitshot hooks by tying the swivel in six inches above the hook and bait to reduce chronic line twist that plagues anglers who dropshot a lot.

Day Two: Gary tried to repeat the same basic pattern but the wind was howling and the dropshot bite shut down. Moving over to the Little Gyps area and a small island there, Gary hit a couple of keeper fish, including a 2.45 pounder. It took a little longer (until noon) to fill a limit the second day, relying more on the crankbait, a twenty year old Bagley model, tossed into windy rocky shoals.

Day Three: The crankbait bass in the Little Gyps area didn't come up, so Gary revisited the Temple Bar location where he dropshot a limit on day one. The dropshot bite was no longer there. Falling back on the crankbait and the rocky shoals, he hit his first keeper and proceeded to crank down the bank, picking up a second keeper by one o'clock. With time running out and getting nervous about weigh-in at 2 o'clock, Gary hit his third keeper, then cranked the big motor to run towards home. In the middle basin, a spot called Middle Point, he pulled off plane onto another rocky shoal there for one last try. He cranked his fourth and final keeper of day three and went to weigh-in.

Overall Summary: Gary mostly fished open water main channel points with wind-exposed rocky shoals. When the wind arose, Gary felt the wind was causing active fish to suspend higher in mid-water where he couldn't get a good bite on bottom with the dropshot. However, the wind drove bass in with the wind to feed on shoals where they would actively chase crankbaits.

What Roy Hawk Used

Time Boxing: The most important tool Roy Hawk used is a time management discipline called "time boxing." He divided each of his three days time into three "time boxes" per day, then simply fished "in the box" according to the clock:

Fish the Virgin River area from 7 AM to 9 AM gambling on a possible few big fish
Fish the Muddy River area from 9 AM to 11 AM gambling on a possible few big fish
Fish the Lower Basin from 11 AM until weigh-in to fill out a limit if possible

This eliminated any doubts or dwelling on where he would or should be doing what, allowing Roy to clear his mind to concentrate on fishing in the "time box."

Lures and Tactics Used: Roy flipped a green Big Boy jig with a Yamamoto craw trailer most of the time, and caught one 5.50 pounder on it. Roy caught the biggest bass of the 2002 US Open, a 5.57 pounder on a new model of Lucky Craft buzzbait in white pearl. Roy had a couple on Lucky Craft Sammy topwaters including the larger Sammy 128, one bass on a Texas-rigged Zipper Worm, one his AAA caught on a dropshot worm, and another his AAA's caught on a buzzbait. Note these are shared weight Pro-Ams where the team weighs their combined five fish limit, and both the Pro and Am get credited for the combined bag.

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