Rose closes Wheeler deal

With daughter Hannah Grace peeking from behind, National Guard pro Mark Rose
shows off two of his winning fish. (Photo by David A. Brown)

Masterful ledge tactician claims FLW Tour Open victory

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23.Sep.2012 by David A. Brown

DECATUR, Ala. – It's neither fair, nor respectful to other competitors to assume a tournament is "in the bag" just because a guy brings a huge lead into the final round. But Mark Rose, at least indirectly, justified any such murmurings with his dominant wire-to-wire win at the FLW Tour Open event on Wheeler Lake.

Ever the humble gentleman, Rose simply won't engage in that line of thinking. He'll thank God, his family and his sponsors and he'll let others draw their own conclusions. For him, it's simply a matter of being fortunate enough to fish his style of fishing during a period when Wheeler's bass were positioned well for it. Essentially, the fish are just starting to move into their fall transition of shallow migration, but the water's still on the warm side, so plenty of quality fish remain out deep. With a solid understanding of these seasonal patterns and significant experience at picking apart the deep bottoms of TVA impoundments, Rose was in his comfort zone and simply went to work methodically locating and engaging his finned opponents.

"I just felt comfortable out there – I just get in tune with it," he said. "It's a passion I have. I really like it. I like it when I'm not catching anything because I'm trying to figure them out.

"I made a conscious effort about four of five years ago to get offshore. There's one of the best ledge fishermen in the country in the audience here – Randy Haynes (FLW competitor from Counce, Tenn.) – and I owe him a lot. He taught me a lot and spent a lot of time with me when I first started getting out, so I just have to thank him."

Now, here's where we justify that "dominant" statement. Day one, Rose weighs the event's biggest bag – a limit weighing 21-6 that gave him the lead he would never relinquish and a margin of 3-7. He followed on day two with 17-8 and expanded his advantage to 4-6. Day three yielded Rose's smallest bag of the tournament (15-10), but the way the other weights lined up, he found himself heading into the final day of competition with a big-time lead of 7-1.

Flash forward to the culmination of today's final weigh-in. After starting day four in third place, behind Blake Nick, Chevy pro Luke Clausen had moved up from third place to first with 58-12, while Nick slipped below Clausen with 57-2. Rose takes the stage with a three-day total of 54-8, so he's just 4-pounds, 8 ounces off the lead before yanking the first fish out of his bag.

Given his previous three averages, a single fish would've done it for him. But within this sincerely modest man beats the heart of a fierce competitor, so it came as no surprise when Mark Rose dropped 16-14 on the scales and blew this one out with a total weight of 71-6 and a massive winning margin of 12 pounds, 10 ounces.

Rose spent most of his time fishing about 15 miles from the tournament site and targeted fish in about 21-23 feet of water. Well familiar with the Tennessee River's extensive ledges, he knew he'd need to dial in the specific little sweet spots that would be most likely to attract quality fish. He found just such attraction over mussel beds – lively areas that typically hold baitfish. Rose said his Lowrance HDS-10 with StructureScan was essential to locating his quarry.

"That's my eyes and ears," he said. "I could not have done this without my electronics. Those mussel beds were the key, but every now and then, there were some stumps. I was trying to get around those stumps and if you touched a stump, a lot of times you'd get bit."

Rose had two main areas for most of the tournament, but a third spot opened up for him today when a fellow competitor who had been fishing there did not make the final-round cut. This spot produced a good flurry of early activity, but Rose rotated through all of his spots throughout the day.

"I just milked it for all it was worth today." He said. "I have to thank the people of this community. I had a lot of people out there watching me and they let me fish. I only had three little old spots and they left it alone and I appreciate that."

Rose used a variety of baits this week, but he caught most of his fish on a deep diving crankbait with a few stealth modifications for maximum depth. Today, the crankbait produced four of his keeper, with the fifth biting a Strike King football head jig with a Rage Craw trailer. Rose said he also caught fish on a Texas-rigged 10-inch worm and he also employed a Strike King jigging spoon to stimulate fish that played hard-to-get.

"The bigger fish wanted the crankbait more than anything else," he said. "For whatever reason, it takes time to figure out those bigger fish and I figured out that they wanted a crankbait."

Rose said that fishing his baits on 12-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon was essential for getting them to the target depth, while promoting longer casts and providing optimal durability.

entire story on FLWOutdoors.com

Rose Whips ‘Em At Wheeler Again, Wins By 12-Plus

Sunday, September 23, 2012
by BassFan Staff

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Photo: David Brown / FLW Outdoors

A Top-35 finish in any FLW Tour Major would be considered a good result in the minds of most pros. It comes with a decent paycheck and a good share of points in the Angler of the Year standings. Heck, six Top-35s in one year will send a guy to the Forrest Wood Cup.

Mark Rose isn’t most pros, though, especially when it comes to tournaments held on the Tennessee River, a body of water he considers his fishing nirvana. So when he finished 34th at the Kentucky Lake Major this past June, the usually even-tempered Rose got mad – at the fish – and circled the Wheeler Lake FLW Tour Open as payback time.

Rose took out his frustrations on Wheeler’s bass and the rest of the field this week and today, he closed out a dominant wire-to-wire performance with a 16-14 stringer, by far the best catch of the day, to finish with 71-06 and pick up his second career FLW Tour victory. He came into the final day with a 7-01 lead over 2nd-place Blake Nick and it was assumed everyone else was fishing for the runner-up spot. He never let up and wound up winning by 12-10.

“That was one where I feel like it slipped through my hands,” he said of his Kentucky Lake effort. “I’m not going to say that I feel like I’m going to win every tournament on the Tennessee River, but I certainly have a lot of confidence and I feel like I should’ve done a lot better than what I did there. I was mad at the fish in the Tennessee River and I felt like I needed some redemption and this one certainly helped get that.”

Even against a sparse field of 88 competitors this week, Rose showed why many consider him the best at picking apart the subtleties in offshore structure that always seem to hold the right kind of fish. With many of the finalists working Wheeler’s shallow water, Rose stuck to his strengths and plucked quality bass after quality bass off ledges, utilizing his electronics and executing to near perfection.

Luke Clausen, who’d been in 3rd place the first 3 days, closed with 11-13 today and was the runner-up with 58-12. He was able to move past Nick, who slipped from 2nd to 3rd after a 9-11 stringer gave him 57-02 for the week.

Shane Long held onto 4th, thanks to a 12-pound basket that pushed his total to 55-00. Brett Hite advanced three spots to finish 5th behind a 13-03 effort that gave him 51-06.

Here's how the final weights looked at the end:

1.Mark Rose: 71-06
2. Luke Clausen: 58-12
3. Blake Nick: 57-02
4. Shane Long: 55-00
5. Brett Hite: 51-06
6. Randall Tharp: 50-13
7. Michael Williamson: 49-09
8. Larry Nixon: 47-06
9. Scott Suggs: 45-10
10. Jerry Lawler: 36-04

The prevailing opinion among the pros entering the tournament was that the winning total would be somewhere in the 50- to 60-pound range. That would’ve been spot on had Rose opted to stay home in Arkansas for the week. By comparison, when the Bassmaster Elite Series came to Wheeler last June, David Walker won with a 4-day total of 63-10.

Some pros said the water had come down up to 2 feet in some places overnight and that took some shallow areas out of play. And while the fish are on the cusp of beginning their fall feeding migration toward the bank and up the creeks, Rose proved that if you can find a willing school of offshore fish on the Tennessee River, he’ll take his chances fishing that way any day.

One more Open remains on the FLW Tour schedule this year – at Sam Rayburn Reservoir in Lufkin, Texas, from Oct. 11-14. After that event, the Top 5 anglers in Open points will be granted early entry into next year’s Forrest Wood Cup at the Red River in Shreveport/Bossier City, La.

Rose On A Roll

> Day 4: 5, 16-14 (20, 71-06)

Last week, Rose competed at the Arkansas River PAA Series event in Muskogee, Okla. He finished 3rd in an event that was won by Tommy Biffle, who seems to dominate just about every tournament on that stretch of water. Sound familiar?

Rose carried that momentum to Wheeler Lake where he hadn’t necessarily dominated, but it is a Tennessee River impoundment and BassFans know full well he’s typically the man to beat in any derby staged on that stretch of water.

Carrying a 7-pound lead into the final day, he arrived at the area that had produced all of his fish this week and got a sense that things were going to go his way again.

He initially had three specific spots dialed in, but had only been able to fish two of them the previous 2 days as another competitor was camped on the third. Today, he had the run of the place.

“I knew I had all three areas open and I pulled back in there and I could see all three areas from one spot,” he said. “Everything was calm and there were no boats around and I just had a special feeling when I entered into that creek this morning. There was just something about the day – the Lord just seemed to give me a peace about it that I was going to make this thing happen.”

The first spot he fished was where he’d caught his best fish this week, but he didn’t generate anything there. He then moved to the spot he’d been unable to fish and immediately put three 3-pounders in the boat.

“It allowed me to breathe a little bit and slowed me down and relaxed me,” he said

He moved on to third spot and finished his limit, and culled up through the day to sack up nearly 17 pounds."It feels real good (to win)," he said. "I got off to a rough start this year and missed the Cup by a point. It just seems like that ignited something in me, I don't know. It just feels really good to be on a winning streak and not just winning, but reading the water good and making good decisions."