Hard to say what motivated Jacob Wheeler most - ending Day 1 of the Forrest Wood Cup in 40th place, or his girlfriend’s reaction to his 7-pound, 4-ounce limit.

“She says, ‘Wow, those are baby bass,’” recalled Wheeler, the 2012 Forrest Wood Cup champion. “I said ‘Dang! I better catch ‘em bigger tomorrow!”

And he did - and then some - weighing three consecutive limits in the teens to take the final-day lead with only three anglers left to weigh in behind him. If his lead would hold, he’d win a second consecutive, Forrest Wood Cup, the FLW Tour’s championship tournament.

“I had to catch ‘em, I was behind the eight ball,” Wheeler told tournament emcee Jason Harper after weighing in 14 pounds, 4 ounces of Red River bass on the Cup’s final day. After weighing his paltry Day 1 limit, he confided, “I’m like ‘Man, this is not me, I’ve got to get back to what I love to do and get shallow and go fishing.’”

And he did, heading deep into bayou backwaters to pick apart lily pads with a 5-inch, watermelon-red Trigger X Flutter Worm.

Wheeler’s pattern - which often involved pitching his Flutter Worm back to a spot that a bass rolled on and missed a frog bait - allowed him to climb from 40th, to 18th, to 4th before weighing in the final day.

“I’m just blessed to be here, to be in that position,” Wheeler said on the weigh-in stage after taking the lead.

That “position” was the chance to win a second consecutive Forrest Wood Cup with the greatest comeback in Cup history.

“Here we go again,” FLW’s Harper told Wheeler after he weighed in and took the lead.

“All I could do, was try to get here, get to the fourth quarter,” Wheeler said. “Because you can’t win the game if you’re not in the fourth quarter.”

But it was not to be this time. Randall Tharp soon took the stage and weighed a 14-pound limit that gave him a winning four-day total weight of 53 pounds, 2 ounces. Wheeler’s runner-up total was 49-2.

Watch Wheeler weigh-in his final 2013 Forrest Wood Cup five-fish limit here.

Wheeler’s pattern: Pitching plastic to pad holes
Wheeler boated some bass flipping a Trigger X Goo Bug, but his best soft bait was the Trigger X Flutter Worm, which he threw in backwater lily pads. He also used a Trigger X Probe Worm on a drop-shot rig around the rocky entrance to his best backwater spot, Do Not Dredge Lake, or “The Gator Hole,” as locals call it.

To get to the Gator Hole lily pad fields where bass were actively feeding on bluegill, Wheeler had to idle past, around - and sometimes over - numerous stumps and laydowns. He said he bent four props in the process.

“I was getting way back in those backwaters, fishing where those pads were, where those bigger fish were... keying on bluegill,” Wheeler said. “Finding those fish was very key.”

Wheeler boated several bass on a frog bait, but the Flutter Worm allowed him to catch more bass from his area. When a big largemouth would blow up on his frog but miss it, he’d pitch back to the hole and get her with the Trigger X worm.

“I had to hit every little pad, every little pocket, to have an opportunity to catch those fish,” he said.

Wheeler wacky-rigged his Flutter Worm on a 2/0 VMC Wacky Weedless Hook, tied to 15-pound-test Sufix Castable Invisiline fluorocarbon leader on 10-pound-test Sufix 832 Advanced Superline. He threw it on spinning gear.

You can watch Wheeler fish in the 2013 Forrest Wood Cup on Sept. 29 on NBC, from 2:30-3:30 p.m. ET.

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