That’s back-to-back major tournament victories for almost $175,000 in winnings.
To make his win even more impressive, Christie weighed in only 10.5 pounds on the first day and sat in the middle of the pack. He turned that around with a 16.14-pound limit on Day 2, and a tournament-best 20.4-pounds on Day 3. His Day 4 limit of 14.1 pounds sent him to victory by more than 2 pounds.
The majority of anglers at both the B.A.S.S. Douglas Lake tournament and the FLW Beaver Lake event threw castable umbrella rigs, the hottest and most-effective technique for catching big bass to come along in years. There is a learning curve for every new fishing tactic, but when 99 percent of competitors are doing the same thing, it leaves little doubt that they believe in it.
“I caught fish on a lot of different baits, a Booyah jig, a 6A Bomber, but 90 percent of the fish I weighed in came on the Flash Mob Jr.,” Christie said. “It’s the best umbrella rig on the market. It’s tough. I used one rig all (four) days and never broke a wire or anything.”
Anglers have discovered that toughness is a characteristic that varies greatly from one rig to another. The Flash Mob Jr. is constructed from stainless steel that is repeatedly heat-treated for strength and memory. It holds its shape without kinking or bending, which can weaken the wires and caught a catastrophic failure when a big fish hits.
Size and weight is another criticism of castable umbrella rigs. They’re just too heavy to cast all day long, require special reinforced rods and 65-pound super braided line and cast like a big chunk of liver. The Flash Mob Jr., however, weighs about ¾-ounce and is capable of taking smaller, lighter weight jigheads. When fully rigged, the Jr. can weigh less than 2-ounces, making it easier to cast and fish all day long.
The angler finishing second in the Beaver Lake event was throwing a homemade umbrella rig consisting two sets of lure arms and nine or 10 jigheads, and said that it not only wore him out physically, but tangled in the net and resulted in lost fishing time while he picked it out.
Christie’s Flash Mob Jr. was rigged with 3/16-ounce Money Head Jigs and a variety of soft plastic swimbaits including 4-inch YUM Mud Minnows, and the total weight of his rig was less than 2 ounces. He threw it on 20-lb Silver Thread fluorocarbon.
One notion that Christie proved inaccurate is that these rigs can only be worked in deep water. Most of Christie’s fish were caught in 4- to 7-feet of water, definitely not what most bass anglers would consider deep. Because of the lighter weight and the tension created when the rig’s willowleaf blades spin, the Flash Mob Jr. can be fished in shallower water without snagging.
But the ability to run in shallow water is a byproduct of the blades’ real intent – to produce baitfish flash and vibration that aids in attracting fish, especially in dirty water. The wire lure arms on the Flash Mob Jr. are the same used in high-quality spinnerbaits and transmit vibrations better than cheap wire. Christie sought out the dirty river water after his lackluster Day 1, and said the blades and dark-colored swimbaits were key to getting bites.
Christie found a spot where the river channel swung close to the bank with a small rocky point extending into it, and caught a big bass on his first cast, then mined similar areas for the next two days. The final day, however, the fish were gone.
“Every fish I caught the last day was from new water,” he said. “I’ll tell you this, I don’t think I would have caught them (without the Flash Mob Jr.). There’s just something about it that makes the big ones bite.”
Notable…
The weekend prior to the B.A.S.S. Southern Open, Douglas Lake hosted a Professional Anglers Association tournament that also was won by a castable umbrella rig. On Day 1 of that event, pro angler Timmy Horton used a Flash Mob Jr. to weigh in a limit of almost 30 pounds.
Ben Wright from Peru, N.Y., won the co-angler division of The Bass Federation’s National Championship on Oklahoma’s Grand Lake O’ the Cherokees using a Flash Mob Jr. It’s been reported that both castable umbrella rigs and swimbaits are hard to find in Oklahoma and Arkansas, however, Wright found the right one.
“I bought it from Wal-Mart,” he said.
Billy Lemon, the Oklahoma angler who used the original YUMbrella to catch the new Grand Lake largemouth bass record just a week after the Bassmaster Classic, said the rig has helped him win roughly $20,000 in winnings over the last two months. His Grand Lake record bass weighed 12.3-pounds.