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"It's been awhile," a relieved Thliveros admits. "You start wondering if you will ever win one of these again. That's the first thing that goes through your head with the competition the way it is nowadays. You compete against 150 of the best guys in the United States — most of them young guys.

"More and more these past few years I've been feeling like I'm on the downslide as opposed to climbing — like I've already peaked and started my way down. And this is really a boost for my ego and morale."

The 44-year-old accomplished Florida pro pocketed $102,000 by developing a solid game plan and executing it almost to perfection.

The only blip in Thliveros' fly-under-the-radar plan was a poor, even discouraging practice period that did nothing to hint at the week to come. Although it hampered his optimism, he stayed the course and watched with surprise as it paid increasing dividends throughout the week.

"I sure didn't expect this," the 10 time CITGO Bassmaster Classic qualifier says. "The way practice started, I never thought it was going to happen this week. For once I didn't have any negative thoughts. I didn't talk myself out of it.

I just kind of kept myself in a positive frame of mind and really, really worked hard." And it worked out well.

"Patience is a virtue, and that's a lot of what it took. I was patient and stubborn. The good thing for me is I like to fish slowly. I like to milk an area for all it's worth, and that's what I did."

His strategy involved concentrating on places where residential canals (in Lake Eustis) intersected or split. These unusual bottom contours seemed to be magnets for both prespawn and bedding bass that were not visible. And Thliveros had enough of these spots that he didn't feel hemmed in or crowded like some of his closest pursuers (notably, Bitter).

"My main pattern was fishing canals for bass that other people's boats were sitting on top of," he says. "The fish were in those same areas wanting to spawn, and I think every day they were replenishing themselves. More fish were coming in, but they weren't really bedding on the bank.

"They were in scattered eelgrass and any type of cover that was off of the bank in 4 or 5 feet of water. I could see beds in some of the areas, but that's not what I was fishing."

The best group of bass seemed to be holding on isolated lily pad clumps, where they were apparently spawning around the stems.

With Florida's usual unpredictable wintertime weather playing havoc with the field (particularly the sight fishermen), the top competitors settled on a single tactic — fishing soft plastics as slowly as humanly possible. The exception was Thliveros, who made a spinnerbait a prime weapon.

"They weren't really hitting moving baits very well," Thliveros explains. "They would hit a spinnerbait when I was fishing it very slow. Creepy crawling it. The big blade kept it up off of the bottom," he says. Even though Thliveros was using the 1/2-ounce size, he was able to keep it off the bottom and most importantly, keep it slow.

"They would hit a spinnerbait that way, but only in the mornings. And then, as the day went on, they would taper off to just a plastics bite. They got away from any type of moving bait."

"The only thing that I did different from anybody else was I fished extremely slow," he says. "I modeled it after the way I've seen Jim Bitter fish here for years and years. He's the guy that makes the most use of each presentation whenever he casts. I've watched him and I know that he fishes extremely slow. So I modeled myself after his style of fishing.

"My retrieves lasted a minute or minute and a half. A lot of times they'd hit it when it was still. I usually fish slow, but not that slow."

Runners-up

2. Jim Bitter

Jim Bitter made the longest run possible on the Harris Chain to reach Yale Canal, where he focused on spawning bass that were not visible. His 67 pounds, 11 ounces of bedding bass came out of 2 1/2 to 3 feet of water around Kissimmee grass, arrowheads and cattails. He used two sizes of a Zoom Brush Hog (green-pumpkin with blue flake), Texas rigged with a 3/8-ounce weight, 3/0 hook and 14-pound-test Silver Thread line.

"I couldn't see the beds," Bitter explains. "I would notice a small hole in the vegetation if it was at the right depth up against the arrowheads or the cattails. Those were the prime spots to pick out. Some places were right against the bank if it sloped pretty quickly. Other productive spots were 5 to 7 feet away from the bank, if the slope was gentle.

"The key was just getting the bait in the bed. The bass won't come very far to strike, just like if you're sight fishing — although I think they're not quite as particular or spooky if the water's not real clear. You had to keep placing it around in there until you got to the right spot, and then they'd eat it."

3. Todd Faircloth With the exception of the two bass he caught while sight fishing in Helena Run to start the tournament, third place finisher Todd Faircloth caught the rest of his 64-6 in the Ninth Street Canal off Lake Harris. There, he spent most of the time fishing for bedding bass that weren't visible in isolated lily pad patches in 4 to 5 feet of water. The Texas pro caught those bass on a junebug 5-inch Yamamoto Kut-Tail worm rigged Texas style with a 1/8-ounce unpegged tungsten weight, 2/0 Gamakatsu offset hook and 14-pound-test Trilene monofilament.

The Harris Chain had never been particularly kind to Peter Thliveros. Although he recalls winning a club tournament there back in the 1980s, his previous BASS finishes have been 60th, 94th, 24th and 70th.

"I've learned some valuable lessons about this place," he notes. "Confidence is key. I was on the fish to do a lot better last year, but I didn't have enough confidence to stay with it. Patience is another key. The fish are in places where they should be. You just have to be patient enough to figure out how to catch them."

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