FLW_CoversBassAug:Layout 1 - EZ

Transcription

FLW_CoversBassAug:Layout 1 6/22/10 1:44 PM Page 991
Special: 7 Deadly Lures Pros Use in a Pinch
BASS EDITION
GATOR
CHOMP:
Inside!
Florida Claims National Guard
FLW College Fishing Championship
FLWOUTDOORS.COM
Plus!
Let Ditches Guide you to More Bass
Reveal Hidden Patterns with Swimbaits
August - Sept. 2010
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FLW_2-10B:Layout 1 6/22/10 2:20 PM Page 2
CONTENTS
AUG.-SEPT. 10
VOLUME 9
ISSUE 6
30
Searching with
Swimbaits
SWIMBAITS CAN REVEAL A LOT, EVEN WHEN
THEY DON’T CATCH FISH I CURTIS NIEDERMIER
FEATURES
43
Erie’s Overshadowed
Largemouths
A LOOK AT LAKE ERIE’S LARGEMOUTH
OPPORTUNITIES I JOE BALOG
36
Seven Lucky
Limit Lures
NEED FIVE FISH WHEN NOTHING
IS WORKING? HERE ARE SEVEN
LURES USED BY THE PROS.
MARK HICKS
56
New Lessons
in Old-School
Wormin’
Sportsman’s
Stuck in a Ditch
Guide
50
THE LOWDOWN ON FINDING AND FISHING
DITCHES I SEAN OSTRUSZKA
PREVIEWS OCTOBER
TIME-TESTED TECHNIQUES
AND A FEW NEW TRICKS –
SOFT-PLASTIC WORMS
STILL WORK I DAVID HART
63
TIPS, TACTICS
AND GEAR FOR
FISHERMEN WHO LIKE TO HUNT
FORREST WOOD CUP COVERAGE:
All the inside scoop on what went down at the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup. The annual special issue heads beneath the surface of
Georgia’s Lake Lanier to see how the winner tamed the fishery. Did he load up on the lake’s deep spotted bass? Did he stay
shallow and target largemouths? We’ll explain how he found the winning fish and executed his game plan for a championship.
We’ll also bring you the tactics of the rest of the top-finishing pros, plus coverage of all the other happenings at this, the
crown jewel of tournament fishing.
2
TUNE IN TO “FLW OUTDOORS”
ON VERSUS COUNTRY
SUNDAYS AT
12:30 P.M. EASTERN
FLWOUTDOORS.COM I AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2010
“SEE WHAT I SEE.”
“I still needed a
kicker. HDS with
StructureScan sonar
showed this isolated
rockpile that everyone else
missed, then I used TrackBack
to mark a waypoint on the high
spot. After a long cast to my new
money spot, I stuck this big ‘ol pig.
Now that’s how you fill out a limit!”
– Shaw Grigsby,
Bassmaster Elite Series Angler, TV Host
CHANGE Y O U R VIEW.
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Sounder™ and Insight mapping, plus add-on options such as NMEA 2000® networking,
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structure and catching fish has never been faster, easier and more rewarding. For complete
details, videos and new insights from Shaw Grigsby, visit www.lowrance.com/FLWB.
DEPARTMENTS
CONTENTS
FRONT DECK
WEIGHING
IN
6 I Editor’s Note
8 I Fishing Exposed
10 I Solunar Tables
72 I On Tour
76 I Bass Fishing
University
82 I Tournament
Tested
92 I Tournament
Highlights
96 I Backlash
TBF1 I TBF
LIVEWELL
11 I Tackle Talk
12 I Knotly Knews
12 I The Limit
13 I Noteworthy
13 I What’s on the Web
14 I Gear Care
14 I Your Rig
15 I Ask the Experts
16 I Angler Workbench
16 I Technique Tip
16 I Science
ON THE
COVER
BACK DECK
18 I First Look
22 I Takeoff
26 I Tackle Test
University of Florida anglers Jake Gipson (left) and
Matt Wercinski won the inaugural National Guard
FLW College Fishing National Championship in
April 2010. The win earned them $50,000 for the
school, $50,000 for the club and entry into the 2010
PHOTO BY BRIAN LINDBERG
Forrest Wood Cup.
FLWOUTDOORS.COM
THE WORLD’S LARGEST AND MOST PRESTIGIOUS
FISHING TOURNAMENT ORGANIZATION
4
VISIT OUR WEB SITE FOR UP-TO-THE-MINUTE
TOURNAMENT RESULTS, TOURNAMENT
REGISTRATION AND MORE!
FRONT DECK
EDITOR’S NOTE
IS FLORIDA POISED FOR A COMEBACK?
I
n the not-so-distant past Florida was the acclaimed bass capital
of the world; the ultimate waypoint for every dedicated lunker
hunter. Texas and California have staged a coup d’état in recent
years, however. Texas lakes are churning out lunkers in the low
teens, while it seems like every few months that a high-teens or
low-20s bass is caught out in California.
While Texas and California have been getting all the ink these
days, Florida’s fabled bass fishery has been slipping from view like
a Key West sunset. But perhaps it’s time to take a second look. This
summer, tournaments on Lake Tohopekaliga (Toho) and guide
reports at Lake Okeechobee suggested that the Sunshine State isn’t
over the hill yet. In Toho tournaments, five-bass limits had to top
more than 30 pounds to earn a paycheck. And at Okeechobee,
guides were reporting 100-fish days with the same sort of regularity that characterized the Big O in its salad days of the 70s and 80s.
What’s going on? Have the teeming hordes that descended on
Florida during the past few decades stopped polluting the water? Is
the state spending millions to resuscitate the bass fishery? None of
the above, according to some experienced Florida anglers.
Conventional wisdom has it that the current rebound is due to a
happy convergence of coincidences — with a little manmade help
thrown in. National Guard pro Scott Martin, who occasionally
guides during his off time out of Roland Martin’s Marina near
Clewiston, believes that recent hurricanes have served to scrub
Okeechobee’s bottom, and a couple of droughts on top of that helped
detoxify and disperse the sediment. The end result is a lake where
bass can deposit eggs on sandy bottom that doesn’t smother them.
Apparently that’s similar to what has been happening at Toho,
though it wasn’t so much hurricanes as employees of the Florida
Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission who scoured the muck
away and drew down the lake so its bottom could air out.
Good news for now, but Florida anglers can’t depend on hurricanes or localized efforts to save their fishing. Such summers as this
remind us of what we stand to lose. There are 7,700 named lakes in
Florida and more than 11,000 miles of rivers, and any of them in its
natural state is capable of producing big bass and lots of them. “In its
natural state” is the operative phrase, however, as Florida is the poster
state for overdevelopment. Loss of habitat, invasive aquatic species,
water pollution on a grand scale – you name it, Florida has it.
Can the Sunshine State’s fabulous bass fishery be mended and
sustained? We’ll see. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
Commission is currently developing a new management plan that
will incorporate the suggestions of a fishing industry advisory
board, as well as the public. It will be announced by the first of the
year. We wish such efforts well. Converting the plan from an idea
into reality is a long, daunting task in a state where sacrificing natural resources for real estate bucks has been standard operating procedure since the first Spaniard waded ashore.
Colin Moore
Editor-in-Chief
FLW Outdoors Magazine
Note: FLW Outdoors strives to create the best magazine for its members
and subscribers. If you ever wish to share your thoughts and ideas with us,
we always value your feedback. Feel free to send an e-mail to
[email protected].
VOLUME 9
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Colin Moore
MANAGING EDITOR: Curtis Niedermier
ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Sean Ostruszka
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Julie Wilkins
EDITORIAL INTERN: Steve Miller
FIELD EDITORS: Dave Csanda, Rob Newell, Matt Williams
SENIOR WRITER: David Hart
CONTRIBUTORS: Joe Balog, Mark Hicks, Doug Howlett,
Al Lindner, Bob McNally, Ross Robertson
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Brian Lindberg
PRODUCTION MANAGER/GRAPHIC DESIGNER: Michelle Dowling
ISSUE 6
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 10
LETTERS TO THE EDITORS:
FLW Outdoors Magazine
30 Gamble Lane, Benton, KY 42025
[email protected]
INFORMATION: 270.252.1000
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER: Charlie Evans
SENIOR V.P. AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER: Trisha Blake
EXECUTIVE V.P. AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER: Kathy Fennel
DIRECTOR OF ADVERTISING: Al Chapman, 270.252.1628
We reserve the right to refuse any material we feel is not in the best interest of FLW Outdoors and its members/subscribers. The items advertised herein are warranted by the advertiser.
FLW Outdoors Magazine is published eight times per year by FLW Outdoors, 30 Gamble Lane, Benton, KY 42025, 270.252.1000. Charlie Evans, President. Copyright 2010 by FLW Outdoors.
All rights reserved. None of the content of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Advertising rates available on request. We welcome manuscripts but will not be held responsible
for loss of manuscripts, photos or other materials. All manuscripts should include a self-addressed stamped envelope.
FLW Outdoors Magazine (ISSN 1543-6179) is published eight times per year by FLW Outdoors, 30 Gamble Lane, Benton, KY 42025. Rates: one year (8 issues) $15.00; two years (16 issues)
$30.00; three years (24 issues) $45.00. Periodicals Postage paid at Benton, KY, and at additional mailing office.
Postmaster: Send address changes to FLW Outdoors, 30 Gamble Lane, Benton, KY 42025. For questions regarding your subscription call 270.252.1000 Monday thru Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. CST.
Printed in the U.S.A.
6
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© 2008 U.S. Bank
2
sFRAUDPROTECTION
FISHING
EXPOSED
SCOOP AND SCORE
The second morning of the
2010 FLW Tour Lake
Ouachita event started off
hot for Goodwill pro
Wesley Strader. As if on cue
when the camera showed
up, the Spring City, Tenn.,
pro sacked up three keepers
in one cut, relying on his
co-angler, Hector
Delagarza, to perform perfect net jobs like this one
each time. Strader weighed
12 pounds, 5 ounces on day
two on his way to a 28thplace finish.
PHOTO BY CURTIS NIEDERMIER
FRONT DECK AUGUST-SEPTEMBER SOLUNAR TABLES
AUG
Date Day
Incredibly strong and ideal for
indoor and outdoor applications.
Bonds wood, stone, metal, ceramic,
foam, glass and much more!
FOR THE TOUGHEST JOBS ON PLANETT EARTH®
1-800-966-3458 Made in U.S.A.
© 2010 Gorilla Glue Company
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Su
M
T
W
Th
F
S
Su
M
T
W
Th
F
S
Su
M
T
W
Th
F
S
Su
M
T
W
Th
F
S
Su
M
T
CENTRAL
STANDARD
TIME
+56
+52
+48
+44
+40
+36
+32
+28
+24
+20
+16
+12
+8
+4
-4
-8
-12
-16
-20
-24
-28
-32
-36
-40
-44
-48
-52
-56
EASTERN
STANDARD
TIME
+56
+52
+48
+44
+40
+36
+32
+28
+24
+20
+16
+12
+8
+4
MOUNTAIN
STANDARD
TIME
AM
PM
Moon
Minor Major Minor Major Phases
9:15
10:00
10:50
11:40
12:10
1:05
2:00
2:55
3:50
4:45
5:35
6:35
7:30
8:25
9:25
10:25
11:15
—:—
12:35
1:25
2:15
2:55
3:35
4:15
4:55
5:40
6:20
7:05
7:50
8:40
9:35
3:05
3:50
4:40
5:30
6:20
7:15
8:10
9:05
10:00
10:50
11:50
12:25
1:20
2:15
3:15
4:15
5:05
5:55
6:45
7:30
8:15
9:00
9:40
10:20
11:05
11:45
12:10
12:55
1:40
2:30
3:25
9:40
10:30
11:20
—:—
12:30
1:25
2:20
3:15
4:10
5:05
6:00
7:10
8:00
9:05
9:55
10:55
11:45
12:10
12:55
1:40
2:25
3:10
3:50
4:30
5:15
5:55
6:45
7:30
8:20
9:10
10:05
3:25
4:15
5:05
5:55
6:50
7:45
8:40
9:35
10:30
11:20
—:—
12:50
1:45
2:45
3:40
4:40
5:30
6:20
7:10
8:00
8:40
9:20
10:00
10:40
11:25
—:—
12:30
1:15
2:05
2:55
3:50
SEP
Date Day
1
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18
19
20
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23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
W
Th
F
S
Su
M
T
W
Th
F
S
Su
M
T
W
Th
F
S
Su
M
T
W
Th
F
S
Su
M
T
W
Th
-4
-8
-12
-16
-20
-24
-28
-32
PACIFIC
STANDARD
TIME
-4
-8
-12
-16
-20
-24
-28
-32
-36
-40
-44
-48
-52
-56
PLANET EARTH
®
+20
+16
+12
+8
+4
JOBS ON
SOLUNAR TIMES
+56
+52
+48
+44
+40
+36
+32
+28
+24
+20
+16
+12
+8
+4
TOUGHEST
-4
-8
-12
-16
-20
-24
-28
-32
-36
-40
-44
-48
-52
-56
FOR THE
AM
PM
Minor Major Minor Major
10:30
11:20
—:—
12:45
1:40
2:35
3:25
4:15
5:05
6:10
7:00
8:05
9:05
10:00
11:05
11:50
12:20
1:05
1:45
2:25
3:05
3:40
4:15
4:55
5:40
6:30
7:20
8:15
9:10
10:10
4:20
5:10
6:05
7:00
7:50
8:45
9:35
10:25
11:20
—:—
12:50
1:50
2:55
3:50
4:50
5:40
6:25
7:10
7:50
8:30
9:05
9:40
10:20
11:05
11:50
12:20
1:10
2:05
3:00
4:00
11:00
11:55
12:15
1:10
2:00
2:55
3:45
4:35
5:30
6:35
7:35
8:30
9:35
10:40
11:30
—:—
12:35
1:20
2:00
2:40
3:15
3:50
4:30
5:15
6:00
6:55
7:50
8:45
9:50
10:45
Moon
Phases
4:45
5:40
6:30
7:25
8:20
9:10
10:00
10:50
11:55
12:20
1:20
2:15
3:20
4:25
5:15
6:05
6:50
7:30
8:10
8:50
9:25
10:00
10:40
11:25
—:—
12:40
1:35
2:30
3:35
4:30
SOLUNAR TABLES® are designed to forecast the daily active feeding periods of fish. They are formulated from the
position of the earth in relation to the sun and moon.
The major periods last for approximately 2 to 3 1/2 hours, and the minor periods last for approximately 3/4 to 1
1/2 hours. To determine the start of major and minor times for your area, find the bold time-zone rule on the map. If
you are located in the area left of the time-zone rule, add the number (in minutes) at the top to the corresponding
time on the chart. If you are located in the area right of the time-zone rule, subtract the number (in minutes) at the
bottom from the corresponding time on the chart. Add 1 hour to all times during daylight saving time.
FLW_11-16B:Layout 1 6/22/10 10:36 AM Page 11
LIVEWELL
LIVEWELL
TACKLE TALK
Do-it-Alls
Every soft plastic has its niche. Some are great
for flipping heavy cover; others for dragging on
Carolina rigs. And some are just made to dress up
jigs and spinnerbaits.
However, there are a few lures that cover all
three. Call them do-it-alls. Will they replace every
soft plastic? No. But they may make an angler
think twice before he buys yet another pack of
situation-oriented soft plastics.
• Tackle Talk
• Knotly Knews
• The Limit
• Noteworthy
• What’s on the Web
• Gear Care
• Your Rig
• Ask the Experts
• Angler Workbench
• Technique Tip
• Science
News and notes from around
the lake, brought to you by FLW
Outdoors Magazine staff and members
Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver
Little hasn’t been written about the utility of the Sweet
Beaver. However, the lure has almost been pigeonholed into
use for flipping only. It shouldn’t be.
Its crawfish profile makes it a great choice as a jig trailer,
and it shouldn’t be passed up for use on a Carolina rig.
Damiki Hydra
The more we use the Hydra, the
more ways we figure out how to
use it. The bulky body is ideal for a
Texas rig, but those tentacles make
it just as good on a Carolina rig. As
for its uses as a trailer, if you think a
normal trailer has action, wait until
you see the profile a Hydra has on
the back of a jig.
Zoom Brush Hog
Few soft plastics are as versatile as the Brush Hog.
Many flip with it, while others drag it on Carolina rigs.
However, what most don’t realize is that the Brush Hog
was originally designed to be a spinnerbait trailer, and it
does so very well. Not to mention, Keith Williams won the
2009 FLW Tour event on Kentucky and Barkley lakes using
a Brush Hog as a jig trailer.
Life Rings for Wacky Worms
A section of an old tube is a great alternative to an O-ring or rubber band as a harness for a wacky worm to increase the longevity of
soft-plastic stick baits and worms. It will also allow you to add
weight and color to your presentation. Here’s how to rig it:
Step 1: Pick a tube color. You can either match it to your worm or experiment with other colors. A white Yamamoto Senko with a flash of red in it is a
great combination, or adding a bit of blue or purple to a black worm is also productive.
Step 2: Cut the hollow body of the tube in 1/4-inch sections. You can adjust
the size of the sections based on the weight and sink rate you are trying to
achieve. Bigger pieces of tube will make the rig easier to cast and cause it to
sink faster.
Step 3: Wet the skinny end of the worm or Senko and insert it into the
hole of the tube piece. It should slide easily to the center, but if it doesn’t, try
rolling it on to the worm.
Step 4: Insert the hook through the piece of tube and worm.
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2010 I FLWOUTDOORS.COM
11
LIVEWELL
KNOTLY
KNEWS
A CLOSE-UP LOOK AT TODAY’S BEST FISHING KNOTS
Blood Knot
This knot is valuable to all fishermen to join
two lines together. Its only drawback is that the
lines to be connected must be of equal, or nearly
equal, diameters. The Blood Knot provides a small
connection, and when properly tied it can’t pull
loose no matter how close its ends are clipped.
Step 1. Cross
the two lines, and
wrap one line
three to five times
around the other.
Now place the line
end through the
loop formed by the
two lines.
Step 2. Turn
the other line
around the first
line three to five
times, and put its
end through the
loop from the
opposite side.
Step 3. The turns
should look like this.
Now slowly pull on
both ends of the
lines.
Step 4. The
tightened knot
looks like this,
loose ends
trimmed.
1.
2.
3.
4.
“Bob McNally’s Complete Book of Fishermen’s Knots, Fishing
Rigs, and How to Use Them” by Bob McNally.
THE LIMIT
Last-Chance
Fisheries
To some, it might seem far-fetched that a person would go fishing if he knew it was his last day on Earth. Yet, as hypothetical as that situation is, asking a pro fisherman, someone who has fished dozens of lakes across the country, where he
would choose to fish if he had just one more day reveals a lot about that person. Some would choose an ultimate destination, with warm weather and fat, aggressive bass. Others would choose a more tranquil place to get away from the world.
And no doubt some would choose a place that holds more personal meaning for them.
Check out this limit of five pros’ last-chance bass fisheries. Where would you go?:
ONE
TWO
George Cochran
The place: Kingdom
Come, Arkansas
“The first time I went
bass fishing in a lake, the
old man who taught me
how to bass fish took me
there, and we caught
about 50 bass on topwater baits. I caught a
4-pounder that was the
biggest fish I’d ever
caught. I was 8 or 9
years old when I fished
it, and I would like to go
back one more time. I
think about it all the
time.”
Joe Thomas
The place: Lake El Salto,
Mexico
“I’m a big fan of Anglers
Inn, for the fishing and the
relaxing. To me it’s like
fishing in heaven. I’ve
been there many times,
but it’s one of the few
places I still go for fun.”
12
THREE
Robert Harkness
The place: Prescott Bay
on Lake Erie, Pennsylvania
“I would go there
because it doesn’t make
any difference what the
weather is. If the lake is
really rough I can still fish
in the bay and have a
good time catching largemouths, and if the weather is nice I can get out
there and have a good
time fishing for those 5and 6-pound smallmouths.”
FOUR
FIVE
Chip Harrison
The place: Lake
Okeechobee, Florida
“I would probably go
shiner fishing there. It’s
something that my father
and I used to do a lot
when he was alive. It
really hasn’t got anything
to do with how pristine
the fishing is, but it would
be a thing to kind of get
back in touch with my
dad a little bit. My dad
gave me a lot of support
and a lot of help when I
was getting started in
this.”
Mark Rose
The place: His favorite
oxbow on the Mississippi
River
“The reason why would
just be because I grew up
on the Mississippi River,
and it’s home. Actually, I’d
just pick any good oxbow
on the Mississippi river.”
LIVEWELL
NOTEWORTHY
New Kansas
Smallmouth Record
Too Many Bass Nets $16,000
in Fines, Forfeited Boats
The 6.88-pound smallmouth bass
caught from Milford Reservoir in
Kansas in early April has been confirmed as a new state record. Frank
Evans Jr. of Salina caught the bass on
a jerkbait at about 1 p.m. on April 4.
The previous state record, 6.68
pounds, also came from Milford. It
was caught by Jason Heis of Salina in
August 2004.
Evans’ bass was 21.5 inches long
and had a girth of 16.5 inches. Kansas
Department of Wildlife and Parks
fishery biologist John Reinke confirmed the catch.
What had to be the most expensive Lake Erie fishing trip on record ended
badly for a group of Tennessee and Georgia anglers in early June. Six men were
arrested by Ohio wildlife officers in April for having in their possession 141
smallmouth bass over the limit. The fish were caught from the area around the
Bass Islands.
During their appearance in early June in a Sandusky, Ohio, court, the men were
told by Ottawa County Municipal Court Magistrate Louis Wargo that their collective fines would be $16,000, they would forfeit three bass boats and trailers, and
they would be subject to lose fishing privileges for three years in Ohio and possibly in the 33 other states included in the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact.
Tennessee and Georgia are among the states that participate in the program.
In their defense, the men said that they thought that the individual limit of
five smallmouths applied to each trip on the lake, rather than daily bag limits. When the anglers were arrested, wildlife officers found two freezers filled
with bass.
“It was the largest case of overbagging Lake Erie bass I’d ever seen,” said
Ohio Department of Natural Resources spokesman Gino Barna, head of Lake
Erie law enforcement. “Few Ohio fishermen, especially the hard-core bass
anglers, keep Lake Erie smallmouth bass. We observed these six men making
two or three fishing trips a day, bringing back a daily limit of bass each time.”
The men told investigators that they also caught a few walleyes, a prize
food fish in the Midwest, but that they were released.
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WHAT’S ON THE WEB
FLW Outdoors Podcast
With summer winding down and FLW Outdoors tournament circuits coming to a close for 2010, much of the talk on the FLW Outdoors Podcast in
August and September focuses on angler-of-the-year races and the world
championship of bass fishing, the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup on Georgia’s Lake
Lanier.
Log on each week to see behind-the-scenes interviews with the top pros of
the FLW Tour and FLW Series from across the country. They’ll discuss the
tournaments, but also the lifestyle of professional fishing.
Podcast previews and recaps for August and September will air at flwoutdoors.com/flwondemand.cfm and are available on iTunes for the following
events: Forrest Wood Cup at Lake Lanier, FLW Series Eastern Division at Lake
Champlain, FLW Series Eastern Division at Lake Chickamauga and FLW
Series National Guard Western Division at Lake Roosevelt.
13
LIVEWELL
GEAR CARE
Spray First, Then Fish
A lot of guys who use spinning tackle will put new monofilament or
fluorocarbon on a reel and then spray it with line conditioner, which
makes it limper and slicker so that it comes off the spool without as much
friction. Not only does line spray reduce the likelihood of snarls developing, but slick line results in longer casts. Good conditioner will also keep
line cleaner when you’re fishing amid algae or moss.
Instead of spraying line on the reel, however, spray it while it’s still on
the spool, and keep the sprayed spool in a plastic zip-seal bag. Then,
when new line is needed, spool it on and start fishing. You don’t have to
take the extra step of stopping to spray the line, so it saves time.
YOUR RIG
Keep Organized
When the fish are biting, you don’t want to waste a lot of time hunting
for tools when trying to unhook a fish or retie. If you keep a pair of pliers
just lying around your boat somewhere, sooner or later you’re going to
lose track of it during the day. It’s better to keep everything handy in a
console-mounted storage unit such as the 2Handee Tool Keeper.
Essential fishing tools include line clippers, braided-line scissors, splitring pliers, a hook sharpener and a good set of needle-nose pliers that also
serves double-duty as a hook remover. When you shop for braid scissors,
make sure the blades are very close together and sharp. That ensures
clean, even cuts when you trim a knot, and the line won’t get wedged
between the scissor blades.
Nowadays you can find one tool that might have two or three of these
essentials, and it will work well. The important thing is that you keep the
tools that you’re bound to need during the day organized and ready.
In a Pinch
In addition to required safety gear,
these are the things every angler
should keep in his boat.
Allen wrenches – These are
needed for everything from adjustments on any of several major electronics mounts, to tire cover plates.
Small set of wrenches, sockets
and a ratcheting screwdriver – You need all of these, plus
a size assortment of tip attachments. These are indispensable.
Zip ties – What don’t you use these for? The modern version of
bailing wire, they’re great for keeping things organized or literally
holding a boat together.
Tommy Tape – This is a silicone tape that bonds to itself, providing a watertight seal. It’s good for quickly repairing leaks on flexible
surfaces such as hydraulics, pump hoses or gas lines.
Bag of nuts and bolts – A sample bag of screws, nuts and bolts
will save the day. Make sure to have sizes 1/4 to 20 with a nyloc
nut, as they are the most popular and ubiquitous. A few replacement bolts for the trolling motor and your electronics are musthaves, as well.
Small 12-volt battery checker – This can quickly determine a
possible issue before it becomes a major problem.
Whistle – Boat horns aren’t reliable. A whistle will get you out of
a pinch and keep you legal.
14
Fuses – You should have the old-fashioned circular
glass models in several sizes, as well as the automotive
chip-style. Most boats have more fuses in them than
you might realize.
Toilet paper in a plastic bag – This one is selfexplanatory.
Propeller wrench and small block of wood – A
floating prop wrench is a no-brainer, and a small block of
wood to keep the prop from spinning is worth its
weight in gold.
Clear goggles – You should have something that can be worn in
a storm no matter the light conditions. A tinted
pair often makes it difficult to see in dark
storm conditions and with water spots on
the lenses.
Electrical tape – There are countless
applications for wiring or marking lines.
Rubber bands – You always need to
hold things together temporarily. I commonly use rubber bands on rod-handle butts to
mark rods that have issues such as guide or line
damage.
First-aid kit – This should already be on your boat, but add in
extra bandages and antibiotic ointment. Those are most frequently
used to cover cuts and abrasions from handling bass and hooks.
LIVEWELL
ASK THE EXPERTS
THE PROS ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS
Q. When practicing or fishing a tournament, I sometimes
seem to catch only short fish.
Should I leave those fish to look
for a better concentration of
keepers or stay and weed
through the small ones and
hope for some bigger bites?
Michael
Bennett of
Lincoln, Calif. –
Generally, if
you are catching
small ones, bigger ones are
close by. If you
are not focusing on a specific
spot, but a general area, I would
pull out a little deeper. I would
also try switching to a larger lure.
I always try not to leave an area
that is holding fish without exploring it a little more.
Q. I may be set in my ways,
but I am skeptical that the new
picture-like sonar units are much
better than my trusty old depth
finder. I feel they give you the
same information, just in a different form. Has using these
newer electronics helped you?
Mark Rose of
Marion, Ark. –
I credit more
than half the
fish I caught in
my career to
my electronics,
and with the
advance we are seeing in sonar
today, such as the Lowrance
StructureScan and DownScan
Imaging, that percentage has
and see if there is grass, rock or
fish out to the sides of the boat.
It’s unbelievable. It’s like having
eyes underwater. I couldn’t
imagine going fishing without
my electronics.
Q. When a fish misses my
topwater lure, is it best to “kill”
my retrieve and play the catand-mouse game or continue
my normal retrieve and hope
the fish will chase the lure
again?
Michael
Murphy of
Gilbert, S.C. –
It depends
on where
you’re fishing
and what the
bass are eating.
It has been my experience that
when I am imitating a bluegill or
frog in backwater areas it is best
to stop the lure, but if I am fishing open water and the bass are
keying on shad, I will keep it
moving.
There are a few factors as to
why I do this. One has to do
with the way a bass eats certain prey. As a predator, a
bass will sometimes just slap
at a bluegill or frog to stun it
and then come back to eat it
headfirst. For these situations
I like a frog like the Optimum
Furbit, which uses real rabbit
fur for legs, or a popper with
a feather-dressed rear treble
hook. Mostly the commotion
caused by a fish coming up to
slap or stun its prey will be
backwater areas, the fish are
usually loners. This is another
reason I will let it sit after a
missed blowup. It gives that
particular fish a longer look at
my lure.
Shad are more pliable and
relate more to open water.
They have fewer bones and
are slim compared to frogs
and bluegills. Bass will normally eat a shad on the first
attempt from any angle. Also,
when bass are feeding on
shad in open water, they are
usually schooling. For this reason, when I am using a lure
with a shad profile such as
the ima Skimmer, I will keep
the lure moving because
there might be four or five
fish competing for it.
Q. I fish tournaments at
night. Some nights the fish
are not particularly active and
refuse to chase a topwater or
spinnerbait. Usually I would
go to finesse tactics when
faced with this situation during the day, but downsizing
seems irrational at night.
What adjustments can I
make?
Cody Bird of
Granbury,
Texas –
When I’m
not catching
fish with traditional night-fishing lures I like
to swim a jig over grass and
timber, or around riprap and
Q. I often use a 10-inch worm and get a lot of bites, but I swing and miss on more hooksets than usual. What can I do to improve my hookup rate when using these bigger plastics?
Terry Bolton of Jonesboro, Ark. –
No. 1 is upgrading your hook size. For big worms I like to use a 5/0 offset VMC
hook. When I feel a tap or a thump, I will pick up the slack and feel if the fish is there or
not. If the fish has it, you will still have time to feel if he is there before you set the
hook. If you pick up after a tap and there is nothing there, just try to leave the worm in
one spot and shake it a little bit. Most times the fish will come back and get it.
probably gone up in the last two
years. Today’s electronics are
doing what bass boats did for
the sport 20 years ago. It’s that
revolutionary.
The new technology gives
you a much more detailed
image of bottom composition.
Older units only gave you an
idea of the bottom — whether it
was hard or soft beneath you.
Now I can cover a larger area
enough to give these lures a
subtle action. After about 10
seconds, the fish usually
comes back and sucks in the
lure. Make sure you are
watching it because it’s not
as violent as the first blowup.
If I let it sit and the fish doesn’t come back after 10 seconds or so, I will pop the lure
once and let it sit some
more. Around cover or in
reed clumps. I like to use a
3/8- or 1/2-ounce black and
blue jig with a black and blue
Kicker Fish Bait Kicker Kraw for
a trailer. You have to let the fish
tell you how fast they want the
retrieve. Sometimes I can’t
burn it fast enough, and sometimes they want it slow-rolled
like a big spinnerbait.
I used to fish tournaments
that started at 6 a.m., even if
it was still dark. There is no
telling how many times I
caught two or three keepers
in the first hour of those tournaments swimming a jig
before the sun even came up.
Q. How will heavy boat
traffic affect the bite on an
open-water spot such as a
ledge or main-lake grass flat?
Tom Mann Jr.
of Buford, Ga.
–
It has been
my experience
in the past that
boat traffic will
not have a negative impact on a deep mainlake spot such as a ledge,
hump or grass line. On most
bodies of water with boat traffic, the fish are going to be
used to it. I have actually seen
it turn on the bite. The boat
traffic will move the baitfish
around and get the bass active.
Q. Current seems to play a
big factor in my success during the dog days of summer.
When I can find it, the bite
can be fast and furious.
However, sometimes there is
no current being generated
and those same spots turn
off. What should I do when
this happens?
Stacey King
of Reeds
Spring, Mo. –
The best
thing would be
to fish these
areas early and
late. If you have
to fish in the middle of the day
when it is hot and there is no
current, slow down and work
thoroughly with different presentations. You might not catch
near as many fish in these
places when the current is not
present, but you can still catch
a few. You can also start looking and find new areas. When
there is no current, fish have a
tendency to suspend over
structure such as ledges or
humps. Use your electronics to
find these schools of suspending bass.
QUIZ THE PROS
Do you have a fishing question you would like to ask a
pro? If so, e-mail your question
to [email protected].
15
LIVEWELL
ANGLER WORKBENCH
TECHNIQUE TIP
Frosting Lures
Adding glitter to a lure has always been a way for lure manufacturers to increase the lure’s flash, to both bass and potential buyers. That
hasn’t changed today, even with modern photo-realistic finishes. Glitter
is especially effective for night-fishing.
That in mind, here is a quick way to glitz up a lure:
Materials needed:
Clear sealer – either epoxy or acrylic
Paintbrush
Glitter
Coat hanger, clips or a drying wheel
Step 1. Use the paintbrush to apply a
light coat of sealer.
Step 2. While the sealer is still wet, sprinkle on glitter. If using big flakes of glitter, use
it sparingly. Often, using only sporadic big
flakes of glitter instead of a heap of it will
reflect enough light after dark to be effective.
Then hang and let dry.
Step 3. Once initial coat of sealer is completely dry, add a second, thicker coat. You
can brush it on, but it is better to dip it in the
sealer.
Step 4. Let the lure dry. If available, use a
drying wheel and hang the lure horizontally
to create an even coat that doesn’t cover the
eyelets. However, simply hanging the lure
and letting the second coat dry will work,
though it might be necessary to clear hardened sealer from the eyelets when finished.
Another coat of sealer may also be necessary to get a smooth finish.
Motoring Up Schoolers
Schooling bass are ferocious when they
break the surface, but once they go back
down below, they often ignore lures. That
doesn’t always have to be the case.
At the 2010 FLW Tour event at Lake
Ouachita, pro Greg Bohannan of Rogers,
Ark., had some schoolers come up near his
boat. After his co-angler caught one, they disappeared and wouldn’t bite. Knowing they
were still there, Bohannan revved up his big
motor and drove in circles over the area. Sure
enough, he quickly caught another fish when
he stopped the boat.
“It doesn’t always work, but sometimes
you can stir up the baitfish and get the school
of bass going again by motoring over them,”
Bohannan says.
SCIENCE
Shoal Bass
16
ILLUSTRATION BY JOSEPH TOMELLERI
Relatively unknown by most bass anglers, shoal bass could
play a role in determining the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup winner Aug. 5-8, as Lake Lanier has a strong population in its
Chattahoochee River tributary.
Known for their fighting ability, adult shoal bass are olive green
on their backs and white on their bellies, with dark parallel lines along the
lower sides of their bodies. The average size is 12 to 18 inches, with the world
record being 8 pounds, 12 ounces, caught from the Apalachicola River in Florida.
They inhabit rivers, particularly around shoals – hence the name.
What makes them so intriguing is their notoriety for being aggressive under hot weather conditions. While August is
often the toughest month to catch other species of bass, shoals often welcome the warm water and become more active.
The problem for Forrest Wood Cup anglers will be getting to them. A pro will have to use an aluminum tunnel-hull boat
to reach them. If he can do it, though, the pro will probably have the fish all to himself the first three days before he is relegated to Lake Lanier the final day due to the requirement that the top six anglers run full-size FLW Tour Rangers.
BACK DECK
FIRST LOOK
A firsthand look at great new tackle and
equipment from the fishing industry
by Steve Miller
SNAG PROOF ISH’S PHAT FROG
Since the sinking of the RMS Titanic, the term “unsinkable” has been
used cautiously, but Snag Proof confidently uses the term to describe its
new Ish’s Phat Frog. The frog’s inner tube technology (ITT) features two
separate hollow chambers that make up the body of the frog. One houses the hook, while the other is a sealed air chamber that cannot be filled
with water. This eliminates having to tune the frog every few casts by
draining the water from its body.
Another modification includes skirted legs that are set back from the
hooks and placed closer together to prevent them from interfering with
a hookset. However, what really impressed us was the lure’s ability to
walk. The slightest twitches will make it walk in place, which is downright deadly next to a piece of cover.
Ish’s Phat Frog features Gamakatsu EWG double hooks and is available in eight colors. It retails for $9.95.
(snagproof.com)
EZ-TROLL STEP
Some boats are built like tanks, and
climbing in or out of the boat when it’s on
the trailer can be a daunting task that
might resemble a high-wire balancing act
at the circus. Add rain or water that might
slosh in from wave action to the equation
and slick surfaces could lead to downright
dangerous situations. If you’ve had it with
brusies and abrasions that have nothing to
do with fishing, consider the purchase of
an EZ-Troll Step. It’s designed to make the
task of getting in and out of the boat a little easier and a whole lot safer.
The rotational-molded polyethylene
plastic step is high-impact resistant. The
16-inch by 13-inch step is easy to bolt on
to the side of a trailer (with the stainlesssteel bolts, washers and lock nuts supplied) wherever the user wants it. It offers
solid footing while getting in or out of the
boat at the ramp, or it makes a convenient
perch to use when it comes time to winch
the boat back on the trailer, cinch it down
and grab the fishing tackle that you want
to put back in your vehicle.
The EZ-Troll Step retails for $79.95 as a
single and $149.95 for a two-pack. Get
one for each side.
(eztrolltray.com)
18
DAMIKI SNEAK
Its name attributable to its knack at slithering through grass, the
Damiki Sneak is hardly a one-trick pony. The 5-inch ribbed body with a
curly tail can shine in many applications. The Sneak can be fished
in all areas of the water column, whether it’s swimming on the surface around cover, Texas or
Carolina rigged and slithering on the bottom, or rigged with a jighead and
cranked through schools of suspended
fish. It also makes a great spinnerbait or
swim jig trailer. However, we were mainly
impressed with its “flipability.” The chunky body conceals a hook better
than a regular worm without sacrificing hooking percentage.
The Sneak comes in seven colors. A pack of eight retails for $4.99.
(damiki.com)
SEAGUAR TATSU
When selecting fluorocarbon, the choice usually is between better castability or higher strength, but Seaguar found a way to incorporate both properties into one line.
Tatsu is a high-performance Doubled Structure Fluorocarbon (DSF) made with two 100percent Seaguar Fluorocarbon resins. The outer layer is supple yet abrasion-resistant,
which increases knot strength. Meanwhile, the core is super-strong to increase tensile
strength. The combination results in a soft, strong and sensitive fluorocarbon line that
casts like no fluorocarbon we’ve tested. The $47.99 price tag for a 200-yard spool will
make many anglers shy away, but for those needing the best, this is it.
Tatsu is available in sizes ranging from 4- to 20-pound test.
(seaguar.com)
MUSTAD KVD ELITE
SERIES TREBLE HOOKS
These treble hooks were designed for power
applications when stock hooks prove to be too
flimsy.
The short shank allows for replacing stock
hooks with a larger size, without concern for
their fouling on short-bodied lures. Meanwhile,
the extra-strong wire tolerates hard hooksets
and force when fighting a large fish back to the
boat, especially in rough water. The point angle
is even wider than previous Mustad Elite Triple
Grip models, which reduces the chance of snagging. Better yet, the redesigned bend almost
“locks” a fish into the elbow of the bend, making it virtually impossible to throw the hook.
The treble hooks are available in sizes ranging
from 6 to 3/0. Price may vary depending on
quantity and size, but a pack of 11 size 4 hooks
retails for $6.49.
(mustad.no)
19
Finally, a four stroke for bass boats.
“THE REIGN OF TWO STROKE POWER IS OVER.”
To learn more about Yamaha Outboards, or locate the nearest Yamaha Marine Dealer, visit YamahaOutboards.com or call 1-800-88-YAMAHA.
REMEMBER to always observe all applicable boating laws. Never drink and drive. Dress properly with a USCG-approved personal floatation device and protective gear.
© 2010 Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A. All rights reserved.
DAVE WOLAK WEIGHS-IN
ON THE NEW YAMAHA
FOUR STROKE V MAX SHO.™
®
“When it comes to fishing technique, I like to keep
the competition guessing. And it’s paid off--a million
times over. So when Yamaha said their new four
stroke V MAX SHO was leaving two strokes in the
dust, you bet I was the first in line. Now that I’ve
seen what it can do, I’ve got one thing to say to
all you guys counting on traditional two stroke
power. I’ve got a SHO and I’m comin’ for ya.”
DAVE WOLAK
YAMAHA PRO ANGLER
GET THE WHOLE SHOT WITH
YAMAHA’S FOUR STROKE V MAX SHO.
Here’s what it’s got on the two strokes:
> Instant, big-bore hole shot leaves two strokes
in its wake
> Lightweight design competes pound-for-pound
with two strokes
> Doesn’t burn oil and goes easy on fuel—
unlike two strokes
> Quiet running—talk to your fishing buddy
at full speed
> Legendary Yamaha four stroke reliability
The game has changed. Visit DiscoverVMAXSHO.com
to learn more. While you’re there, be sure to register for a demo ride
during the Discover V MAX SHO Demo Tour.
Follow me on Twitter™ and Facebook®.
BACK DECK
TAKEOFF
SO MANY WAYS TO SKIN A SENKO
The Senko is simple in form, but versatile in application by Curtis Niedermier
N
obody really knows what it is. It has rings and a collar like a night crawler,
but that’s about it as for the similarities to anything in nature. It doesn’t really do anything in the water, other than sink slowly with a bit of flutter. Yet,
there’s something about a Yamamoto Senko that bass find practically irresistible.
The Senko’s simple form has led to many imaginative rigging techniques —
everything from Carolina rigging on deep structure to bed-fishing to skipping
docks. It’s likely we could never list all the combinations and rigging techniques,
but here are 10 you should be comfortable using:
2
Shaky Head
On beds, under docks, in
laydowns – this is the
weedless version of the
finesse jighead rig.
1
Open Jighead
Rig the Senko on an open
jighead with an exposed
hook when a finesse offering
is needed but snags are minimal. Or “walk” it through
schooling bass. Stick with a
light head so as not to hinder
its seductive fall.
3
Weightless Texas-Style
This is one of the most common
ways to rig it. Cast the Senko over
grass or outside flooded bushes,
let it fall, and repeat.
Weedless Drop-Shot
4
Use a fine-wire, offset, wide-gap hook for this,
and rig it weedless Texas-style. This is a great
rig for shallow flip-shot tactics near cover. Just
use a short dropper.
22
5
Texas-Rigged
Start with the lightest weight possible,
and use just enough to get it down to
the cover you’re fishing. Its effectiveness relies on a slow fall.
A morning this good
can only start with Folgers.®
There’s nothing like waking up to the eye-opening aroma
and great, rich taste of Folgers® coffee.
The Best Part Of Wakin’ Up.™
Folgers® is a proud sponsor of
FLW Outdoors™ and pro angler Scott Suggs.
©/TM/® The Folgers Coffee Company.
FLW Outdoors is a trademark of Operation Bass, Inc.
TAKEOFF
Mojo or Split Shot Rig
Peg a 1/16-ounce bullet sinker or pinch a 1/16-ounce
split shot about 12 to 18 inches above the hook and
rig the Senko weedless. Cast it out above grass or
into spawning areas and slowly twitch it and flutter it
into any holes in the cover.
6
7
8
9
Wacky Nail Rig
Insert a nail weight into the wide end of
the worm, closest to the worm collar. FLW
Tour pro Brett Hite prefers to slide on an
O-ring, but not in the middle. He leaves it
at the end of the collar closest to the
weight. Then rig the hook so the point
extends toward the opposite tail. On each
pull, the opposite tail will stand up.
Flick Shake
Several companies make “flicking/shaky/wacky”
jigheads for getting under docks, dropping to deeper fish and getting in more casts than a typical
wacky rig. The weight creates a rotating action
that “flicks” the tails when you twitch the rod.
10
Lake Fork Wacky
Hook and Weight
System
This incorporates a simple
wacky hook with a ring weight
designed so the hook actually
passes through the weight, perpendicular to the worm. Three
weight sizes are available for
customizing the presentation.
Carolina Rig
Drag it offshore anytime
bass are eating shad.
24
BACK DECK
TACKLE TEST
by Matt Williams
Rapala DT Thug
If you like a crankbait with
some manners, you won’t
find much appeal in the
Rapala DT Thug. This guy
is more like a bull in the
china cabinet as it wrecks
midrange depths with an
aggressive wobble that
draws bass from afar.
Specs
Colors: 16
Length: 2 1/2 inches
Weight: 3/8 ounce
Running Depth: 4 to 8 feet
Price: $9.99
Contact: rapala.com
Design
The long lip has a steep angle that wastes no time driving the
lure to its maximum diving depth. Matched with a cranking rod,
a 5.4:1 reel and 12-pound-test fluorocarbon, the lure easily
attained 6 to 8 feet deep when I used a steady retrieve.
Happy Hunting Grounds
The DT Thug has a knack for deflecting off stumps, brush, dock
pilings or rock, and it will come through scattered grass better
than you might think.
Performance
All Dressed Up
I’ve always been a fan of the Rapala DT series, and the newest
member of the clan was quick to earn a spot in my crankbait
arsenal. Simply put, this lure will get down there and hunt. The
DT Thug swims with a wide, hard wobble and gobs of vibration
that make it a good choice in stained or muddy water.
It’s fashioned from balsa for optimum buoyancy, then coated
with above-average paint jobs that are resistant to chipping.
Rapala uses stainless O-rings with premium VMC SureSet black
nickel treble hooks. The internal rattle chamber hammers out a little racket to complement the lure’s attention-grabbing behavior.
Bac Rac Co-Angler
Rod Storage System
Here’s a portable rod-and-reel storage system
that secures to the rear deck of just about any
bass boat in a matter of seconds. Co-anglers will
like it because it helps prevent lines and lures
from tangling on rigged outfits. It also frees up
space on the passenger-side rod ramp.
Performance
Installation
The racks are made to seat on
either end of the rear (battery)
compartment lid of most bass
boats. Open the lid, seat the
racks, close the lid and lock it
down – it’s as simple as that.
Place it as far back as possible
to preserve room on the rear
deck. Stick-on shim pads are
provided in case the fit isn’t as
snug as desired. The Bac Rac
Co-Angler
comes
with
predrilled screw holes for a
more permanent mount.
26
Specs
Pieces: Two, plus carrying
case
Capacity: Four rod-and-reel
combos
Weight: 1 1/2 pounds
Warranty: Lifetime
Price: $89.99
Contact: bac-rac.com
The storage system is compatible with baitcasting or
spinning outfits, which fit nicely in padded, U-shaped cradles. Rubber tie-downs hold the rods securely so they
can’t bounce out, even when motoring at high speeds or
navigating in rough water. It’s ideal for open-water applications, but could be problematic around docks or terrestrial cover that might snag elevated rods, especially if
your rods are longer than the rear deck is wide.
Construction
The aircraft-grade aluminum frames are powder-coated for a
custom look, while the cradles are wrapped in high-quality EVA
foam rubber to protect handles and blanks. It fits nicely into a
supplied nylon backpack-style case, which frees up your hands
to carry rods and other gear.
“FISH DON’T STAND A FLIPPIN’ CHANCE.”
Introducing the Ardent F700 Flip-N-Pitch. I designed it with a flippin’ switch, seven ball
bearings and ceramic line guide so you can drop it right between their eyes. Then, all
you have to do is set the hook and let the 22-pound Perma-Lock Drag seal the deal.
TM
ardentreels.com
TACKLE TEST
DuraSafe Coupler
Connect plus Protect
Installation
Not much to it. The base plate/bracket sandwiches between the
tow ball and receiver hitch. Slide the base plate in or out to achieve
the proper depth before snugging everything tight.
DuraSafe just made towing more pleasurable and safer. This two-in-one hitch
system is designed to help take the
guesswork out of hooking a tow vehicle
to a trailer and eliminate the possibility of
a rig popping loose from the receiver ball
while in transit.
Specs
Compatibility: 1-inch shank balls
(1 1/4 inch available on special
order)
Pieces: Three – mounting bracket,
guide plate and hold-down device
Material: Zinc-plated steel
Price: $49.99
Contact: durasafelocks.com
Useful Tips
Performance
The Coupler Connect plus Protect accessory simplifies the process of linking a tow vehicle to
a trailer by forcing the coupler left or right so it will center over the ball on the first attempt. It
operates using a removable V-shaped guide bracket, which wedges against the coupler and
moves it to the proper position as the tow vehicle gets close. The Protect feature locks down
over the coupler to prevent it from accidentally bouncing off the ball. Swap the lock pin for a
padlock, and it doubles as an anti-theft device.
Castaic Catch22 Swimbait
The Castaic Catch22 Swimbaits
live up to the standard of other
Castaic soft plastics, while taking
definitive steps to address durability issues inherent with many soft
swimmers that have segmented body designs.
The trailer coupler must be adjusted to the same height as a V-guide
bracket for the Coupler Connect
to function properly. Always
remove the V-guide from the base
plate when the coupler guard is
not in use. The V-guide doubles
nicely as a wheel chock. If your
trailer has surge brakes, be sure
to insert the safety pin in the rear
coupler hole to prevent the neck
from sliding backward when it
makes contact with the V-guide.
Otherwise, the coupler might not
seat on the ball.
Design
Catch22 Swimbaits are built around five exclusive
patents. The Real Swim Technology design promotes an
authentic swimming action. The Tri-Claw hook, coupled
with the Magnetic Hook Holder, pins the hook against
the body, leaving all hook gaps exposed and in position
for a bite. The InnerArmor fiber skeleton reinforces the
lure without compromising the action. The No-Throw
Sliding Hook System allows the body to break free from
the hook when a bass eats it, which reduces the odds of
a fish coming unhooked.
Specs
Sizes: 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 inches
Colors: Nine
Warranty: Good for at least 22 bass or
you get a free replacement
Sink Rates: Floating and slow sinking
Price: $16.99 to $29.99
Contact: castaicswimbait.com
Performance
I tested the 6-inch threadfin shad model on two East Texas lakes last
spring, and the results were similar. Several fish up to 6 pounds
slammed the lure aggressively as I worked it around submerged
hydrilla, lily pad stubble and stump fields. Remarkably, none of the bass
came unbuttoned, and the lure still looks almost as good as new.
28
Retrieved at a steady pace (slow, medium or fast) the lure copped
a slinky side-to-side swimming action that turned even more deadly when shifted to a stop-and-go or twitching cadence. Deadsticked, it sinks slowly but maintains an attractive horizontal profile.
It also wakes the surface nicely.
pass down more than
just a work ethic
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©2010 General Motors. Buckle up, America!
Swimbaits can reveal a lot,
even when they don’t catch fish
by Curtis Niedermier
on’t swear off swimbaits just yet. Sure, the shine has worn off them and
they aren’t the breakthrough lures that they were once billed to be.
Nowadays, every tackle manufacturer makes about every form of swimbait that was ever invented. They’re so yesterday.
If you’re suffering from swimbait overload, though, better get over it. If you
want to be sick of something, be sick of seeing other people ahead of you in the
standings of every tournament you enter. Be sick of not using swimbaits to help
bump you up ahead of those other anglers. Swimbaits can help you get there,
though not necessarily by the same ways and means that people have been fishing
them heretofore.
30
“I’ll typically keep the swimbait in the upper
water column. I don’t let it get too deep. If it’s
so deep that I can’t see it then I can’t see a fish
following it and it’s pointless.”
– Michael Bennett
Size Matters
One of the fun parts of traveling to bass tournaments is figuring out the puzzle of what bass will eat at each stop. For
FLW Tour pro Michael Bennett, that same excitement comes from determining what size and running depth swimbait the
bass will eat at each lake.
Size is often determined by matching the swimbait to the size of the local baitfish, but not always. Bennett considers the primary baitfish, but he often chooses his swimbaits based on the size of the bass in the lake. He divides swimbaits into three general size categories based on the size of the bass. Here they are:
3- to 5-inchers – Swimbaits at the small end of the size spectrum are
reserved for fisheries where small bass dominate the weigh-in bags.
Bennett uses Beaver Lake in Arkansas as an example. A limit of 2-pounders
is good at Beaver; thus, he rarely throws anything larger than 5 inches
when fishing there.
Tru-Tungsten Tru-Life
4” Swimbait
Berkley PowerBait Hollow
Belly Swim Bait
Storm WildEye
Pro Paddle Tail
4- to 7-inchers – This is the midsized class, and on the low side it overlaps with the
previous class.That’s because there are no concrete standards in bass fishing.
Swimbaits in this class would be reserved for lakes where winning limits average
around 15 pounds.There are quality fish in these waters, but limits entirely of 4- and
5-pounders aren’t regularly caught.
Sebile Evidence
Magic Swimmer
7-inchers and up – Guntersville is the lake Bennett names as an
example of a place to throw the big swimbaits, but they obviously
apply to lakes inTexas and California as well. His reason for selecting Guntersville is its year-round population of shallow largemouths
that are capable of producing multiple 20-pound bags.
Optimum Double
Diamond Swimmer
Tru-Tungsten
Tru-Life Bluegill
32
Swimbaits offer one very solid
advantage that bass anglers can capitalize on: They attract big bass. Of course,
the lures don’t always elicit bites from
big bass, but that’s OK. Swimbaits draw
them out for a look, which reveals them
to your watchful eyes. That makes
swimbaits great search baits as far as
FLW Tour millionaire Michael Bennett
of Lincoln, Calif., is concerned.
Bennett uses swimbaits in practice to
get big bass to show themselves so he
can pattern their locations. Come tournament time, he might or might not
throw the swimbait, but the swimbait
has already done its job. The No. 1, most
important step is just finding fish – big
ones. That’s a task that few lures perform as well as swimbaits.
Water Works
Why Swimbaits Can Help You
The primary reason for using swimbaits as search baits is that they tend to
attract big bass. Don’t confuse “big
bass” in this use as 10-pounders or fish
that can challenge state records. Here,
“big bass” are the quality fish that win
bass tournaments at the lake you’re fishing. At Beaver Lake, they’re 2-pounders.
At Guntersville, they might be 4- to
6-pounders. The point is, by using
swimbaits, Bennett feels he can at least
locate the best quality fish in the lake
where he’s competing – and that goes
for almost every lake he fishes.
“Swimbaits are part of my everyday
arsenal,” Bennett says. “Every place I go
I always have one tied on. I always
throw it to some degree in practice.”
What’s interesting about how
Bennett practices with swimbaits is that
he isn’t concerned with whether or not
bass eat the lure. He’s really not even
concerned that they try to eat it. All he
cares about is that they show themselves. Because once he knows where
the biggest fish live, he knows he can
come back, catch them and hopefully
hash out the details to pattern them.
“Once I determine what I feel the
bigger fish are doing, the last day of
practice I might spend my time trying to
figure out what other bait they’ll eat,”
Bennett says. “Sometimes I won’t figure
that out until the tournament. I just feel
like the swimbait cuts down the time
spent trying to figure out where the big
fish are in the first place.”
Swimbaits work as search baits from coast to coast. The most important factor in making them work, however, is
water clarity. Swimbaits don’t put off much vibration, so it must be clear enough for fish to see the lure, mistake it for
a baitfish and eat it. If you’re questioning whether or not to use swimbaits as search lures at your next tournament, here
are some factors to consider:
Dirty Water – Bennett wants to see at least 2 feet of visibility, preferably 2 1/2 feet. The greater the water clarity, the
greater the effective range the swimbait can call up bass. With 10 feet of visibility, you can call up bass 10 feet deep.
With only 3 feet of visibility, a swimbait near the surface probably won’t cross the radar of a bass 10 feet deep.
Cold Water – Extremely cold water turns bass into sluggish lazy bones. For Bennett, the magic water temperature
is 48 degrees. From 48 degrees and colder, he generally leaves the swimbaits in the tackle box.
Hot Water – At the opposite end of the temperature spectrum, hot water can turn off bass from following a swimbait. Bennett’s temperature ceiling is 85 degrees.
See More Clearly
To help increase your chances of seeing a bass, and to
increase the amount of time you can use a swimbait to search,
consider the sunlight in the area you are fishing. The better the
lighting, the better the chances for seeing a following bass.
For example, don’t start on shaded banks in the morning. Simple logic says the
sunny banks will be easiest for spotting fish that chase the swimbait. Similarly,
high noon might be the best time to target docks, as there won’t be a large “dark
side” in the dock’s shadow that covers an attempt on the lure by a bass.
Don’t be overly concerned with sunlight, but keep it in mind since the technique requires visually spotting a bass in the water, much like when sight-fishing.
Also like when sight-fishing, select a good pair of polarized lenses that will help
you see beneath the surface, even when the sun reflects brightly back in your face.
Sometimes the swimbait reveals a
very specific pattern, such as when bass
follow the lure off laydowns on channelswing banks. Other times, it shows where
the biggest bass are in their seasonal
migrations – did they show up at the
mouths of creeks, on secondary points or
in the backs of spawning areas?
It might sound like that reasoning
could be applied to any lure. However, a
swimbait is unique in its ability to draw
big bites and also to be fished more
quickly than other big-fish lures, such as
jigs. Another advantage is that if the fish
are eating a swimbait and not just following it, you have a lure to use in the
tournament that will likely produce the
kind of bass that will get you more face
time on the weigh-in stage.
If, indeed, a swimbait is drawing
strikes, you can then fine-tune the selection process to find the action, size and
color that produce best.
Swimbait Practice
Presentations
Imparting action to a swimbait is
pretty cut-and-dry. Chuck and wind
gets the job done. They don’t require the
same sort of intense, creative action that
you would employ with a jerkbait.
Swimbaits don’t need to be ripped,
stroked or hopped like a jig, although
they most certainly could be. But you do
have to fish a swimbait in a way that
gets the most benefit from its unique
lunker-calling qualities.
“I’ll typically keep the swimbait in
the upper water column,” Bennett says.
“I don’t let it get too deep. If it’s so deep
that I can’t see it then I can’t see a fish
following it and it’s pointless.
34
“As long as I can see the swimbait –
given whatever water clarity there is –
I’ll reel it at least at that level. If I can see
10 feet down, I can slow it down and
fish it deeper and still see the bait clearly. If I can only see 3 feet, I might reel it
2 feet under the surface.”
The water clarity also affects where
Bennett will search with a swimbait.
From an angler’s perspective, the shoreline patterns are the best because a bass
that’s in only a few feet of water won’t
need much clarity in order to see a
swimbait — or the angler to see it.
Offshore, however, or when suspended
bass are involved, the water must be
clear enough that bass will rise to within viewing range of the swimbait. So if
the quality bass are offshore, low visibility could render the technique useless.
Another presentation factor to consider is the size of the swimbait. Bennett
is not afraid to throw a swimbait that
would be considered oversized for the
fishery. Other anglers might balk at the
prospect. Still, you have to be willing to
give up some bites, knowing that the
bites you do get, or the follows that the
swimbait draws, will be of top quality.
Bennett toughs out the downtime
because the biggest swimbaits call out
the biggest fish.
However, it’s also important to recognize when the big swimbait just isn’t
going to work. Some of that conclusion
is based on the fishery. If it’s a place
where five bites might be all he’ll get in
a day, Bennett will endure hours without
a bite, and he has the discipline to seine
an area thoroughly until he’s convinced
that there are no big fish there. On the
contrary, if it’s a place like Guntersville,
where big fish abound and everyone in
the field is likely to weigh a limit, he’ll
shift gears and fish more quickly when
the bites don’t come. Discipline then
comes in another form – the ability to
admit when the swimbait just isn’t
working. If nothing shows itself on the
lure for several hours, Bennett smothers
the stubborn urge to stick with it and
changes to something else.
No matter what, it still isn’t time
wasted. Hours without bites eliminate
water, or they eliminate the swimbait
from the tournament plan. Either way,
you’ve gotten closer to putting something together.
Reading Fish for
Predictable Follow-Ups
So you’ve just spent practice searching with a swimbait, and you’ve found a
few areas that hold big fish. What’s the
next step? What do you throw in the
tournament?
The easy answer: It depends.
Bennett makes his decision based on
the season, the lake and the temporary
conditions, combined with how the fish
acted when they showed themselves on
the swimbait.
“They’ll show you their mood,”
Bennett says. “That’s the good thing
with bass. They’re pretty consistent. If
you get one fish to come up and smack
the swimbait and not eat it, you know
that’s probably not the best bait to
throw. But now I know they are there,
and I might have to switch to a jerkbait
or a finesse tactic.”
The answer is only obvious when bass
bust out of shallow cover and knock slack
in your line every time a swimbait ambles
by. It’s likely those fish will do the same to
some other lures because they’re aggressive. However, Bennett likely wouldn’t
throw anything else in that situation
because the swimbait is working, and
there’s a good chance he can weigh a heavy
limit using it.
If bass are sneaking up behind the
swimbait and nipping the tail, or stopping short without taking a taste, you’ll
have to slow down and follow up with
something else.
Bennett recommends going with a natural presentation in that situation. Try throwing shaky heads, Yamamoto Senkos, jigs
and other natural-colored, slow-moving
lures. There are no guaranteed follow-up
lures for the situation. Just fish something
that fits the conditions and you have confidence in. After all, you already know where
to find the big fish.
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details). Always observe all applicable boating laws and drive responsibly and safely. ‡ All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Erie’s
Overshadowed
Largemouths
A look at Lake Erie’s impressive
largemouth opportunities
by Joe Balog
ach year, I guide and fish with dozens of anglers who hope to catch the largest smallmouth
of their lives. The fishery of choice is easily Lake Erie, the lake of smallmouth legends. For
years, Erie has cranked out 5- to 7-pound smallmouth bass with unequaled regularity.
Tournament after tournament, 20-pound sacks are brought to the scales. So it’s easy to
understand why so many anglers from across the country choose Erie as the smallmouth fishing
destination of their dreams.
What surprises them all, however, is learning that the odds of a 100-fish day are really not in
their favor, no matter when they schedule a trip. The only legitimate way to do that on Erie, outside of chasing walleyes, is to fish for largemouths.
It’s often hard for most anglers to comprehend how good the largemouth fishing can be on
Erie. The lake, as well as the adjoining Detroit and Niagara rivers, contains large harbors with vast
shallow-water flats full of aquatic vegetation. It’s the perfect habitat for largemouth bass. Combine
that with huge numbers of yellow perch, crayfish, shiners and gobies, and one result is a thriving
population of hefty largemouths.
Likely places to find largemouths in the Erie system include canal systems, marinas, major
bays and harbors, and even main-lake grass beds. Once the fish are found, the catch rate is often
equal to or better than that of many of the country’s best fisheries.
36
37
Triple-digit days are the goal for most
serious Great Lakes largemouth fishermen, and that goal can be attained quite
often throughout the year in a number of
locations. Most fish range from 1 1/2 to 3
pounds, with decent numbers of 4- to
5-pound fish, especially in spring and late
fall. The fish remain active throughout
the year, even under the ice in winter. It
seems the only thing stopping more
anglers from fishing for largemouths on
Lake Erie are the smallmouths.
After having seen the pictures and
films of Erie’s brown toads, most bass
anglers who trek to the lake target
smallmouths. But, as anyone who’s ever
been to Erie knows, weather often dictates the fishing program. At 241 miles
long, the lake is rarely calm for any
extended period of time. During those
times of rough weather, largemouths
can save the day, from both a recreational and tournament standpoint.
Early Season
Often before the rest of the North is
bass fishing, the largemouth bite begins
in the bays and marina systems of Erie.
I’ve videotaped aggressive, feeding
largemouths in shallow, weed-filled
bays beneath February ice on the Great
Lakes – believe me, there’s no “winter
dormancy” here. The fish have been conditioned to handle the harshest conditions that nature produces. These factors
Yamamoto Double Tail Grub
Rapala DT Fat
Early Season
make the ice-out period a great time to
start fishing.
Classic, warming riprap banks in
canal systems are often the first to turn
on in the spring, many times just a few
days after ice-out. The bass will move
up to the 2- to 5-foot depths surprisingly quickly, especially in the fast-warming extreme Western Basin of the lake
that extends from Toledo to Sandusky,
Ohio. Any canal system can be a good
choice, including those off the Portage
River near Port Clinton. Also included
in this area are West, Middle and East
harbors, possibly this part of the lake’s
most “famous” largemouth areas.
There, anglers need just one lure to start
the day: a 1/4- to 3/8-ounce jig.
Just a week or so following ice-out,
largemouths by the thousands will
begin a prespawn feed in these harbors
Lake Erie Hot Spots
2.
6.
38
on shallow, flat banks containing sparse
vegetation. Unless you’ve experienced
it, it’s hard to understand just how
important spring warming trends are to
bass and bass anglers in this part of the
world. The fish will often move up into
a few feet of water just in the course of
one day. You might only catch a couple
of fish on a spot in the morning, but it’ll
be every cast in the evening.
Once bass hit the flat banks with full
force, it’s time to break out the oldschool power-fishing tactics. A slow,
wide-wobbling crankbait, such as a
Rapala DT Fat, or a big-bladed spinnerbait are the norm. There’s a significant
shad die-off each winter on Erie, and
many “leftovers” are slowly floating
around this time of year giving it their
last kick. The slow, big lures imitate
these shad well, and attract some of the
1. Western Ohio marina complexes –
Port Clinton to Toledo
Spring: Key on riprap in deeper water
in small marinas and pockets around the
mouth of the Portage River, from the
Nugents Canal complex to downtown
Port Clinton.
Summer: Concentrate on areas closer
to the lake – the lower stretches of canals
– and key on deeper boat docks in the
Portage River.
Fall: Marina-hop until baitfish are
located. This time of year, harbors
around Toledo, such as Toledo Beach, can
be key spots.
Key: Stay out of the way of the major
walleye launching areas in the spring. In
the fall, find the shad and fish crankbaits
with small square bills around riprap.
4.
1.
TABU Tackle Open
Water Series Jig
3.
2. East Harbor
Spring: Concentrate on flats near the
state park with small crankbaits and spinnerbaits in emerging vegetation.
Summer: Flip the mats throughout
the harbor with heavyweight plastics, or
fish a frog.
Fall: Key on riprap in the marinas or
the main slip entering the harbor.
Key: Try to fish places others miss, as
pressure is an issue.
largest bass in the system. Stringers of
more than 20 pounds are not uncommon
this time of year, making the fishery easily the best in Ohio for largemouths. It’s
also a great place to utilize tactics often
reserved for the South’s famed fisheries,
and to practice tactics that can come in
handy at faraway tournament locations.
Sandusky Bay is a prime destination.
There’s less aquatic vegetation there,
and tactics are more focused on rock
walls and canals. Never overlook the
bridge systems, where the water is significantly deeper, down to 12 feet or
more, and contains wind-driven current. Moving east, the harbors from
Cleveland to Ashtabula, Ohio, turn on a
little later but offer some great fishing
when timing is right. A few weeks later,
famed Presque Isle Bay in Erie, Pa.,
begins to heat up, literally, and produces
phenomenal spring fishing.
“I owe a lot of my success to living
near Presque Isle Bay,” says Chevy pro
Dave Lefebre of Union City, Pa. “It’s truly
the ultimate training ground for the techniques I use daily on the FLW Tour.
Presque Isle is one of those rare fisheries
where an angler can read about a new
tactic in a magazine, tie on a lure he’s
never used, take it out and catch fish on it.
There’s no tactic that can’t be improved
on, or mastered, in this fishery.
“I never fish the bank on Presque
Isle,” he adds. “Early in the spring, the
3. Lorain Harbor
Spring: Key on marina and harbor
areas in the lower river and riprap
stretches in the upper river.
Summer: Flip jigs and worms to
wood on outside turns in the upper river,
where water is deepest. On the lower
river, fish drop-shots and jigs for deeperwater schools on the outer harbor break
walls.
Fall: Fish lower harbor marinas again,
as well as shallower break walls, looking
for schools of active fish around shad;
use small crankbaits.
Key: Go deep in summer, around the
lighthouses near the main lake.
4. Detroit River mouth (Michigan)
Spring: Closed to bass fishing.
Summer: At season’s open, key on
the lower-river marinas around Grosse
Isle or the Michigan mainland. Pitch jigs
and soft plastics to pilings and grass. As
summer progresses, key on main-river
grass and docks around Stony Island.
Fall: Move back to the marinas and
key on riprap.
Key: Pick an all-around good grass jig
you can skip and swim. The TABU Open
Water Series Jig in a bluegill pattern is a
likely choice.
fish move into backwater areas and stage
on small, subtle points. Following the
spawn, they move into milfoil beds in the
main bay. In the fall they school on isolated sandy spots within the grass.”
In each case, he’s fishing for large
schools of fish that aren’t located on anything obvious. An angler must cover
large amounts of water to find these small
spots, but when he does, the mother lode
often awaits. Lefebre’s weapon of choice
for nearly all of his Presque Isle damage is
the TABU Tackle Open Water Series Jig of
his own design, with an accompanying
Yamamoto Double Tail Grub for a trailer.
This “training ground” has undeniably
helped him perfect techniques used to
excel at places like Lake Champlain, the
Potomac River and Wheeler Lake, where
large grassy flats must be quickly dissected by touring pros.
Summer Tactics
Following the typical spawning period in May and June, summer patterns
kick into gear as vegetation becomes
lush and the water clears. In many
places, reading grass is the key.
“I’ve caught big stringers from
pondweed, cabbage, milfoil – every
type of grass in Presque Isle,” Lefebre
says. “But usually a mix of grass, or a
feature within the grass bed, is the key
to finding big schools in the summer.”
Lefebre will pattern the bass daily,
pitching a jig to determine if the fish are
8 to 12 feet deep on the edge of the cover
or way back in the thick stuff.
Summertime
Gambler BB Cricket
SPRO BronzeyeFrog65
4-inch Berkely PowerBait
Chigger Craw
5. Presque Isle Bay (Pennsylvania):
Spring: Flip and pitch jigs in the “Lagoons” and backwater areas.
Summer: Locate larger schools of fish in 6 to 14 feet of water in main-bay milfoil.
Fall: Move shallower in the grass and key on sandy spots. Misery Bay can be one
of the most productive spots.
Key: Eliminate main-bay grass quickly with a heavy jig. Keep on the move until a
school is found – it’s unmistakable when you find one.
6. Sandusky Bay
Spring: Check the Cedar Point and
Bay View marinas. A bonus big smallie
might be waiting. Use small jigs and
crankbaits.
Summer: Pitch jigs and tubes in
main-bay areas with current, such as near
the various bridges. Or run up the
Sandusky River to fish true river conditions – outside bends are key – with small
spinnerbaits and jigs.
Fall: Check the marinas around
Battery Park, or others in the city of
Sandusky, with small shad-imitation spinnerbaits and crankbaits.
Key: Fishing pressure might make the
bite a little tougher here. Scale down the
approach in lure and line size.
5.
39
Detroit and Niagara Rivers
The Detroit River feeds Erie; the Niagara River drains it. Each offers vast
areas of shallow vegetated flats, boat docks and current. The end result is
excellent largemouth fishing. The most consistent pattern is to fish the
docks throughout the summer. Docks and seawalls that jut out closest to
the main channels are usually the best. Fish the areas just out of the current with Texas rigs and jigs – swim jigs often excel, too.
Later in fall, hit the weedlines in 6 to 10 feet of water for big numbers of
schooling fish feeding on baitfish that migrate into the rivers. Add spinnerbaits and Zoom Flukes to the mix and fish aggressively.
~ Boat Launch
~ Camping
~ Wet/Dry Storage
~ Full Bait and
Tackle Shop
~ RV Park
~ Guide Services
~ Dining
~ Boat Slips
40
Heading back west to the Ohio harbors, expansive grass beds often grow
so thick that mat fishing is available.
Nobody fishes the mats in the harbors
of Ohio more often, or better, than Bass
Fishing League angler Michael
Simonton of Fremont, Ohio. Simonton
lives in close proximity to East Harbor,
which has given him the chance to
become one of the best mat flippers
and frog fishermen in the North.
“I’d rather catch bass on a frog than
flip, and a lot of days when it’s sunny,
that’s the best way,” Simonton says.
“A frog is super-efficient when it’s
working.”
His frog of choice is the SPRO
BronzeyeFrog65. For flipping applications when the fish demand it,
Simonton uses small crayfish-imitators
such as Berkley PowerBait Chigger
Craws and Gambler BB Crickets. The
key, again, is covering water.
“Anglers will find little places that
hold more fish, or larger fish, but the
only way to find them is to fish everything,” Simonton says. “That’s why I
like the frog – I can cover a lot of water
and, if nothing else, the fish will give
up their location by blowing up the
lure. I can then flip them out.”
Summer
largemouth
fishing
becomes particularly attractive when
afternoon thunderstorms roll through
the area. Smallmouth destinations are
often 20 miles or more from the boat
ramp, whereas largemouths are just a
gallon of gas away. The summer period
also opens up the fishery in Michigan
waters, where numerous harbors, as
well as the Detroit River mouth (see
sidebar), contain excellent fisheries. In
most cases, fishing the large, shaded
boat docks and around the boats tied
to them is the key. There are fewer bass
in the harbors than in spring, regardless of location, but the fish that spend
the year there feed on panfish around
the same structures and are often larger fish. A 5-inch swimbait brought parallel to the docks can be the best means
to catch them.
Fall Bonanza
Fall is the time of the year when
“the gales of November come early,” as
we’re taught in Great Lakes folklore by
Gordon Lightfoot. It’s also the best
time to fish for largemouths on the Erie
system, from both a numbers and quality standpoint.
Baitfish migrate to warmer water
and often gather at the entrances to
Bandit Series 200
Rapala DT6
Jackall Aragon MR
Shallow Fall
harbors and marinas. Consequently,
the lighthouses and outer break walls
at Lorain Harbor frequently hold
schools of largemouths around them
this time of year. These bass can be
caught with “smallmouth methods,”
utilizing drop-shot techniques and
goby baits in 15 feet of water and deeper. Shallow, rocky shoreline areas in
other harbors are the perfect places to
go to work with a small crankbait, such
as a Bandit or Rapala DT6.
The boat dock and harbor fish will
group up on small rock points and
break walls, often leading to dozens
of fish on successive casts. These
largemouths especially come
into play for tournament
anglers in weatherbattered events as
stringers of 16 to
18 pounds are
almost guaranteed.
As
the
weather cools, the grass-flat fish of
summer will begin to group up on subtle, deeper structure. This is truly
when Lefebre puts on a jig clinic in
Presque Isle.
“When an angler finds the key spot,
it’s indescribable” he says.
Lefebre often refers to this as “the
cast.” I’ve witnessed him and another
angler catch more than 100 largemouths off of one small structure,
making the same cast toward a marker
buoy over and over. In all, their lures
only covered an area of two boat
lengths. Yet they managed to produce
multiple 5-pound fish and dozens of 3s
and 4s.
The key is to find the subtle structures that attract schools of fish. In this
system, the magnet is almost always a
sandy, hard bottom within the grass.
Again, the only way to find these is by
fishing. As fall progresses, the fish
bunch even tighter on deeper areas
near shipping channels in 12 feet or
more, or at entrances to canals. In this
case, Lefebre puts down his jig and
chooses a crankbait.
“Deep-divers such as a Rapala DT16
and Norman DD22 are the premier lures
for this type of fishing,” he says.
“Anglers need to find the exact presentation and cast angle, but when they do,
multiple fish on successive casts, or
even the same cast, are common. And
100-fish days are regular.”
Deep Fall
Rapala DT16 custom painted
by Custom Bass Tackle
Norman DD22
INKO>RHKLH?:EEMABG@L
41
Need five fish when nothing is working?
Here are seven lures used by the pros.
by Mark Hicks
very tournament fisherman dreams of catching a jawdropping sack of bass. The dream is sweetest, of course,
when the catch comes on the final day of a major tournament, with hundreds of fans watching and thousands of dollars
on the line.
The hard reality is that even accomplished professionals frequently struggle to catch five “keeper” bass, even small keepers.
Yet, the difference between a small limit and a big zero can be the
difference in winning and being forgotten. It can be the difference
in cashing a check and eating the hotel bill. Come up shy of five
bass too often and your career could even be in jeopardy.
That’s why pros always carry lucky limit lures in their tackle
boxes. Invariably, one of them will be the shaky-head worm,
which has become the standard for limit lures. However, the
shaky head isn’t always the answer. Here are seven other limit
lures that FLW Tour pros use to fill their livewells when they want
to make sure their dreams don’t turn into nightmares.
43
Pro: Terry Baksay
Hometown: Easton, Conn.
Lucky Limit Lure: Luhr Jensen Speed Trap
Baksay has yet to fish a body of water where he could not catch bass on a Luhr
Jensen Speed Trap. The crankbait produces for him spring through fall and in
clear to muddy water.
“If the bass are feeding on shad, alewives or anything like that, a Speed Trap
does the job,” Baksay says.
Baksay compares the tight wiggle of the Speed Trap to that of the Rapala Shad
Rap. That subtle action at slow speeds makes the lure effective in cold, early
spring water, when many bass are reluctant to chase a wide-wobbling crankbait.
A 1/8-ounce Speed Trap gets down to slightly less than 5 feet deep on a slow
retrieve, making it a perfect option on staging points and flats in the cold months.
However, the lure was built for speed. And the rest of the year the 1/4-ounce
Speed Trap and a faster mindset pay dividends.
“I’ve done incredibly well with the Speed Trap in the summer and fall,”
Baksay says. “It’s a great deflection lure for running through rock and wood
cover.”
The ability to deflect off cover is exactly why the plug gets the call when nothing else is working. If Baksay can’t tempt five bites, then he can probably draw at
least five reaction bites with the Speed Trap. And it can be cranked fast to cover
water, increasing the chances of connecting with five willing fish.
That exact scenario played out for Baksay during a tournament at Old
Hickory Lake. The pro failed to get on a good pattern during practice, so come
the first day of the tournament he tied on a Speed Trap and started running and
cranking. He ran the lure into every rock, riprap bank and shallow piece of wood
cover he could see to boat a limit almost every day and garner a top-20 finish.
Pro: Joe Thomas
Hometown: Milford, Ohio
Lucky Limit Lure: Lucky Craft Pointer 78
You can’t overstate the confidence that Thomas has in a Lucky Craft Pointer 78.
“It’s amazing how that little jerkbait catches quick limits of bass,” he says.
Of course, if a lure produced a clutch limit the first time you tied it on, you probably would be fond of it too. Thomas was fishing a May tournament several years
ago at Lake Guntersville and was in the top 10 going into the third and final
day. With less than two hours left before weigh-in, the pro had only a few
pounds of bass in his livewell.
Panicked, he ran to a shallow bay and found a milfoil bed. The bed
topped out 2 to 3 feet under the surface in about 5 feet of water. Always
fond of jerkbaits from his years of fishing smallmouths, he tied on the
Pointer 78 and quickly twitched it over the grass with his rod tip held
high. In little more than an hour, he was able to cull up to a 17pound limit to take fifth place.
Since that time, Thomas has learned a lot more about why bass like the Pointer
78. Unlike lesser jerkbaits, the lure has a completely erratic action that walks back
and forth under the water. At 3 inches long, the 78 model is small enough that bass
of any size will attack it, which is perfect when trying to get those final limit fish.
The Pointer 78 is especially deadly over submerged grass during the prespawn
phase. But it can literally be thrown anywhere if needed, including around points,
docks and wood. The only limiting factors are water clarity and water temperature.
The Pointer 78 fares best in water with 2 feet or greater visibility and water temperatures ranging from the mid-50s to the mid-60s.
“My basic cadence is jerk, pause, jerk-jerk, pause,” Thomas says. “My pauses
are one to two seconds when the water is creeping into the mid-50s, but I shorten
the pauses as the water warms.”
44
Pro: George Cochran
Hometown: Hot Springs, Ark.
Lucky Limit Lure: Strike King Mr. Money Crankbait
After 30 years of fishing bass tournaments, Cochran has had to scratch out
limits more times than he’d like to remember. And for the last decade, the veteran has relied on a tiny crankbait that Strike King sells exclusively through
Walmart to do so. It’s appropriately named Mr. Money.
“That little crankbait has saved my bacon time and time again,” Cochran
says. “It’s a fish-catching dude.”
Cochran learned long ago that tournament fishing is a numbers
game. He believes that on most bass waters, 75 percent of the bass weigh 2
pounds or less. Thus, the small crankbait puts the odds
of catching five keepers in his favor. Of course, Cochran
occasionally dupes a heavyweight with it as well.
The tight-wiggling Mr. Money runs 4 to 5 feet deep. It
fares best by casting it to bass that are suspended off
points or in the mouths of pockets. Since the lure doesn’t
bounce off the bottom in these situations, Cochran pauses during the retrieve every 10 to 15 feet.
“Some days they nail it when I stop, but most of the
time they hit it on the move,” Cochran says.
While the lure looks too small to cast with baitcasting tackle, Cochran seems to have no trouble with a limber-tipped 7-foot RaZr baitcasting rod and 10-poundtest monofilament.
Pro: Dion Hibdon
Hometown: Stover, Mo.
Lucky Limit Lure: Finesse Jig and Craw
Hibdon is known for his skill with finesse lures. So it’s no surprise that when
he’s in desperate need of bites, Hibdon goes to his tiniest offering.
The Chevy pro’s go-to tidbit is a 1/8-ounce Luck “E” Strike ball-head jig
with the skirt trimmed back to be even with the hook’s bend for the smallest silhouette. The jig is then adorned with a Luck “E” Strike Baby Guido Bug
pinched down to half its size.
“If I don’t have any fish in the boat by noon, I strap on that little jig and go
catch a limit,” Hibdon says.
February through May is prime time for this lure, particularly at clear, rocky
lakes that support smallmouths and spotted bass.
“I also use it late in the fall when bass go on a crawdad feed,” Hibdon says.
“In my part of the world, that happens around the end
of October.”
The tactic is basically target casting to shallow cover
like an angler would do with a wacky rig. Cast to boulders, logs, docks and any other shallow cover that looks
as if it would hold a bass. Let the jig sink to the bottom,
and if nothing eats it on the way down, crawl it slowly
around the piece of cover for a few feet before moving
on to the next piece of cover.
45
Pro: Jay Yelas
Hometown: Corvallis, Ore.
Lucky Limit Lure: Drop-shot
When most West Coast anglers get in jams, the finesse tactics come out. Sure
enough, Yelas is no exception. The Chevy pro almost always has a drop-shot
rigged up and within arm’s reach for when he’s struggling to fill his livewell.
“Drop-shotting really shines when bass are out on ledges, rock piles and
other offshore structure,” Yelas says. “But I also do well with it around boat
docks and in scattered grass.”
His usual rig consists of a 1/4-ounce drop-shot weight 8 to 10 inches below
a No. 4 Mustad Dropshot Wide Gap Hook. In the middepth range of 10 to 30
feet of water, he casts the rig to structure as he would a worm or jig.
The presentation and rig varies with the depth. In deep water, he’ll beef up
to a 3/8-ounce weight and drop the rig vertically. Similarly, he’ll downsize to a
1/8-ounce weight whenever he is fishing shallower than 4 to 5 feet because it
makes less of a splash and is less likely to spook a bass.
Lure-wise, Yelas nose hooks a 5-inch Berkley Powerbait Hand Poured Curl
Tail Worm when he’s after finicky largemouths and spotted bass. On smallmouth waters, he switches to a 3-inch Berkley Gulp! Minnow.
The key to the drop-shot rig is its ability to tempt. Even a jig sitting motionless doesn’t tease a bass like a small soft plastic flitting and quivering a foot off
the bottom. This can be a big thing when bass’ moods change, as they did on
the third day of the 2009 FLW Tour event at Lake Champlain. Yelas had done
well the first two days casting a 10-inch worm and a jig to scattered milfoil on
a boulder-strewn bottom 7 to 8 feet deep. But by the third day of the tournament, the bass would barely touch the big lures.
“That’s when I started drop-shotting a worm,” Yelas says. “I was able to
keep milking that school of bass and finished fourth.”
The key to getting bites with the drop-shot is to let the bait sink slowly to the
bottom. Then Yelas lifts the bait slowly and lets it sink again. “The worst thing
you can do is overwork the bait,” Yelas says.
Pro: Scott Canterbury
Hometown: Springville, Ala.
Lucky Limit Lure: Texas-Rigged Tube
There was a time when you couldn’t pry a flipping stick from the hands of
Canterbury, a shallow-water specialist. The pro has since had to expand his fishing skills to compete successfully on the FLW Tour. However, when he needs a
limit, he still goes back to the flipping stick, only nowadays with a different lure.
Canterbury’s principal flip-and-pitch lure is a 5/8-ounce jig. When he’s
strapped for fish, he swaps the jig for a 4-inch Berkley PowerBait Pro Power
Tube and a 3/8-ounce bullet sinker. He Texas rigs the tube with a 4/0
straight-shank Paycheck Baits hook, which he claims loses fewer bass than
the offset, wide-gap hook most anglers use.
Normal pitching techniques still apply when fishing the tube, but
Canterbury also throws in a new trick. If possible, he will intentionally
drape the line over a piece of cover during the pitch. This creates a pivot
point to yo-yo the lure in place. Not only can the presentation trigger a
reaction bite on the initial fall, but the yo-yoing action of the tube can also
tempt bass into biting.
The key to using the tube is still to cover water to find five keeper bites.
Canterbury does this by spacing his pitches far apart and aiming for the
sweet spot in every piece of cover – the thickest part of a laydown, the dark
hole in a grass mat, the shadow of a boulder.
The tube also produces limits away from cover. Instead of a crankbait,
Canterbury hops a tube 12 to 16 inches above the bottom on hard structure
such as points or bars. The tube twists and spins on the fall, which is often
the spark bass need to bite.
46
Pro: Darrel Robertson
Hometown: Jay, Okla.
Lucky Limit Lure:
Zoom Super Fluke
Robertson doesn’t hesitate when asked what lure
he goes to for a clutch limit: a Zoom Super Fluke.
The soft-plastic jerkbait has long been a standby
because of its ability to imitate an easy meal.
“You want to rig the Fluke so it falls flat like a dying
shad would, not nose down,” says Robertson, who is
third in FLW Outdoors all-time earnings.
He does this by Texas rigging the lure with an offset
4/0 hook and fixing two adhesive lead strips to the
hook’s shank. He then dead-sticks the Fluke by casting
it and letting it shimmy straight down
The straight-fall technique works in a variety of settings, with a few modifications depending on the area.
In shallow cover, cast the rig and let it sink a couple of
feet into the cover. If nothing bites, give it a twitch or
two before casting to the next target.
For suspended bass, it’s better to count the lure
down 5 to 7 feet over the school. If the water is clear
enough, it can draw bites from bass as far down as
30 feet deep.
Then there is always dead-sticking the Super
Fluke over shallow, coverless areas, as Robertson
did to finish fifth at the 2006 FLW Tour event at
Beaver Lake. The pro located schools of shad that
had blown against a rocky point. The constant
crashing and surging of the waves disoriented the
baitfish. Bass feeding on them were tuned into the
fluttering, falling shad and didn’t want a fast-moving lure. So instead, Robertson made hay with his
Super Fluke by imitating the dying shad being
sloshed around by the waves.
Basically, there are numerous ways to scratch out a
limit with a Super Fluke, or any of the other lures on
this list. Remember them come tournament time.
48
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49
STUCK
IN A
DITCH
by Sean Ostruszka
50
The lowdown on finding
and fishing ditches
Think about your favorite cove on your favorite lake.
Now think about what makes it your favorite – outside of all the fish in it. Maybe the cove has
a lush grass flat near the mouth or gardens of buckbrush. Some favorite coves have rock piles, laydowns or mats of hydrilla. Others have prime docks or are even completely barren of cover.
Every angler’s favorite cove is probably different from the next, depending on where the
angler and how the angler likes to fish. However, there might be one type of structure that every
angler’s favorite spot has, even if the angler doesn’t know it’s there: a ditch.
Often overlooked by average anglers, ditches are the secret spots most pros idle around looking for prior to tournaments. They look plain-Jane enough on a graph or map, but even the most
subtle of ditches is often the reason bass are where they are. And anytime an angler can figure
out that piece of the puzzle, that’s when he finds a new favorite spot.
Ditch Definition
So, what exactly is a ditch? Basically, it’s exactly what an
angler might picture it to be, only instead of it being next to a
road or in the middle of a field, it’s underwater.
“It’s a trench, really,” says FLW Tour pro Randall Tharp
of Gardendale, Ala. “It’s a little path of deeper water surrounded by shallower water. It doesn’t have to be much
deeper though. A ditch in shallow water may be only a foot
deeper than the rest of the bottom. Other times it can be 5
feet deeper.”
How ditches came to be in a reservoir harkens back to the
time before the reservoir was formed. Back then, the ditches
were actually streams that flowed into or along the main river.
Once the reservoir was impounded, the streams largely silted
in and disappeared, but their paths remained as ditches.
Most ditches run through the center of coves, originally as
runoff streams. However, many reservoirs, particularly Lake
Guntersville, have ditches that run through shallow flats or
even shallow areas in the main lake. These were true streams
and “minirivers” before impoundment. Either way, thinking
of them as sunken streams will help visualize what you’re
fishing.
An important thing to note about all ditches is how they
have changed over the years. Sedimentation in reservoirs will
often fill in ditches over time with silt and mud, making the
depth change along the “banks” less severe and almost flush
with the rest of the bottom. This plays a big role in determining whether the ditch itself is a viable form of structure for
anglers, or if it is simply a pathway for bass. Both are good,
but the best ditches actually hold fish.
51
Marking Ditches
It takes some work to find and follow a ditch, so the last thing an angler
wants to do is forget where it was. Both FLW Tour pro Randall Tharp and
National Guard pro Ramie Colson Jr. offer some tips for remembering.
Either will start by waypointing the center of a ditch, preferably on the
beginning or the end. Neither suggests following and waypointing the entire
ditch, however, as they figure that could use up far too many waypoints.
Instead, if multiple waypoints are necessary, use the extras on bends or hard
spots. From there, you can get aligned better by using visual clues on the bank
to line up the boat and casts.
However, the key is having that first solid waypoint.
“If you know where you start, the combination of your lure and your graph
should be enough to stay on the ditch and follow it,” Tharp says.
Path or Structure?
There are thousands of
ditches in Kentucky and
Barkley lakes, but National
Guard pro Ramie Colson Jr.
only has a handful he fishes.
Those special ditches have
patches of hard bottom the
bass love.
52
What makes ditches so important to
anglers is how bass relate to them. Like
most creatures, bass prefer to follow a
well-defined path to get from one place
to another. Ditches often provide those
paths.
“I think (ditches) make bass feel comfortable,” Tharp says. “Bass use them like
roads to go from deep to shallow water. I
mean, you’re not going to drive through a
field when you can use a road.
“Ditches can also be places to hang
out and feed because baitfish also follow
ditches. And if there is some sort of
weather change, bass can quickly follow
a ditch to escape the conditions. That’s
why ditches are good all year.”
Bass will use deep ditches (deeper
than 10 feet) during the summer and
winter, but ditches truly play their
biggest roles during the spring and fall,
when bass are relating to shallow water.
This is where deciphering if the ditch
itself is structure comes into play. Take a
lake such as Guntersville, which is teeming with weeds. On a large, shallow
weed flat, the entire weedbed will generally look the same. However, ditches
running beneath the weeds will change
the depth at which the weeds growing in
them will top out. Weeds might top out
4 feet below the surface across most of a
particular weedbed, yet the weeds growing in the ditch might top out 5 feet
below the surface. It doesn’t seem like
much, but that little bit of difference will
allow bass to travel in and out of the
weedbed, while using the contour
change in the weeds as a feeding area.
This is a prime example of when a ditch
becomes a fishable structure that anglers
should target.
However, not all ditches are fishable,
especially those that have no obvious
cover. Kentucky and Barkley lakes have
When trying to find ditches in weeds, it’s hard to beat a lipless crankbait. Anytime it repeatedly loses contact with the weed tops in an area and then
reconnects is a clue that there might be a ditch there.
thousands of ditches running through
them that bass follow. Yet National
Guard pro Ramie Colson Jr. of Cadiz,
Ky., says he only has about five ditches
in either lake that he actually fishes. The
rest he just uses to find fish in a particular cove.
“Most ditches are too silted in and
muddy to be productive,” Colson says.
“Bass will still use them as pathways,
but I don’t catch fish on them because
fish don’t use them to feed. Instead, I’ll
follow those ditches and try to figure
out where the bass are headed.”
A prime example of this would be a
ditch running through a stump field.
The ditch itself probably would not hold
fish. However, the stumps right next to
the ditch will often be the most productive because bass will follow the ditch
across the flat and use the cover closest
to it to feed.
The barren ditches Colson targets as
structure have a little different makeup.
“The ditches I catch fish on are the
ones where the rain and runoff have
washed out the ditches and exposed
hard or rough spots,” Colson says.
“Wherever those rough spots are is
where the bass are going to be. They will
use them to feed, and in the spring they
will rub their bellies against them to
loosen up the eggs to get ready to
spawn.”
The hard part about hard spots is
finding them – mainly through trial and
error – and that starts with discovering
the ditches in the first place.
Detecting and Dissecting
A ditch isn’t like a ledge in that it
usually doesn’t have enough of a depth
change to register on a contour map.
Instead, anglers have to use what their
eyes, electronics and lures tell them to
find the sunken depressions.
The easiest ditches to find are ones
an angler can actually see. When fishing
a shallow flat or a clear body of water,
an angler may actually be able to spot
the ditches. Matted vegetation that
reaches the surface is another easy way
to find ditches, as ditches will usually
show up as clear paths of water running
through the grass bed. Underwater culverts are often tip-offs as well, as there
are often ditches stemming from them.
The shore can also give away a ditch. If
there is a ditch or stream leading from
shore into a cove or flat, chances are it
will continue under the water.
However, most ditches are found
with electronics.
“I start by idling around in the
mouth of bays,” Colson says. “Most
ditches are no wider than your vehicle,
so you can see where it suddenly
becomes deeper and shallower right on
your screen. Then I’ll take my trolling
motor and follow it back into the cove to
see how it plays out. All the while I’ll be
making casts to either side of the ditch,
not really to catch fish but to help follow
it and to feel what’s down there.”
Side- and down-looking technologies make this process even easier, as
anglers can quickly see the ditches and
where they run.
When trying to find ditches on flats,
some pros will let the color shading on
their GPS units do the work for them.
Most color shading is in 5-foot intervals,
with the shallowest setting being at 5
feet. If an angler is fishing a 5-foot flat,
by setting the color shading as shallow
as possible, any ditch will clearly show
up as a lighter shade.
53
Cast Out
Many anglers didn’t get the nickname “bank beaters” for nothing. When anglers
are fishing shallow, their lures are almost always being cast toward the shore.
FLW Tour pro Randall Tharp isn’t opposed to that, but he also likes to switch it
up when fishing a ditch residing deeper than 10 feet.
Instead of having his boat sitting over deep water and casting to the shallowest
part of the ditch, he’ll instead put his boat up shallow and cast to the deep part.
“Doing that allows me to drag the jig up the ditch and helps me feel everything,” Tharp says. “Plus, the lure doesn’t pendulum away from the bottom
when it gets out deep, so my casts cover more ground.”
The best way to find ditches
and figure out their paths is by
actually fishing. Sometimes
you’ll make contact with hard
structure or a turn; other times
it will be with bass.
However, the way Tharp and Colson
find most of their shallow ditches is by
fishing. For Colson, that usually means
tossing a square-billed crankbait or
dragging a 3/4-ounce Carolina rig in
water as shallow as 2 feet. Again, he’s
not really trying to catch fish, but
instead he’ll fan-cast a shallow flat or
cove and dredge a lure around in hopes
of finding a ditch he can later exploit to
catch fish.
54
“If you’re using a tungsten weight
with that Carolina rig or fluorocarbon
line with the crankbait, you’ll feel the
lure drag down the side of a ditch and
then up the other side,” Colson says.
“More importantly, though, is that you
can feel the type of bottom in the ditch.
You’ll feel it digging through the mud
and muck, and then – bump, bump,
bump – you find a hard spot. That’s
when I know I have a good ditch.”
Tharp’s technique is similar with a
Carolina rig, crankbait or a lipless
crankbait. The Carolina rig and crankbait
come into play if he has a bare bottom. He
uses the lipless crankbait around shallow
flats with vegetation. In either case, he is
always conscious of whether or not his
lure is making contact with something. If
he loses contact for a few feet and then reestablishes it, that’s when he perks up.
“When you’re fishing a rattle bait
over weeds you get a certain speed
where you’re ticking the tops of the
weeds,” Tharp said. “If suddenly I make
a cast and I lose contact in a certain area,
I’ll make another cast and see if it happens again. If it does, then I’ll know
there is a ditch or something there.”
That exact scenario is how Tharp
found the ditch he fished to finish 21st at
the 2009 FLW Tour event at Guntersville.
He was fishing a 3-foot deep flat in the
weeks leading up to the event when his
rattle bait lost contact. Turns out, there
was a 5-foot ditch running through the
flat. Using his electronics, he figured out
the turns it made, and come tournament
time, he never left that ditch.
Every morning he would line his
boat right in the middle of the ditch and
make parallel casts down the center and
edges of it.
“My co-anglers were culling all the
time because they were catching all the
bass that had followed the ditch and
then spread out from it,” Tharp says.
“But I figured out the bigger bass were
in the bottom of the ditch. I didn’t catch
as many fish, but the ones I caught were
better quality.”
Most anglers would take either scenario because either might mean a new
favorite spot on a lake. And now that an
angler knows what to look for to find
those new favorite spots, it might be
harder to differentiate which of the
many spots is truly the favorite.
Being in a ditch never sounded so
attractive.
Some of our performance
reviews take place
on a bass boat.
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part of what we do every day. It’s our job to make sure the
products we sell live up to your expectations. For us, that’s
business as usual.
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Putting gear to the test on a fish
like this helps me make dependable,
e,
reliable and proven choices for my
customers. In 30-plus years of
fishing, Cabela’s gear has never
let me down.
Randy Longnecker
Store Manager - Boise, Idaho
trust our gear
New
Lessons
In
OldSchool
Wormin’
56
Time-tested
techniques
and a few
new tricks –
soft-plastic
worms still
work
by David Hart
n the realm of the Texas-rigged ribbon-tail worm, Chevy
pro Larry Nixon is the king. Because of his early and
spectacular tournament successes, the Bee Branch,
Ark., angler is the professional angler most closely
linked to the lure. And indeed, it has brought him bass fishing glory throughout his illustrious career. Even today he
uses a classic Texas-rigged ribbon-tail worm on the
FLW Tour.
57
There might be some people who
think Nixon is just stuck in his old ways.
After all, creature baits, soft-plastic stick
baits and shaky-head worms make up the
core group of soft plastics that a successful tournament angler needs these days.
If you count yourself among the
group with that mindset, you’re wrong.
Old-school Texas-rigged ribbon-tail
worms aren’t relics of the past. They’re
as productive today as ever. The proof
lies not only by examining Nixon’s
career, but by checking the careers of a
pair of FLW Outdoors young guns.
National Guard pro Brent Ehrler of
Redlands, Calif., and fellow FLW Tour
pro Jason Christie of Park Hill, Okla.,
weren’t even born when Nixon was first
pounding bass on Texas-rigged worms.
They just know a good thing when they
see it. And what they see is the ability of
a classic rig to catch fish in the modern
tournament world.
In some cases, that means fishing a
worm much the same way it has always
been fished. In others, it means applying
some new-fangled twists. So if you
think the classic ribbon-tail worm is out
of style, take a few notes from Nixon,
Ehrler and Christie, because worm
school is back in session.
Deep Thinking
If there is one arena where the Texasrigged worm is still a go-to lure, it’s on
offshore structure.
“One of my favorite times to use a softplastic worm is when bass go deep during
the summer and hold on offshore ledges
and main-lake river channels,” says
Ehrler, winner of the 2006 Forrest Wood
Cup. “I do well with it on lakes like
Kentucky Lake, which is known for its offshore fishing, especially in the summer.”
Offshore is a place for using the largest
of ribbon-tail worms. A 10- to 12-inch
worm will draw strikes from 12-inch bass
and 5-pound bass. That’s one of its
advantages. Pull up on a spot, sling out a
worm, and you’ll soon know what quality of fish is in the area.
The primary offshore spots to fish a
worm are the standard summertime
structures we all fish: main-lake points,
the main river channel, humps and drops.
Bass on these types of structure see a barrage of jigs, lizards and creature baits, but
most offshore anglers agree that there are
times when, for whatever reason, all the
bass want is a big worm. Thus, its popularity as an offshore bait has remained.
Trade Secret: Anglers in the know use
thick-bodied worms in the early summer,
when the bass are just moving out to the
ledges and are hungry. Fishermen will
slim down their offerings come late summer for an almost finesse presentation
that catches bass that have by then seen
every large-profile lure on the market.
Color Matters?
Like every other lure, worms come in every color on the color wheel. However, Christie, Nixon and Ehrler have narrowed down their selections to a handful of hues that all happen to be about the same.
Clear Water: watermelon and green pumpkin
Use natural colors in clear water because fish can get a good look at the lure. Watermelon is especially good in the
clearest of water because it is more translucent than green pumpkin.
green pumpkin
watermelon
Dirty Water: junebug, plum and black
A good silhouette is necessary in dirty water, which is why the pros like worms in dark colors under those conditions. If the water clarity is somewhere in the middle, err toward the darker junebug or plum colors.
black
junebug
plum
All Water: Spike-It chartreuse dye
Any good worm angler needs some Spike-It lure dye in the boat. A worm tail dyed chartreuse will make the lure
more visible to bass in most water conditions.
Spike-It dyed tail
58
Dragging or Hopping?
Whether it’s deep or shallow, all three pros typically use a lift-wind, lift-wind cadence to work their worms. The lift or
hop of the rod tip gets the worm off the bottom enough to let the tail achieve its maximum action.
However, more and more the pros are working their worms as they would Carolina rigs — just dragging them over
and through cover. That’s exactly how Nixon won at the 2007 FLW Tour Lake Norman event with a Texas-rigged straighttail worm, and it applies also to ribbon-tail worms. The pro targeted visible shallow cover such as laydowns and brush
in as little as 3 feet of water. He cast his worm into the heart of it and slowly dragged it over and through the cover.
Christie, however, will sometimes drag a Texas-rigged worm across a bare lake bottom. But like Nixon, he prefers a
target such as brush or a log, not necessarily because there are no bass on bare lake bottoms, but because the cover
gives him more confidence.
“I’m sure a Texas-rigged worm will catch bass that aren’t tight to a dock or some other cover, but I’d rather throw
something like a crankbait in those places so I can cover more water if I’m not sure what’s down there,” Christie says.
Christie will, however, drag a worm all day long on deep structure if the conditions call for it. On windy days, a hopping retrieve can hinder an angler’s contact with the lure because the bow in the line caused by a stiff wind can reduce
his “feel,” resulting in missed fish that he might otherwise have caught on a calm day. By dragging the worm, he stays
in constant contact with the lure.
Flipping
Creature baits have basically taken
over the flipping world in terms of soft
plastics. Throw in jigs, and most people
have all the flipping gear they need.
That leaves opportunity for those who
aren’t afraid to tie on a worm. In fact,
the worm has a major advantage over
more bulky flipping lures, especially a
jig. A streamlined worm will slide up
and over the forks of laydown limbs or
slip through stalks of grass. And,
Weight Issues
according to Nixon, worms produce
more and bigger bass than jigs when
working thick cover.
Another advantage that a worm gives
an angler is that he can quickly change
the profile size, both length and thickness, depending on the current conditions and what the bass are telling him.
“If I’m on a lake like Falcon, I’ll go
with a 12-inch worm even in shallow
water,” Nixon says. “But if I’m fishing
somewhere like Norman, where the
Dock-Fishing
The heaviest bullet sinker Christie, Nixon or Ehrler will put in front of a
worm is a 5/16-ounce weight, and that’s only for fishing 10 feet deep or deeper. Anything shallower and a 3/8-ounce weight is more than heavy enough,
though even that might be too heavy in certain situations.
“If I’m fishing real shallow cover, I’ll drop down to as light as a 1/8-ounce
weight because you don’t want to make a real loud splash when you are putting the lure where the fish are,” Nixon
says. “Generally, you want to use as
light a weight as you can without
losing contact with the lure. If it’s
deep or windy, you’ll need to go
heavier, but if you are fishing shallow
cover on a calm day, a 1/8- or 3/16-ounce
weight will do fine.”
As for pegging the weight, the pros cautioned that it should only be done in
extremely heavy cover because it can
actually hurt hooking percentages.
60
fish aren’t as big on average, I’ll go
with a 7-inch worm. That’s a good allpurpose size that will catch bass just
about anywhere.”
Trade Secret: Both Nixon and Ehrler
share a fondness for yo-yoing soft-plastic worms in shallow cover. The trick is
to drape the line over a branch or some
part of the cover when making a pitch
or flip. The cover then acts as a fulcrum,
so to speak, so the pro can repeatedly lift
and drop the worm in and out of the
cover to temp bass to bite.
While Nixon, Christie and Ehrler like
to flip cover with worms, there is some
dispute among them when it comes to
using worms around docks. Basically,
only Christie will do it, and he has had
some good success with it. Christie won
the 2007 FLW American Fishing Series
Central Division event on Lake of the
Ozarks by pitching a 10-inch YUM
Ribbontail worm to the lake’s countless
floating docks.
In the event, Christie and every
other angler knew the bass would be
on those docks. However, just about
everyone else was pitching jigs.
Christie knew that in order to catch
those pressured fish, he’d have to do
something different.
“I was just pitching it under the
walkways and around the platforms in
about 5 feet of water,” he recalls. “Most
of the fish would hit it on the fall, but a
few picked it up off the bottom after I
hopped it a few times. Lake of the
Ozarks is known as a jig lake, especially
in the fall. I think the worm worked so
well because it was just different than a
jig, and it had a lot more action. The ribbon tail also helped slow the fall, and it
just looked like a big meal to the bass.”
Trade secret: Docks are fun to fish
during the day. But at night, when it’s
more difficult to see cross members and
other casting obstructions, they can be
downright frustrating. A trick to make it
easier is to rig your boat with a black
light, such as the Punisher Lures CASTGLO L.E.D Fishing Light, and fish with
fluorescent blue line. The black light
shines on the dock just enough that you
can see it. And it makes the line glow, so
you can steer the lure accurately to the
target.
Let ’em Run with It? Nope!
Old-time soft-plastic worm anglers used to let the fish “run” with the lure
before they set the hook, often giving a three- or five-count before they
made a move. Christie, Nixon and Ehrler agree that’s a bad idea.
“When you feel that bite, it’s a bite,” Christie says. “That fish doesn’t have
hands, so when it picks up the worm, it’s got it in its mouth. I reel down
about three cranks and set the hook hard as soon as I feel a tap or when the
line starts moving.”
Waiting a few seconds can have one of two bad results: The fish might
feel something that it doesn’t like and let go of the worm, or it might swallow the worm and hook, resulting in a fatal injury.
“I hardly ever miss a bass,” Christie says. “When they pick it up, they usually grab it by the head. If they do get the tail, it doesn’t take more than a split
second before they get the whole thing in their mouth. It’s always best to
stick the fish as soon as you feel something.”
Jason Christie
Slithering Snake
A soft-plastic ribbon-tail worm isn’t
just a subsurface lure. Swim one across
the top of aquatic vegetation such as
grass or lily pads and you might be
rewarded with an arm-jarring strike.
The worm looks like a snake slithering across the surface, and it’s a great
substitute for a soft-plastic jerkbait or
even a frog. It comes through heavy
cover great, and it’s far more subtle than
a bulkier lure.
The key is to rig it with no weight or
a 1/32-ounce pinch-on bullet sinker. An
unweighted, 7-inch worm can be tough
to fling with a baitcasting rod, but the
addition of a tiny sinker can provide
enough weight to reach the cover, and
still allow the worm to swim on the surface. Even better, the weight will pull
the worm underwater as it comes
across openings within the cover so it
can free-fall into the strike zone. Fish
that don’t take it off the top might grab
the worm as it falls.
Trade secret: The key to getting
bass to take a topwater worm is to create the right action for that particular
day. Bass being bass, predicting their
moods and what triggers them to
strike can be a tall order. What you can
do, however, is experiment with the
action. Change up between broadtailed worms and more narrow worms.
The broader ones, of course, displace
more water. Also, experiment with
how high you hold the rod. Raising
and lowering the rod will change up
how high the lure rides in the water,
from on the surface to barely bulging
it. The height of the rod also affects
how fast you can retrieve the worm.
Swimbait Substitute
Even when the wind picks up and
Christie can’t stay in contact with his
Texas-rigged worm with a standard liftwind retrieve or by dragging it, the pro
still finds a way to make the worm produce by getting it off the bottom.
Fishing it as he would a swimbait,
Christie will cast the lure out, let it sink
to the bottom and then start reeling it in.
He might switch to a heavier weight if
he needs to, but he uses the same standard retrieve.
“I’ll just use a constant, steady reeling retrieve so the worm stays right
above the bottom,” Christie says.
“Ideally, I want to kind of tick the bottom occasionally, but the key is to
swim it right over the bottom. The
action of the ribbon tail is fantastic
with that presentation.”
If you’re not sure whether or not
you’re swimming a worm in an effective way, just think of it as a combination of fishing a crankbait and slowrolling a spinnerbait. Keep it slow and
steady, but try to make contact with
cover. Bites often come when it kicks
off a stump or rock.
Trade secret: Because contact is
important when swimming a worm, it
often helps to add a bit of noise to the
rig. This is especially important when
the visibility isn’t ideal for a subtle,
swimming soft-plastic lure. Add a glass
rattle chamber to the body of the worm
so when the worm bangs off a stump,
the rattle rattles up some attention.
61
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Sportsman’s Guide
Tips, tactics and gear for fishermen who like to hunt.
Learning to Read
Dove Fields
Choosing the Best Stand
for the Biggest Buck
PLUS!
• Table Fare
• Gear Room
• Top Brands
• Take Your Pick
63
Sportsman’s Guide
Table Fare
Squirrel Stew
by Randy Goodhew
Mixing up a batch of squirrel stew is a
great way to celebrate the start of hunting season with quarry that is available to most anyone. This version of the classical game stew is
a lighter version and is spiced with a few
secret ingredients.
Use a two-step cooking method. First, cook
the meat and shred it from the bones. Then
cook the vegetables in the meat broth. Finally,
all of the ingredients are blended together to
complete the recipe.
Step 1
Ingredients:
1 bottle of beer
1/2 cup cider vinegar
4 cups water
3 to 4 squirrels, quartered
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
10 to 12 peppercorns, cracked
2 teaspoons fennel seed
3 to 4 bay leaves, fresh or dried
Combine all ingredients and simmer for two hours or
until meat falls from the bone. Or use a crockery slow
cooker and cook for 4 to 6 hours. Remove meat from the
cooking broth and set aside until it is cool enough to handle. Carefully examine the cooking broth for any small
bones or shot.
Step 2
Ingredients:
12-ounce jar chunky salsa
1 medium onion, minced
1 cup celery, diced
1 package frozen lima beans, about 10 ounces
1 cup whole-kernel corn
1 cup diced carrots
2 cups potatoes, diced
Add additional water if needed to cover the vegetables.
Combine these ingredients into the meat broth and simmer for one hour
or until the vegetables are fork-tender. If using the slow-cook method, add
the vegetables to the broth in the crockery slow cooker and cook for about
two hours or until the vegetables are tender.
While the vegetables are cooking, remove the meat from the bones.
Examine the shredded meat for any small bones or shot. Add the meat to
the vegetables during the last 20 minutes of cooking.
Serve with cornbread and hot slaw (shredded cabbage topped with a hot
dressing made from cider vinegar, sugar and bacons bits).
Gear Room
Bushnell Bone Collector
Muzzleloader Scope
The scope has 3-9 variable power and a 40 mm objective lens, which is standard fare in deer hunting.
However, what sets it apart is its 5 inches of eye relief, which is likely to keep a hunter’s noggin intact no
matter how many Pyrodex pellets he’s likely to stuff down his muzzleloader’s barrel.
The Bone Collector has rainproof coated lenses that permit 90 percent light transmission, the Bushnell
DOA 250 reticle and Rack Bracket features. The DOA reticle, by the way, has multiple crosshairs that are
calibrated for distances from 100 to 250 yards in 50-yard increments. The Rack Bracket feature makes use
of reference marks on the crosshairs that, at each range increment, bracket the average deer’s ears – 24
inches apart for mule deer and 17 inches apart for white-tailed deer. Just fit the ears within a bracket, and
you know the deer is at the associated range. You can also judge the deer’s antler spread by comparing it
to the established widths.
The retail price is $299.99. (bushnell.com)
64
Top Brands
Full Draw
Results of Southwick Associates’ 2009 survey of the most
popular archery brands. (smithwickassociates.com)
Top bow brand: BowTech (14.8% of all purchases)
Top arrow brand: Easton (30.3% of all purchases)
Top fletching brand: Bohning (30.3% of all purchases)
Top broadhead brand: Muzzy (25.3% of all purchases)
Top archery target brand: The Block (22.3% of all purchases)
Good
Take Your Pick
A Bird in the Belt
Hot Indian summer dove hunts require
a lightweight, ventilated belt or vest for getting gear to the field and doves to the truck.
But that belt or vest must also be strong
enough to haul heavy shell boxes, water
bottles and other gear. Here are options to
take along on your next dove hunt.
Carpenter’s Nail Pouch
Good Points: Free or cheap at most hardware stores and lumber companies, a cloth
nail pouch is basically a disposable, lightweight dove belt. Put shells in one side and a
bottle of water in the other. And don’t forget a
plastic grocery bag for doves.
Bad Points: The simple tie string isn’t as
comfortable under heavy loads as a wide belt.
Plus, there isn’t much room for other gear,
such as bug spray.
Bottom Line: For occasional hunts or if you
have other means of hauling bulkier gear to the
field, it’s a good choice for simplicity that doubles as a part-time trap or skeet shell bag.
Price: Free, or nearly so
Better
Walls Dove Hunting Vest, wallsoutdoors.com
Good Points: Its mesh material makes the vest light and wellventilated for sweltering days. The camo shoulder pads help
reduce fatigue and recoil soreness. Shell holders keep more ammo
accessible. There is also a blood-proof, rear-loading game pouch.
Bad Points: The pockets aren’t the most secure, nor are they
waterproof. Also, mesh often tears on brush and briars. Light as it
is, the vest can be hot in a Southern dove field, especially when
you’re moving around a lot.
Bottom Line: If you prefer a vest to a belt, this is as simple yet
effective as they come.
Price: $24.99
Best
MOJO Dove Belt, mojooutdoors.com
Good Points: Designed for dove hunting, it has pockets
specifically for a water bottle, a MOJO Dove spinning-wing
decoy, choke tubes and more. It is made of heavy-duty Cordura
material and has a blood-proof game pouch.
Bad Points: It has no shoulder straps to take weight off the
shoulders, and it isn’t available in a camo pattern – yet.
Bottom Line: You can hang a lot of gear on this simple,
heavy-duty belt and have it all within easy access in the field.
Plus it’s perfect for other warm-season hunting.
Price: $34.99
65
Sportsman’s Guide
Feature
Learning to “Read”
How to always be in the best spots in dove fields by Bob McNally
D
ove hunting begins before the shooting starts. In
fact, experienced wing shooters pinpoint most of a
field’s prime spots long before shotguns fire,
because they’ve learned how to “read” property. And what
a field tells them helps determine where they position themselves before the doves arrive.
Studying a dove field carefully with binoculars can be
helpful to hunters. Also, on some fields it’s possible to drive
around the perimeter to get a better, close-up look at the
best places to take a stand when birds begin to fly.
Here are some favorite and productive field spots for
dove stands.
Gaps – Any prominent dip or slot in the perimeter timber of a field can be a natural travel lane for doves. Take a
stand 50 to 75 yards out in the field facing the gap so you
can spot incoming birds before they pass you. Birds leaving
a field and flying toward the gap shouldn’t surprise you
from behind because hunters farther out in a field will likely be shooting at them, which will alert you to turn around.
Midfield Islands – These are perching sites where doves
rest just before landing in fields. Such “islands” usually consist of trees, but similar islands can be formed by old, abandoned farm machinery, dilapidated farm buildings, stacked
brush, log piles, broadcast towers, etc.
Fence, power, telephone and ditch lines – Any destinctive
“line” on the ground a dove can follow, it will – much the way
flying ducks follow ice edges and weedlines in open water.
High telephone and power lines are especially good since
they also serve as perches for birds coming into a field. Lines
This young hunter has wisely taken a dove stand along a “line” of closecut crops that abuts standing grass – a prime travel path line for doves.
A power line across this field offers excellent places for hunters to
take a stand. Just don’t shoot at the wire or poles.
66
made by farming practices can be travel lanes for doves, too.
Such a line could be a strip of standing sunflowers next to a
harvested section, or a drainage. Often, such farming lines are
overlooked by human eyes, but doves looking down as they
fly high overhead easily see them. Places where two or more
lines meet are especially good for a stand because they draw
birds from different directions. The juncture of two fence lines,
for example, might be a prime spot.
Irrigation pivots – The oversize, rolling type of irrigation devices are often left in place in large agricultural fields
and are choice perch sites for doves winging in to feed.
They act much like a power line and can offer cover to
shooters, too.
Hills – A high spot in a field, even a
slight one, is easily seen by doves and is a
natural flight target spot for them. Gaps or
saddles between two hills that funnel
birds into and out of a field are choice, too.
Points – Anything that projects out
into a field and forms a “point” is a natural entering and exiting spot for doves.
Perimeter trees and fences along fields
form the most common points.
Field corners – Like a point, a field
corner is a target spot for doves working in and out of a field. Also, a corner
is usually a place where two fences
join, forming travel lines for doves.
Look for tree-line gaps in a field corner
for an especially hot spot for a stand.
Heavy timber – Take note of the
sides of fields having the largest stands
of woods, especially mature pine trees.
Timber is where doves roost, and it is
from the roosting sites they’ll enter
fields for feeding. Timber is a home or
sanctuary for doves, much like thick
bedding cover is for white-tailed bucks.
Water holes – A “tank,” farm pond or
cattle watering hole in a grain field is a
hot spot, since doves invariably water
after feeding in late afternoon. The best
water holes have low, slow-sloping
Dove Field Hot Spots
heavy
timber
timber
point
timber
point
hill
heavy
timber
tree
ditch
fence line
timber
point
water hole
hill
field corner
tree
power lines
banks, preferably with sand and grit and
without much brush, where doves can
land safely, see around them and drink.
Prominent isolated trees – A big oak,
pecan, pine or even a midsize poplar in
the middle of an otherwise flat field is
almost sure to draw doves. On large
fields, a number of such isolated trees
might be hot spots for all shooters sitting
near them.
■
Swivel Stools for All Incomes
A dove stool can be anything from a stump to a folding chair. But if
you’re in the market for a dedicated dove stool, you’ll want one that swivels
and is also stable, strong, silent and, most importantly, comfortable. Here
are options for all dove-hunting incomes:
Thrifty Choice: Big
Bear Silent Spin Seat
Price: $9.99
High Points: Cheap
and simple, the seat
attaches to any 5-gallon
bucket. Use the bucket
to store your gear.
(bigbearproducts.com)
A Little Splurge: Action Products
Deluxe Super Seat
Price: $49.99
High Points: Made exclusively for
Cabela’s, this seat contains an insulated liner for keeping drinks cold and a
dry storage tray within its base. An
extra side bag on the outside keeps
extra shells handy, and the high back
and padded seat provide excellent
comfort. (actionp.com)
The Bling: Orvis Dove
and Duck Stool
Price: $98
High Points: It’s lightweight,
folds for easy transport, has
a quiet swiveling seat and
includes a comfortable backrest. The included pouch
holds ammo, drinks and
other supplies. (orvis.com)
67
Sportsman’s Guide
Feature
The Modern Scout
Trail cameras: The best aid to hunting since binoculars and boot leather by Doug Howlett
FLW Tour pro Greg Bohannan of Rogers, Ark., knew
there was a bigger buck lurking in the woods he hunted. So
against his instincts, he held off on his bow’s release as buck
after buck presented itself in the opening days of the 2009
season.
“I knew there was a bigger deer there because I had seen
him in pictures from my trail camera,” Bohannan says. “Until
the camera caught him, I never even knew he was there.”
Despite only seeing the buck at night in the trail camera
pictures, Bohannan was hopeful the monster would show
itself during the daylight hours. The rut was approaching
and most of the bucks were on the move all day.
Finally, less than a week after first capturing the tall,
heavy-racked 10-pointer on camera, Bohannan got his
opportunity. When the big boy stopped to check out a scent
dripper Bohannan had hung near his stand, the buck presented a perfect broadside target. Bohannan let his arrow
fly, and the trophy measured 147 inches.
Bohannan loves to hunt, and after four years as an FLW
Tour regular, he admits one of the best things about his work
schedule is that it affords him ample time for deer hunting.
FLW Tour pro Greg Bohannan first captured this 10-point buck in a
trail camera photo as the season was about to start. Knowing the
buck was there, Bohannan passed on nice, but lesser bucks, until
almost a week later when the big boy showed himself again – this
time during daylight hours and while Bohannan was in his stand.
“We don’t have tournaments in November, which works
out well for my hunting schedule,” Bohannan says.
Like a lot of modern hunters, Bohannan is busy most of the
rest of the year, leaving little time for scouting. That’s why he
has become a true believer in the benefits of using trail cameras. While he’s out on the water looking for bass, in the
woods his trail cameras provide low-impact eyes and ears all
day and night, seven days a week. Using a trail camera, a
hunter can get an idea of herd health and size, identify the
bucks on his land, and pinpoint when they are feeding and
where they are traveling. He can even determine aspects of
deer behavior, such as when bucks begin chasing does.
Here are some tips and tactics on how to get the most out
of using trail cameras on your hunting property and using
the images to fill a tag on your best buck ever.
START EARLY
Fence crossings are great places to locate trail cameras when trying to
nail down deer movements on your property.
68
FLW Walleye Tour pro Jason Przekurat of Stevens Point,
Wis., is a dedicated deer hunter who, like Bohannan, gets his
cameras out to take inventory well before the start of the season.
“I like to start around August, once the deer have their
antlers,” Przekurat says.
In late summer, whitetails are following predictable
feeding patterns and are still in bachelor groups, making it
easier to see them together and compare them.
FOCUS THE SEARCH
When stoking up for fall is top priority for deer, set up cameras at food
plots, feeders or mineral licks.
Przekurat also likes to put cams near
water holes during periods of prolonged heat and drought.
As the season draws closer, both
anglers recommend transitioning cameras from food sources to points along
travel corridors, where terrain or manmade features funnel deer along a predictable path as they move between
bedding and feeding areas.
Key spots include fence intersections, a hole in a fence, a narrow or
shallow creek crossing, where a stream
nears a field or steep ridge, or pinch
points of woods between two clearings
or steep ridges. Open timber between
the points of two brush-choked clearcuts and the streamside management
zones of trees along a creek bisecting
an aging clear-cut are ideal spots to
hang cameras and see what and when
things are moving.
Such traffic corridors will take on
much more significance as the season
opens and bucks begin to move into
the pre-rut phase. That is when deer
will travel them frequently, providing
hunters with clues about ambush sites.
NOT TOO CLOSE
Cameras have been known to make
big, wary bucks nervous. The added
human scent that results from walking
in and out to check cameras near a
stand doesn’t help. Hang them close
enough to provide the information
FLW WalleyeTour pro Jason Przekurat took this nice Wisconsin buck after using trail cameras
prior to the season to identify where deer were moving on his property.
you need to determine where to set a
stand, but make sure that spot is not
right under or next to your stand.
In fact, while some hunters like to
keep cameras snapping pictures
throughout the season, Przekurat
prefers to take them down opening day.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR
You can tell a lot from the pictures
you take of whitetails, particularly if
you’re able to set cameras in several locations. Try hanging one on a food plot, an
oak flat and a crop field to tell which
food sources are being hit and when. If
acorns suddenly start dropping, you’ll
know it by the increase in deer activity
around the oaks, for example.
Great Camera Options
Need a camera or two to improve your scouting success?
Check out these products:
Reconyx – Remarkable trigger speeds and a
staggering triggering distance of about 100 feet
are standard with the Reconyx Hyperfire High
Output Covert IR models. The Reconyx product
line is top-end, with price tags to match. About
$450. (reconyx.com)
Moultrie – Reasonably priced with a
somewhat narrow yet very effective
infrared sensor, the Game Spy I35 pulls
both video and still camera duty and
even offers a small viewer on which to
check images while still in the field.
About $150. (moultriefeeders.com)
And by placing several cameras on
various trails entering the same large
field, a hunter can tell which one the
biggest bucks prefer. It’s also important to
pay attention to photos of bucks together.
Images of bucks in a group will tell you
that they are still in bachelor groups and
not ready to be rattled or called up.
Finally, Neil Dougherty, who runs
North Country Whitetails (northcountrywhitetails.com), recommends running a camera along a top travel corridor as the rut approaches. If you check
a camera at least once a week and suddenly start getting photos of numerous
bucks on the move, particularly some
bucks you may have never seen
before, you know the rut is on.
■
Cuddeback – Legendary trigger speeds and
easy operation make Cuddeback a top choice
of many hunters, including both Bohannan and
Przekurat. About $200 to $350, depending on
model. (cuddeback.com)
Stealth Cam – Stealth Cam is a
solid choice and a popular one
among many hunters because of
its middle-of-the-field pricing and
high-end performance. About $150
to $250, depending on model.
(stealthcam.net)
Smart Scouter – The camera uses an Internet connection
to e-mail images to your Smart Scouter account, where
you can view them online without ever having to retrieve
the camera. It will also e-mail an alert every time an
image is uploaded. About $600. (smartscouter.com)
69
HYDRA
How long has it been since you stared
at a soft-plastic bait and had a
million different thoughts
run through your head?
By Bryan Thrift
This is what happened the first time I laid eyes on the Damiki
Hydra. This bait is so unique that it falls in a category all by itself. At
first glance you assume, “What an awesome bed-fishing bait.” This
would be correct. The 4-inch Hydra features a solid body with 24
tentacles that have a unique ball on the end. What separates this
bait from similar baits is the animated action the Hydra has at rest.
When this bait is laying on bottom, the tentacles actually rise up
and flare out. Every little underwater current makes them sway. It
almost looks as if the Hydra is alive and breathing. To a bedding
bass the Hydra is like the bully at the ballpark.
It’s all in their face talking trash and eventually the fish can’t
stand it anymore.
I witnessed this first hand on a trip to Lake Okeechobee, Florida.
During the course of the four-day event, the bedding bass were
progressively getting harder to catch. By the third day the fish
wouldn’t even notice a bait in their bed. They would just sit there no
matter what invaded their territory. I personally saw the Hydra turn
bedding fish that would usually take about 25 minutes to catch, into
three-cast fish.
This brings me back to the opening question. How long has it
been since you stared at a soft-plastic bait and had a million different thoughts run through your head?
The Hydra, albeit a wonderful bed-fishing tool, is a jack of all
trades. You can Carolina rig it, flip it, pitch it, wacky rig it or use it
for a jig trailer. You can do anything you can imagine with this bait.
One of the favored techniques is the Neko rig. This rig adds another dimension to
finesse tactics. It consists of a Damiki Neko Sinker placed into the head of the Hydra.
When wacky rigged, the Neko rig will make the Hydra seemingly walk across the lake
bottom. It makes the bait stay vertical when a light amount of tension is placed on
the line. When you slowly drag the Hydra, the tentacles stand up and dance all over
the place. I have caught fish on the Neko rig from 2 to 30 feet deep. When the bite is
slow or almost nonexistent, this is the presentation that will produce tournamentwinning results.
Photos
Ph
t b
by R
R. Ki
Kim
WEIGHING IN
ON TOUR
BROWNE GOES GREEN IN TENNESSEE
Florida pro stays true to shallow-water style for tour win by Rob Newell
A
spinning rod, a shaky head, a
drop-shot, 8-pound-test line, a
spotted bass and a smallmouth
bass – what do all these items have in
common? It’s a list of things you’re not
likely to find in Glenn Browne’s boat
during a bass tournament.
A deck full of finesse spinning outfits
might be one way to achieve consistency on the FLW Tour, but Browne demonstrated why he doesn’t partake in such
light-line ways during his victory at Fort
Loudoun-Tellico Lakes.
Borrowing a few pages out of the
playbooks of other shallow-water hounds
such as Denny Brauer and Tommy Biffle,
Browne, of Ocala, Fla., earned his way to
the pro ranks by fishing knee-deep water.
He has found little reason to change during his seven years on the FLW Tour.
“Shallow water is where I feel most
comfortable – it’s a Florida thing,”
Browne says. “I’m not going to fight it. If
I have the slightest inkling that fish
might be shallow in any lake, I’m going
to hunt them out.”
No matter where the tour goes,
Browne stays dedicated to the dirt. With
the exception of Great Lakes tournaments, Browne won’t dawdle in 20 feet
of water trying to tease smallmouths or
spotted bass with tiny line. Instead, he
runs his boat far up rivers or creeks,
churns mud with his trolling motor, and
pitches big globs of plastic to the bank in
search of shallow largemouths.
“I’m not claiming it’s the way to win
every tournament,” Browne says. “Most
of the time, shallow fish are going to run
out in the course of four days. It’s happened to me several times. I’ve led tour
events before only to run out of fish and
fall short. That’s part of the shallowwater game. You accept that it’s going to
happen and move on.”
But every so often, things line up
perfectly for those who can wade-fish
their best areas without getting their
wallets wet. Instead of running out of
fish, bass keep funneling in to replenish
key areas. That was just the case for
Browne at Fort Loudoun.
Green-Bass Backwater
Much of Browne’s victory revolved
around a key backwater area he located
far up Fort Loudoun, south of Knoxville.
The area could be described as a big
pocket or a small bay. Whichever, it was
about 30 acres in size and 2 to 3 feet
deep. Interestingly, other backwaters in
that same area had distinct channels and
depth, but Browne’s bay was extremely
shallow and flat, with no channel or
contour.
“We’ve been to Fort Loudoun several
times, but I had never been in this particular pocket,” Browne explains. “I
found it on the last afternoon of practice.
There is a deep-water ditch that runs
right to the mouth of it, but the rest of
the bay is shallow and silty. Maybe
that’s why no one else fished it; it doesn’t really look that great.”
However, as Browne discovered,
looks can be deceiving. During that last
afternoon of practice he made one pass
through the entrance of the shallow
pocket and had 10 bites.
Glenn Browne
72
Despite the area’s potential, Browne
did not go straight to it the first tournament morning. Instead, he opted to stop
in a big bay near the launch and fish a few
shallow docks. That move proved beneficial when he boated four nice keepers
before heading to his primary spot.
Once he got to the backwater, he was
surprised no one was in there.
“I had it all to myself,” Browne says.
“That was one of the signs that things just
might go my way in this event. Usually
other shallow-water guys find those
kinds of places, too, and we split them up.
But no one else was in there. I culled up to
17 pounds before noon and left it alone.”
His 17-pound catch put him in third
place after day one.
On day two, Browne again stopped
on his shallow docks first thing in the
morning, but his dock bite had died, so
he headed to the Promised Land again.
“When I got into that pocket the second morning, I smashed them,” he says.
“I caught 10 keepers and had almost 17
pounds before noon.”
What really excited Browne, though,
was the location and color of the fish.
With water temperatures just reaching
65 degrees and water levels coming up,
he knew the first major wave of largemouths had yet to spawn. He suspected
he had intercepted that first wave of bass
coming from the main river into his area.
“Back home on Okeechobee, I can tell
when a place is loading up with fish from
the main lake,” Browne says. “They’ll
stack up at an entry point into a spawning
flat, and they’ll be really pale in color.
That’s exactly how those fish were at
Loudoun. They were ganged up at the
first shallow area at the mouth of that bay,
they were stark white, they were quality
fish and I had them to myself. Things
were lining up, and I started to get that
feeling that I might be on a winning deal.”
After day two, Browne climbed to
the second-place spot.
On day three, Browne headed
straight for his productive pocket. It was
the earliest he had been there all week,
and he noticed something interesting – a
shad spawn was occurring on the small
stretch of riprap lining the entrance.
He quickly grabbed a spinnerbait to
sample the rocks and scored big with
three nice keepers, including one that
weighed close to 5 pounds.
Browne’s day-three limit of 13
pounds, 14 ounces gave him a slim
1-pound, 6-ounce lead going into the final
Sighting Smallmouths at
Fort Loudoun-Tellico
Grigsby’s Tactics
While Glenn Browne claimed the FLW Tour victory on Fort
Loudoun-Tellico Lakes by targeting largemouths exclusively,
smallmouths stole the show in the earlier rounds.
Goodwill pro Chad Grigsby of Maple Grove, Minn., finished
second by relying on bedding smallmouths the first two days. His
biggest limit came on day two when he weighed in 18 pounds of
bronzebacks.
Grigsby, who grew up fishing for smallmouths in Michigan
ponds, has a trained eye for spotting smallmouth beds in deep,
off-colored water. He used that experience to his advantage at Fort Loudoun-Tellico.
Targeting smallmouths was a risky tournament strategy at Fort Loudoun-Tellico because
a legal keeper is 18 inches, and finding enough fish that size for four days is a daunting task.
Also, the off-colored water makes them difficult to see when sight-fishing. What’s more,
Tennessee smallmouths are prone to jump like bucking broncos until they shake a lure free.
“The odds are kind of stacked against you when relying on smallies on Fort Loudoun,”
Grigsby says. “It’s a slow, maddening way to fish, but when you catch a keeper, the rewards
are tremendous.”
Unlike normal clearwater sight-fishing, where an angler can blitz down the bank seeing
every bed clearly, sight-fishing at Fort Loudoun requires creeping down main-river banks,
casting to every “dark spot” in the water.
“It’s hard to explain what I’m looking for,” Grigsby says. “It’s kind of a feel thing. On certain pea gravel banks I get the feeling there should be a bed near a rock or beside a log where
I can’t really see the bottom. So I’ll pitch around those kinds of objects until my line swims
off. And usually when I get right over where the fish was there will be a little dark spot that’s
barely visible.”
On the plus side: bedding smallies at Fort Loudoun are aggressive and tend to bed in the
same small areas together.
“I’ll see movement – like one chasing a bream – and chances are its bed is close by,”
Grigsby explains. “Usually where there’s one bed, there are more. It’s possible to catch five
keeper smallmouths in a 50-yard stretch, which is the part that makes the hunt worth it.”
As for lures, Grigsby used a drop-shot 4-inch Berkley Gulp! Alive! Minnow, a Berkley
PowerBait Slim Shaky Worm on a 1/8-ounce Bite-Me jighead and a Venom Hollow Hog
teamed with a 3/8-ounce weight. The drop-shot and shaky head were both tied to 8-poundtest Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon fused, by blood knot, to 8-pound-test Berkley
FireLine braid for the main line.
“The chances of landing those wild smallmouths on a drop-shot are much greater
because they can’t sling the weight around during their acrobatics,” Grigsby says.
By day three of the event, Grigsby had exhausted his smallmouth lairs and had to resort
to pitching a 3/8-ounce black and blue Secret Lures jig with a sapphire blue Berkley PowerBait
Chunky Trailer to laydowns for largemouths. He salvaged his week on the final two days with
the jig and largemouths to finish second with a four-day total of 55 pounds, 13 ounces.
Grigsby’s Baits
4-inch Berkley Gulp! Alive! Minnow
Venom
Hollow Hog
3/8-ounce black and blue
Secret Lures jig, sapphire
blue Berkley PowerBait
Chunky Trailer
Berkley PowerBait Slim Shaky Worm, 1/8-ounce Bite-Me jighead
Thrift’s Tactics
Damiki pro Bryan Thrift of Shelby, N.C., employed a similar
sight-fishing strategy for smallmouths. Thrift checked in a huge
20-pound, 3-ounce sack of smallies on day one and took the lead
on day two with 15-15. He eventually finished third with a four-day
total of 55 pounds.
So how does a guy from North Carolina come to Tennessee
and find smallmouths that he can barely see?
More and more, Thrift is demonstrating that he’s not just a onetrick, power-fishing pony. In fact, the young man took a primer
course in spawning smallmouths before the Fort Loudoun-Tellico
event on a hidden gem in North Carolina called Lake James,
which just happens to be filled with smallmouths.
73
ON TOUR
Sighting Smallmouths at Fort
Loudoun-Tellico (continued)
day. But things were not as fast and furious on the final morning. The first fishless
hour opened the door for that all too
familiar “I’ve run out of fish” feeling
to creep in. However, Browne
remained relaxed and confident.
“The first few days were really good
because the fish were just coming in, staging near the front, which made them
easier to catch,” he says. “I knew once
they actually scattered out in that
pocket to spawn, the bites would be more
spread out. Mentally, I was prepared to
hunker down and grind them out.”
And grind them out he did, posting a
closing limit of 12 pounds to hold off
other top contenders Chad Grigsby and
Bryan Thrift (see sidebar) for a winning
total of 59-13.
Thrift’s Baits
Reaction
Innovations
Smallie Beaver
Damiki Hydra
SPRO BronzeyeFrog65
Details
“I knew that spawning smallmouths would be a strategy at Fort Loudoun,” Thrift says. “So
I went to Lake James for a couple of days and caught spawning smallmouths to get ready
for it. When I got to Tellico, the smallmouths were set up the exact same way.”
While Grigsby sight-fished Fort Loudoun for bedding smallies, Thrift fished the exact same
way in Tellico.
“Those smallmouths spawn out on the main river, not back in the pockets,” Thrift says,
“and they bed out deeper where it’s hard to see. So I had to mill around slowly out off the
river banks, waiting for the surface ripple to clear or the sun to get at the right angle to catch
a glimpse of some kind of movement or object near where they might bed. Once I found
one, there were a few more bedded real close by.”
Thrift used a green pumpkin black Damiki Hydra fished with a 1/4-ounce weight and a
green pumpkin Reaction Innovations Smallie Beaver with a 3/8-ounce weight. Both lures
were fished on 12- and 15-pound-test Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon.
Thrift’s smallmouths began to play out on day three, and he, too, had to adapt by filling out
his limit with largemouths.
Thrift’s backup largemouth pattern was throwing a SPRO BronzeyeFrog65 under overhanging shady banks. His topwater frog was tied to 25-pound-test Berkley Trilene Big Game line.
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74
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Primary Cover: Browne’s primary
cover in the pocket was laydown pine
trees, scattered brush tops and other
debris at the water’s edge.
Primary Lure: The lure he used to
probe the pines was one of his favorites:
a 4-inch Gambler Tube. He Texas-rigged
the tube on a 5/0 Lazer TroKar Mag
Worm hook and topped it with a
5/16-ounce lead bullet sinker. His line
was 20-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100%
Fluorocarbon.
“I ran out of Gamakatsu EWG hooks,
and I couldn’t find any, so I had to buy
Trokars,” Browne says. “It’s the first
time I’ve used them, and they’re awesome. Once you stick a fish with that
hook, you own him. I never lost a fish.”
Dock Bite: The fish he caught off the
docks on day one fell for a white
Gambler Big EZ swimbait matched with
a 6/0 Davis Bait X-Swim Lock Hook in a
1/8-ounce size. The swimbait was tied
to 30-pound-test braided line.
Shad Spawn: On the third day,
Browne located a shad spawn on a
riprap bank near the mouth of his pocket. To fish the riprap, he used a white,
3/8-ounce War Eagle spinnerbait with
a Colorado and willow blade tied to 20pound-test Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon.
Keys to Victory: Above all, Browne
attributes his first FLW Tour win to staying true to his shallow-water style and
playing the power game from start to
finish.
“I never got sidetracked with any of
that finesse stuff,” he says. “Heck, how
could I? I don’t even carry any of it in
the boat.”
You hold the future of fishing in your hands.
If you love fishing, you care about protecting the environment and preserving our
waterways for future generations to discover and enjoy.When you become an
Anglers’ Legacy Ambassador, you help make that future possible—one new
angler at a time.Take someone new fishing and leave a precious legacy
that sustains the sport you love for generations to come.
Make a promise that’s easy to keep.
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leave a legacy of fun, family and a healthier environment.
BECOME AN ANGLERS’ LEGACY AMBASSADOR ~ TAKE THE
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WEIGHING IN
GATORS WIN THE BIG ONE
Florida edges out Texas State to claim title at first National Guard FLW College Fishing National Championship by Colin Moore
F
ort Loudoun Lake proved to be a school of hard
knocks for most of the 50 college anglers who
vied for the title in the first National Guard
FLW College Fishing National Championship in
April in Knoxville, Tenn.
A lingering winter and chilly water set back the
spawn and had the contestants scrambling for even
small keepers in the Tennessee River impoundment.
University of Florida teammates Jake Gipson and
Matthew Wercinski struggled along with everyone
else, but managed to catch a couple of big fish when
it counted the most. They claimed the $100,000 championship package with a winning stringer of 29
pounds, 10 ounces – a mere 9 ounces ahead of runnerup Texas State University. The Gators’ prize package
included $50,000 for the University of Florida as well
as $25,000 and a 177TR Ranger boat wrapped in
school colors with a 90-hp outboard. The pair also earned berths
in the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup:
Gipson as a pro and Wercinski as
a co-angler.
Being in the right place at the
right time was never more critical
than during the three days the 25
college teams spent on Fort
Loudoun staking their claims to a
share of a prize purse that
amounted to $210,000. Although
beating the banks for resident fish
is often a pro’s pattern of last
resort, by the final round of the
championship it proved to be the
surest way to produce a bass that
would measure. Essentially,
Loudoun was in prespawn mode,
and none of the college anglers
could zero in on a staging area
with a reliable supply of hefty
bass. Random bank runners averaged about 2 pounds each, with 4and 5-pound fish being rare
sights throughout the event.
Fishing conditions seemed ideal for the five Western
Division teams and their finesse techniques, but
Loudoun’s bigger bass would have none of it. The
University of Oregon’s experience was typical. The team
caught literally dozens of bass every day by drop-shotting,
but Ross Richards and Reed Frazier could only muster a
6-pound, 3-ounce bag before bowing out at the end of the
second day.
76
Though nobody would have
predicted it, the Southeast and
Texas division teams’ no-frills fishing approach of spot-fishing, milk
runs and just keeping lures wet
proved to be the winning ticket.
The Gators were in the middle
of the pack with three bass that
totaled 6 pounds, 6 ounces after
the opening round. That changed
when Wercinski landed a pair of
lunkers that propelled the team
into second place with 21-15. As
the Gators were going up in the
standings, everyone except Texas
State was heading in the opposite
direction.
Auburn University led the
chase on opening day with 16
pounds, 10 ounces, but Tigers
Dennis Parker and Shaye Baker
managed only one fish that
weighed 1-2 on day two. Murray
State University, which was in
second place and less than a pound behind Auburn in the
opening round, didn’t boat a keeper the second day.
Fortunately for teammates Kalem Tippett and Steve Miller,
Murray State wasn’t the only squad that had a rough go of
it, and after sweating out a long weigh-in, they learned that
they had reached the championship round.
Bucking the trend, Texas State was a model of consistency. Jay McCollum and David Cosner had 13 pounds,
3 ounces on day one and weighed in 9-10 in
the second round to move out front.
Unfortunately for the Bobcats, in the
championship face-off they came
up one fish short of winning and
finished with 29-1.
All else being equal, it was
Wercinski’s big smallmouth and
largemouth caught the second
day that put Florida in the hunt,
and Gipson’s 4 1/2-pound largemouth that closed the deal in the final round.
“Fishing had been good up to the point where a
cold front came through a few days before, but it was a lot
tougher in the tournament,” Gipson recalls. “The first day,
we ran all the way down to the dam and caught a lot of
dinks. The second day, we got on to something in the midlake area, especially around I.C. King (cove).”
Instead of fishing docks and stretches of bank, Gipson
and Wercinski concentrated on main-lake points for their
bigger fish. Wercinski’s two big keepers came on a Bomber
Suspending Pro Long A jerkbait in pewter pearl. Gipson
caught his last-round lunker on a black-and-blue Secret
Lures jig with a matching Berkley PowerBait Chigger Craw.
“We also caught some fish on a Lucky Craft Slender
Pointer, but the Bomber would get down about an extra 2
feet, and that seemed to make the difference,” Gipson says.
“Both of Matt’s big fish came on the Bomber; the smallmouth off a gravel point and the largemouth off a point
with stumps. But both bass were at the end of the points in
deeper water. We would hit various points, then start all
over and hit them again.
“I think a lot of guys were fishing 5 to 8 feet deep, but
we got our better fish at about 12 to 15 feet,” Gipson
adds. “I.C. King was key for us. The water in there was
dirtier, and I think the road and railroad bridges at its
mouth kept the lake water from readily mixing with the
cove water. The water temperature was about 3 to 5 degrees
higher in there, and maybe the bass were a bit more active.”
Whether they were more active or not is a matter of opinion, but it’s safe to say the fish the Gators were targeting
were significantly larger than those of other teams. As it
was, the Florida team weighed in 10 bass, compared to
Texas State’s 12 keepers.
Texas State University, 29-1
Like Florida, teammates McCollum and Cosner went after
big fish in the mid-lake area, and the plan worked the first
two days. Cosner had a 6-pounder on the first day of the
event and landed a 5 1/2-pounder on Saturday.
Though they spent much of
their time fishing shoreJewel Pro Spider Jig with
Yamamoto Double Tail Grub
line cover in the first
two miles of the
Little
River
arm of Fort
Lucky Craft
Slender Pointer
Berkley
PowerBait
Chigger Craw
Bomber Suspending
Pro Long A
Loudoun Lake, they
Secret Lures Jig
moved to the main lake whenever wind or current washed points.
The pair pitched or flipped 3/16- and 5/16-ounce Jewel Pro
Spider Jigs under docks or into laydowns. Brown with purple flash was the most productive color, and the pair
matched the jigs with a Yamamoto Double Tail Grub in a
brown and purple color or a watermelon and orange color.
“We just couldn’t get that one big keeper on the last
day,” Cosner says. “We were so close, but finishing second
in a tournament like this is still a great feeling. It was a wonderful experience for all of us, thanks to the National Guard
and FLW Outdoors.”
Auburn University, 28-10
Where Texas State stopped at the railroad bridge
in the Little River early
Smithwick Rattlin’ Rogue
on the
Berkley PowerBait
Power Minnow
third morning, the Auburn team of Parker and Baker
blew past them and kept going until the river became little more than a narrow stream. From the far reaches of
the Little River, the Tigers fished their way downstream
to build a three-fish stringer of 10 pounds, 14 ounces.
However, while the three fish were an upgrade over the
day before, it was a far cry from the team’s impressive
day one.
“The first day we thought we were on a solid pattern,”
Baker says. “We fished main-lake points and any irregularity, such as a single dock along a long stretch of bank or a
single rock, and we caught seven good keepers. We used
Scrounger heads with Berkley PowerBait Power Minnows
(smelt) and (Smithwick) Rattlin’ Rouges. Then it all
changed on the second day – that killed us. At least we were
first on the first day of the first National Guard FLW College
Fishing National Championship, and that was something.”
Murray State University, 21-8
Feast or famine — that was the theme for Murray State
as it went from 15 pounds, 12 ounces on the opening day to
zero on day two. Like Auburn, Murray State was victimized
by a lack of current in the second round. Tippet and Miller
77
Texas A&M, 21-7
SPRO Little
John MD
SPRO Little
John MD
Prowler Tube
caught their openinground bass on SPRO Little John MD crankbaits at a railroad
bridge that spanned a creek mouth. The current that funneled through the mouth died on the second day, however,
and with it the fishing.
“The bass moved offshore into water about 8 or 10 feet
deep and suspended,” Miller says. “We tried everything –
Carolina rigs to drop-shot rigs – but couldn’t get them to
bite. The third day we checked them again and it was the
same thing, so we headed down toward the dam and managed to catch four little keepers just flipping docks and
brush with Prowler Tube jigs (green pumpkin with blue
sapphire tails) rigged Texas style with 3/8-ounce tungsten
weights. We also added
Prowler tube rattles to
the tubes because the
water was so dingy.”
The Racers’ 5 pounds, 12
ounces helped them overtake Texas A&M in the
standings by 1 ounce and claim fourth.
The Aggies came out swinging in the
first round and were less than 2 pounds
behind leader Auburn by day’s end. Paul
Manley and Andrew Shafer faded from
there, however, and could only manage stringers of
4 pounds, 8 ounces and 1-10 the next two days.
“Mainly, we stayed between Louisville and Little River
and concentrated on small pockets,” Manley says. “Every
morning we started the same way: cranking SPRO Little
Johns (cell mate and spring craw colors). At about 9 we
would switch to Texas-rigged (Zoom Ultravibe) Speed
Craws and Zoom 6-inch Lizards and flip bare banks and
laydowns. We were trying to find staging fish, but the
water level fluctuated so much that the fish moved out and
stayed there.”
Zoom Ultravibe
Speed Craw
SPRO Little John
Zoom 6-inch Lizard
Chance Meeting Leads
to a Championship Team
Though University of Florida teammates
Jake Gipson and Matthew Wercinski are from
Niceville, Fla., and attended high school together, they barely knew each other until after they
were invited on a fishing trip in 2006 by a mutual friend whose father owned a lake house in
Georgia. Being that Gipson and Wercinski both
lived in Gainesville while attending Florida, the
friend suggested that they drive to the lake
together. During the trip, Gipson and Wercinski
bonded, and upon their return to Gainesville,
they joined a local club and began fishing tournaments as a team. On their way to capturing
the National Guard FLW College Fishing
National Championship, Gipson and Wercinski
won an event at every stage – qualifier, regional and the championship.
By the way, the destination for their first
fishing trip together was Georgia’s Lake Lanier,
where Gipson and Wercinski will return in early
August to participate in the Forrest Wood Cup.
78
ALL-AMERICANS
National Guard FLW College Fishing 2010 All-America Team
S
ports are all about performances. Individuals rising
under pressure when a season or championship is on
the line and amazing us with their greatness – that’s
what draws fans back each season. We long for such
moments and we elevate our sports icons as reward for the
thrills they provide and the examples they set.
Alas, there can only be one champion each season, and
the spotlight isn’t big enough for everyone. In National
Guard FLW College Fishing circles, the 2010 national champions are Matthew Wercinski and Jake Gipson of the
University of Florida.
However, there were other college anglers who shined
throughout the various qualifying steps to the championship, even though they couldn’t claim the coveted title.
And this special group of anglers is worthy of recognition.
For that reason, FLW Outdoors is proud to recognize the
first National Guard FLW College Fishing All-America
Team.
Even the pros have their good and not-so-good tournaments, and deciding who would be on the All-America
team was the subject of much discussion. Instead of taking
a subjective approach, however, we let the collegians make
their own case for induction. In the end, their inclusion on
the All-America list was based on the points they accumulated throughout the 2009-2010 season and subsequent
regional and championship events. Here, then, are the elite
performers of the first National Guard FLW College Fishing
All-America Team:
Eric Andersen
San Jose State
John Anderson
Tarleton State University
Shaye Baker
Auburn University
Wyatt Blevins
VirginiaTech
Alec Brassington
Sacramento State
David Cosner
Texas State University
Sark Davidian
Fresno State
Ben Dziwulski
North Carolina State
Reed Frazier
University of Oregon
Jake Gipson
University of Florida
79
Kevin Moeller
Ohio State University
Dennis Parker
Auburn University
Jesse Schultz
Indiana University
Andrew Shafer
Texas A&M
KalemTippett
Murray State
Dustin Vaal
Indiana University
Matthew Wercinski
University of Florida
Fish Caught: Six keepers, 14 pounds, 1 ounce
Lake Ouachita, April 17
CENTRAL DIVISION
Jay McCollum
Texas State University
Tyler Moberly
Eastern Kentucky University
TOP OF THE CLASS
80
Paul Manley
Texas A&M
by Julie Wilkins
Winning Team: University of Wisconsin, Stout
Ryan Helke (left)
Menomonie, Wis.
Sophomore
Jeremy Anibas (right)
Colfax, Wis.
Junior – applied science
Winning Pattern: Though
the bass were in the
midst of the spawn, the
teammates decided to forgo sight-fishing and
instead went junk fishing
up the Ouachita River.
They took advantage of
the cloudy conditions and
used Heddon Zara Spooks
with silver bellies, Lucky
Craft Pointers in chartreuse shad and spinnerbaits to target aggressive,
shallow fish.
spinnerbait
Heddon Zara
Spook
Lucky Craft Pointer
Winning Team: LaGrange College
Torre Pike
Flat Rock, Ala.
Sophomore – history and political
science
Ryan Wakenigg
Cataula, Ga.
Freshman – business management
Fish Caught: Six keepers,
11 pounds, 11 ounces
Winning Team: Sonoma State University
Alex Christianson
Cotati, Calif.
Senior – business administration
Luke Haley
Sebastopol, Calif.
Senior – physics
Winning Pattern: Fishing the north side of the lake, within two
Winning Pattern: All of the
teammates’ fish came from
200 feet of shoreline near the
mouth of Flint River and
Spring Creek. There, they
found clumps of grass
in 5 to 8 feet near
lily pads that
were holding
spawning shad. To
mimic the forage, the
anglers ripped Strike King
spinnerbaits (sexy shad)
through the grass to catch
their fish, which were all
caught before noon.
Lake Mead, May 8
WESTERN
DIVISION
Fish Caught: Six keepers,
24 pounds, 4 ounces
Lake Seminole, May 1
SOUTHEAST
DIVISION
miles of Callville Bay, the teammates sight-fished grassy and sandy
areas in 1 to 5 feet of water. Because of the clear water and sunny
conditions, the fish were spooky, so the anglers stayed about 50
feet away and cast into the beds.
They used 4 1/2-inch Roboworm
Straight Tail worms in bold bluegill
rigged wacky style with homemade screwball heads. They
dragged the lures across
the beds to catch
their keepers.
4 1/2-inch Roboworm
Straight Tail worms
Strike King
spinnerbait
CENTRAL DIVISION
Kentucky/Barkley Lakes, May 15
Fish Caught: Six keepers, 24 pounds, 3 ounces
Winning Team: Purdue University
Charles Spicer
Arcola, Ind.
Sophomore – forestry and natural resources
Chris Kaiser
Carmel, Ind.
Freshman – forestry
Rapala DT16
in parrot
Winning Pattern: The teammates targeted main-lake points, where
chunk rock transitioned to pea gravel banks near the Pisgah Bay area.
Using Rapala DT16 crankbaits in parrot, they reeled quickly with a
stop-and-go retrieve, letting the lures bounce off cover, to boat the
winning fish.
81
WEIGHING IN
TOURNAMENT TESTED
SCRIPTED VICTORY
Practice notes help Jones catch unseen bed fish by Sean Ostruszka
E
very tournament angler has a game plan. Matt Jones
was no exception during the FLW American Fishing
Series Central Division event on Lake Ouachita.
However, his plan wasn’t just in his head; it was written
down on paper. And his written script played out to perfection, even though he had to ad-lib a few times.
Jones had never fished Ouachita prior to the tournament, but heard the fish were getting close to spawning.
With that in mind, he began the first morning of practice
throwing a jerkbait on a staging point, which produced a
4-pounder on the second cast. However, once he moved
shallow into a little cove just off the main channel and saw
the fish were already on their beds, he immediately abandoned the jerkbait and went to soft plastics.
“I like seeing fish,” says Jones, who lives in Spokane, Mo.
“I’m very comfortable fishing that way.”
The fish weren’t so comfortable. Jones saw a number of
3-, 4- and 5-pounders near stumps in 2 to 5 feet of water.
They could also see him, and they would spook when they
did. Jones responded with a trick often employed on the
highland impoundments near his home. First he made notes
of the locations of the biggest bass he saw (see sidebar).
By the end of practice, he had scribbled the locations of
about 50 fish in his notebook. From there, he looked through
his notes and wrote down a game plan to catch his five
biggest fish the first morning.
Matt Jones
Taking Notes
Lake Ouachita might be one of the clearest fisheries in the
country. That makes bed-fishing a tough proposition, as the bass
can see anglers as well as the anglers can see them. Knowing
this, Jones didn’t want to be able to see the bedded bass he was
fishing. Instead, he let his notes tell him where they were.
Jones figured out that the biggest bass
were nesting near stumps. During practice
he went looking and waypointed any stumps
he could find. Just as important, he got right
on top of the stumps to figure out exactly
where the bass were positioned near each one.
In a notebook, he wrote down the number of
the waypoint, along with the estimated weight
of the bass and where the fish was in relation to
the stump.
“Most often, the bigger bass were on the deepwater sides of the stumps,” Jones says. “But sometimes they would be just off to the side or under a
bush.
“I had to stay pretty far off the fish in the tournament to not spook them, so I had to have confidence
that I was making the right pitch. Making those notes
gave me that confidence.”
82
Lake Ouachita Results
Pl.
1
First Name | Last Name
MATTHEW JONES
City / State
SPOKANE, MO
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
STETSON BLAYLOCK
CARY BEVER
SHANE LONG
KEITH GREEN
CODY BIRD
ROY HAWK
BRANDON RHODEN
DENNIS BEAN
ROGER HARP
BENTON, AR
RHINELANDER, WI
SARCOXIE, MO
ARKADELPHIA, AR
GRANBURY, TX
SALT LAKE CITY, UT
GRAPEVINE, AR
HOT SPRINGS, AR
HUNTSVILLE, AR
Fish
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
Day 1
lbs-oz
20-04
19-10
19-11
14-01
17-09
17-03
18-02
14-07
17-07
16-12
Winning Lure:
Texas-rigged green pumpkin Zoom Big Critter Craw
with 5/16-ounce tungsten weight
There wasn’t any science
behind why Jones chose a
Zoom Big Critter Craw, just
confidence. He has been
experimenting for years with
different soft plastics, but once
he tried the Critter Craw he stopped
experimenting.
“It just seems to work the best
for me,” Jones says. “Obviously, it
looks like a crayfish, and it is just
something bass don’t like in their
beds.”
Because he had to make such long
pitches, Jones opted for the 5/16ounce weight. Anything heavier, Jones
felt, would hurt his chances of feeling
bites. Less weight might have hurt his
accuracy.
Conditions:
Air temperature: Low 60s in the
morning, warming to mid-70s
Weather: Sunny the first two days, with
5- to 10-mph winds; cloudy and windier
the third day
Water temperature: 66 degrees
Predominant lake feature: Stumps in 2 to
5 feet of water within small pockets just
off the main river channel
Day 2
Fish lbs-oz
5
17-14
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
15-05
12-13
18-06
15-01
16-01
17-09
16-14
13-15
14-01
Days 1 & 2
Fish lbs-oz
10
38-02
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
34-15
32-08
32-07
32-10
33-04
35-11
31-05
31-06
30-13
Day 3
Fish lbs-oz
5
15-03
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
14-07
15-05
15-04
12-11
11-14
8-07
12-10
11-05
9-10
Days 1, 2 & 3
Fish lbs-oz
Winnings
15
53-05
$20,726
+ Ranger Boat, Motor, Trailer
15
49-06
$7,047
15
47-13
$4,974
15
47-11
$4,145
15
45-05
$3,731
15
45-02
$3,316
15
44-02
$2,902
15
43-15
$2,487
15
42-11
$2,073
15
40-07
$1,658
Sure enough, the first morning of the tournament he ran
right to his largest fish – a near 6-pounder – and had it in the
livewell in five pitches. It took only 10 minutes for
another 5-pounder to commit, but his third fish
he had pinpointed was gone.
“I had some bigger fish (on my
day-one game plan) that I didn’t think
would be found,” Jones says. “So I started fishing
for big fish that I thought were easier to find, saving
the ones that would be harder for the competition
to find for the later days.”
By 10 a.m., Jones had 20 pounds, 4 ounces in
the livewell, which would give him the lead,
and then he went to work helping his co-angler.
Day two was pretty much a carbon copy. Jones had a limit
by 10 a.m., again, though it only weighed about 15 pounds.
Luckily, while searching, he watched a 5-pounder chase a
perch out from a bed underneath a bush. Five minutes later he
lipped the bass and used it to cull his weight up to 17-14. That
gave him a 3-pound lead going into the final day.
Clouds and wind greeted the anglers on day three,
prompting Jones to make a move to some points he
hadn’t yet fished. He caught five small keepers by 8:30 a.m.
with a jerkbait and swimbait and then cycled through
the remaining fish in his notebook that hadn’t already
been caught by other anglers. He found and caught a
few, including a helpful 4-pounder.
However, the fish that sealed the win was
one that Jones had been unable to catch the
first two days of the tournament despite
his efforts.
“It was a 3 1/2-pounder that had a
bed between two bushes, so you
couldn’t make a long pitch to it,” Jones
says. “You had to get right on it, and every
time I did the fish would run off. So
around 1:30 the last day I pulled up on it
and told my co-angler, ‘If I’m going to
win this, I have to go catch that
fish.’ I rigged a drop-shot
with a Roboworm, and I
dropped the rig right in the
bed. Then I backed my
boat off 60 to 70 yards,
and she bit.”
Sometimes it pays to
tweak the script.
83
WEIGHING IN
TOURNAMENT TESTED
AMBUSHING SHAD
Jordan targeted shad around grass lines at Seminole by Sean Ostruszka
O
ne cast and Frank Jordan Jr.
knew he was in pretty good
shape.
Leading up to the FLW
American Fishing Series Southeast
Division event on Lake Seminole,
Jordan already had figured out how he
would catch his fish. As a local from
nearby Bainbridge, Ga., he’d dealt with
all the conditions that were likely to be
in play during the event – water temperature in the low 70s, full moon,
postspawn – and they all pointed
toward an upcoming shad spawn. That
meant the bass should be crashing the
grass lines along main river channels to
ambush incoming bait.
However, as your mutual fund manager likes to say, past success doesn’t
always guarantee future returns. So it
was a relief when he made a cast in practice and watched a small school of shad
trail his spinnerbait. It might as well
have been an arrow pointing to the exact
location of the bass.
Targeting grass lines in 6 to 8 feet of
water in the Flint River, Jordan averaged
20 pounds a day during practice by
throwing shad-colored War Eagle
buzzbaits and spinnerbaits over and
along the grass. The grass topped off
anywhere from 3 feet to mere inches
Winning Lures:
Frank Jordan Jr.
below the surface, and the shad and
bass fluctuated within that range
depending on the wind, favoring the
slightly deeper end in the calmest of
conditions and shifting toward the shallows when the wind picked up.
The best part, however, was that the
grass bite wasn’t even at its peak prior
to the tournament.
“I don’t think the shad were spawning in practice, but I knew they would
be coming in,” Jordan says. “That was
only going to sweeten my areas.”
1/4- and 3/8-ounce War Eagle
spinnerbait and buzzbait in shad colors
1/4- and 3/8-ounce War Eagle spinnerbaits in shad colors
1/4- and 3/8-ounce War Eagle buzzbaits in shad colors
10-inch Berkley PowerBait Power Worm in watermelon purple red fleck
Targeting the shad spawn around heavy grass, Jordan chose the spinnerbait and buzzbait because they both could stay above the cover and imitate
shad. He rotated four or five different colors in variations of white, silver and
blue, with all of them working. The lone stipulation was that his spinnerbait
had to have a nickel blade and a gold blade.
He switched between the 1/4- and 3/8-ounce versions of his spinnerbait
depending on the depth of the top of the grass. The key was reeling it slowly
enough to always make contact with the grass, even getting the spinnerbait snagged up at times and popping it out, which Jordan says the War Eagle model is one of the best at
doing.
10-inch Berkley
The worm was used on a deep trash pile of
PowerBait Power
treetops. He Texas-rigged it with a 1/4-ounce
Worm in watermelon
purple red fleck
weight and crawled it as slowly as possible
through the debris.
84
Lake Seminole Results
Pl.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
FRANK JORDAN JR.
MASON BROCK
DONNY BASS
CHAD PROUGH
TY SOLIS
KEITH PACE
CHRIS WEBER
DAVID MOCK
KEVIN SNIDER
JOHN BITTER
City / State
BAINBRIDGE, GA
MARIANNA, FL
FORT MYERS, FL
CHIPLEY, FL
ALBANY, GA
MONTICELLO, AR
FORT MYERS BEACH, FL
TALLAHASSEE, FL
ELIZABETHTOWN, KY
MAITLAND, FL
Fish
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
Day 1
lbs-oz
19-11
21-04
22-04
18-10
23-05
14-11
18-03
13-10
20-06
15-05
Day 2
Fish lbs-oz
5
17-03
5
13-10
5
15-12
5
19-07
5
10-12
5
19-10
5
15-13
5
23-12
5
13-05
5
16-09
Days 1 & 2
Fish lbs-oz
10
36-14
10
34-14
10
38-00
10
38-01
10
34-01
10
34-05
10
34-00
10
37-06
10
33-11
10
31-14
Day 3
Fish lbs-oz
5
19-05
5
14-07
5
11-00
5
10-03
5
13-11
5
10-09
5
10-04
2
3-13
3
6-01
5
7-05
Days 1, 2 & 3
Fish lbs-oz
15
56-03
15
49-05
15
49-00
15
48-04
15
47-12
15
44-14
15
44-04
12
41-03
13
39-12
15
39-03
Winnings
$19,119
$6,500
$4,589
$3,824
$3,441
$3,059
$2,677
$2,294
$1,912
$1,530
And sweeten it did. The pro had a
limit by 11 a.m. on day one thanks to his
buzzbait. He then decided to lay off his
key area and hit one of his locals-only
secret spots – a “trash pile” of treetops in
16 to 18 feet of water that produced a
3-pounder and a 6-pounder in practice
when he made a couple of casts to it.
Sure enough, when it counted he caught
a 6-pounder on a 10-inch Berkley
PowerBait Power Worm for a 4-pound
cull that pushed his weight to 19
pounds, 11 ounces. That put him in sixth.
Jordan moved up two places on
day two fishing the same areas, only
this time he caught his bass with the
spinnerbait.
“It was better topwater conditions
than day one because it was cloudy and
a little windy, but they wouldn’t hit the
buzzbait,” Jordan says. “I picked up the
spinnerbait and quickly left there with
a limit.”
Another stop at the deep timber
around noon produced another cull fish
to move Jordan to 17 pounds, 3 ounces
for the day.
Conditions:
Air temperature: Mid-70s to
low 80s
Weather: Sunny and dead calm on
day one; gradually cloudier and
windier over final two days, with
winds reaching more than 25 mph
by day three
Water temperature: 70 to 75
degrees
Predominant lake features: Grass
lines on river edges in 6 to 8 feet
of water in the Flint River; a trash
pile of treetops in 16 to 18 feet of
water
85
TOURNAMENT TESTED
The final day, however, was far from
easy – for Jordan or the rest of the field.
Sustained 15-mph winds started off the
day, progressively reaching upward of
25 mph around midday. That wreaked
havoc with many anglers’ spots.
Luckily, Jordan’s weedlines were relatively protected. His problem was keeping fish hooked.
“I got off to a frustrating start,” he
says. “I had been catching a limit every
morning off this one spot, and I got
there that morning, caught three and
then lost two monsters. I thought I had
blown it right there because the wind
was starting to get bad.”
He eventually was able to beat out a
limit from his prime area, but it was
hardly a winning sack. Unable to hit his
deep areas thanks to the wind, he
ducked into a weedy cut protected from
the wind – a place he had been saving
all week. Around noon, the move paid
off in the form of a 7-pounder that
engulfed his buzzbait.
“That fish made me feel a little better,” Jordan says.
It also propelled him to a near
7-pound victory.
All-Day Shad Spawn?
Late spring has always been a time when
anglers hear of tournaments being won by
anglers targeting the shad spawn. The water
temperature is just right, and according to conventional wisdom all it takes is a full moon to
send the shad into reproductive mode, with
postspawn bass chowing down. However, unlike
Jordan, most often those anglers are fishing
hard, shallow cover early in the morning.
Because shad are broadcast spawners –
females release their eggs, the males fertilize them, and the eggs drift and
stick to something, where they are left to mature and hatch on their own
– temperature is key to the survival of the eggs. Hard surfaces retain heat
better than soft ones, which is why shad often seek out shallow sand, shell
beds, riprap, stumps and docks when releasing their eggs.
Jordan, however, was targeting shad that seemed to be spawning near
hydrilla. Some hard bottom was nearby, and the shad seemed to be relating more toward the weed growth.
Jordan did notice, though, that he saw more shad and got more bites
around dense patches of hydrilla. An explanation for this could be that the
denser the weed growth, the more it would mimic a hard surface and retain
heat. Another explanation could be that Jordan wasn’t even fishing the shad
spawn the entire time. Sure, he had stretches of weeds where he caught fish
every morning, but the shad-spawn bite is often finished after the morning
hours because shad spawn mainly at night. That might mean that later in the
day Jordan was catching bass that had pulled back out to the weeds to follow
shad leaving their spawning areas. Either way, he stayed on the fish all day.
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WEIGHING IN
TOURNAMENT TESTED
MEANT TO BE
Team effort puts Caporuscio on top at Lake Mead by Sean Ostruszka
J
oseph Caporuscio might have caught all the fish, but he
will be the first to admit he wasn’t the lone winner at the
FLW Series National Guard Western Division event at
Lake Mead.
His dad, uncle, the dealer at his sponsor marina, a couple
with a pleasure boat who towed his boat in after the first day –
they all deserve a spot on the trophy’s nameplate (see sidebar).
“There is no way I could have done it without all the help
from everyone,” Caporuscio says.
Joseph Caporuscio
“It was a big win for everybody.”
Basically, if it could go wrong
for the angler from Coto de Caza,
Calif., it did, during both practice
and the tournament. Yet even
when it all went wrong, it still
went right.
Caporuscio has fished Lake
Mead since he was a tyke and is
more than familiar with the fishery. However, the lake rose nearly
20 feet this past winter and had
been steadily receding all spring.
There was plenty of submerged
timber in earlier months, but
come practice only 5 feet of submerged shoreline was left. In
that small section of cover there were plenty of bass, especially in the Overton Arm above Echo Bay. Some fish were spawning, but with the water receding about 6 inches every day, the
bass seemed confused. Most were either guarding areas or
cruising.
The blessing was that Caporuscio didn’t hit those fish until
the last day of the tournament. Strong winds had muddied up
his prime area, so he planned on fishing more toward the
mouth of Overton, where the water was clearer. Of course, he
couldn’t even get there day one. He experienced engine trouble the day before and was left with only his trolling motor the
entire first day.
“I knew of an old spot we fished a lot that was only two
miles from the ramp,” Caporuscio says. “It was just a sandy
bank with some grass, but it was all I could get to with the
trolling motor.”
Luckily, he caught a 3-pounder on a jig right off the bat,
and he proceeded to catch six or seven more thanks to a dropshotted 4 1/2-inch Roboworm. Caporuscio used the worm to
cull twice, eventually bringing in 12 pounds.
With his dad, Dino, bringing him a new boat for day two,
Caporuscio was finally able to fish his prime areas. However,
30- to 40-mph winds, with gusts up to 60 mph, made it slow
going to get there, and the wind changed his fishing style. The
fish he was catching on the drop-shot were ones he could see,
but with the wind, he couldn’t spot the bass anymore. That
prompted a switch to a homemade vibrating jig for a reaction
88
If it could go wrong …
Usually, the winner of an event talks about all the
lucky breaks he had to claim victory, and Caporuscio did
get his fair share of breaks. However, he needed every
one considering all the bad luck he also had attached to
him. Whether during practice or the event, it seems nothing was safe from the curse that surrounded Caporuscio.
“I should have known my bad
luck was starting to build in practice,” Caporuscio says.
The first straw was a simple
snapped trolling motor cable the
first day of practice. Luckily, he
had a replacement in his truck.
As Caporuscio motored back to
the ramp to get it, however, the
trim on his outboard went out.
That would prove to be the
least of his problems with the big
motor, as the next day it died for
good in the afternoon. After calling Assistant FLW Outdoors
Tournament
Director
Chris
Hoover to inform him of the situation, Caporuscio didn’t
get off the water until 9:30 p.m. and back to the hotel until
after 11 p.m.
“I just kept saying I hope my luck changes tomorrow,”
he says.
It didn’t… and it did.
He had to fish the entire first day of the tournament
with only his trolling motor, but at least he got a tow back
to the ramp thanks to a couple in a pleasure boat. Things
only got better when his dad, borrowing Caporuscio’s
uncle’s truck, borrowed a boat from Anglers Marine in
Anaheim, Calif., and drove five hours to get it to him.
Of course, even the equipment on the new boat didn’t fully cooperate. The collar that adjusts the height of
the trolling motor broke at some point during the tournament. Fishing such shallow water, Caporuscio had his
trolling motor basically dredging bottom. Luckily,
Caporuscio used a piece of two-by-four left over from his
working on his previous boat to prop up the trolling
motor. Even then the trolling motor still almost cost
Caporuscio the winning fish on the final day when it created a massive mud cloud.
Like everything else that week, though, it somehow
worked out for Caporuscio in the end. He left the fish, let
the cloud settle, went back and stuck the bass.
“I’m not sure I want another week like that,”
Caporuscio says. “I mean, I won. But everything that
went wrong was just crazy.”
TOURNAMENT TESTED
bite. He also mixed in a California
Swimbabes Baby E swimbait to give
bass another option.
The results over the next two days
were similar, with the vibrating jigswimbait combo bringing in 12 pounds,
7 ounces and 11-7, respectively, to put
him in third going into the final day.
The last day presented a unique
opportunity to switch places.
“I was all set to go to my main area,
but I noticed at takeoff that it was deadcalm for the first time all tournament,”
Caporuscio says. “So I decided to go to
the area that my dad and I had found
during practice, past Echo Bay.”
When a 4-pounder followed his
swimbait on his fourth cast,
Caporuscio knew he made the right
decision, especially when he cast back
to that fish and caught it with the
drop-shot. In total, Caporuscio only
had six bites, but they were the right
bites, with none being more important
than his final fish.
At 1 p.m. he spotted a 3-pounder
behind a tree, and “for some unknown
reason” he cast at it with his open-hook
jig. The bass charged over to eat it, but
the hook snagged a piece of grass and
the fish spooked. The scene apparently
spooked Caporuscio as well, because
he inadvertently hit the trolling motor
and sent a dust cloud over the area.
“My heart just dropped,” he says. “I
knew that was the winning fish, and I
thought I blew it.”
He idled around the corner and
wasted 15 precious minutes hoping the
area would clear. Sure enough, it did,
and the bass was again behind the tree.
This time, Caporuscio went with his
trusty drop-shot, made the perfect cast
and caught the fish, ending an odd but
somehow perfect week.
“If I had to describe my week with one
word,” he says, “it would be, ‘wow.’”
Drop-shot 4 1/2-inch
Roboworms
Winning Lures:
Drop-shot 4 1/2-inch Roboworms in red crawler and blue crawler with a
3/16-ounce Lunker City Lures Bakudan weight and 1/0 Gamakatsu
ReBarb hook
1/2-ounce homemade vibrating jig in green pumpkin
California Swimbabes Baby E swimbait
Whether the bass were cruising, bedding or guarding, Caporuscio did
most of his damage with the drop-shot. The keys to the lure were its subtleness when entering the water and its ability to tempt bass.
“There’s a strange nature about that worm sitting above the bottom that
you can’t get with a shaky head,” Caporuscio says. “It gets a fish’s attention
if you can shake it without moving the weight.”
While he would cast past stationary bass and slowly bring the lure to
them, Caporuscio found that the cruisers were tougher. He had to anticipate where the fish were heading and cast 10 to 20 feet in front of them
and hope the wiggling worm was enough to attract them even if he didn’t
cast directly in their path.
The vibrating jig led to numerous fish on days two and three, as it
helped him catch fish he couldn’t see in
the windy conditions.
He caught a couple of fish on the
swimbait, but he used it more as a
search bait. Bass would often follow it,
showing themselves to Caporuscio so
he could toss at them again with the
drop-shot.
Conditions:
Air temperature: High 70s to high 80s
Weather: Dead calm on days one and
four; winds in excess of 20 mph, with
gusts up to 60 mph on days two and
three
Water temperature: 62 to 70 degrees
Predominant lake features: Stick lines of
flooded brush; hard-bottom areas in
small cuts with brush or grass
Lake Seminole Results
Pl.
1
2
3
JOSEPH CAPORUSCIO
JUSTIN KERR
JASON HICKEY
City / State
COTO DE CAZA, CA
SIMI VALLEY, CA
WEISER, ID
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
BRENT EHRLER
TIM KLINGER
BRETT HITE
CODY MEYER
DEREK YAMAMOTO
CHRIS ZALDAIN
JIMMY REESE
REDLANDS, CA
BOULDER CITY, NV
PHOENIX, AZ
GRASS VALLEY, CA
BOULDER CITY, NV
SAN JOSE, CA
WITTER SPRINGS, CA
Day 1
Fish lbs-oz
5
12-00
5
13-06
5
10-12
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
13-05
14-09
10-04
10-15
15-12
9-08
8-12
Fish
5
5
5
5
4
5
5
5
5
5
Day 2
lbs-oz
12-07
14-04
12-13
10-08
9-06
12-05
9-10
7-11
14-14
12-08
Day 3
Fish lbs-oz
5
11-07
5
11-09
5
12-03
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
11-04
13-04
10-15
12-03
9-00
7-02
10-02
Days 1, 2 & 3
Fish lbs-oz
15
35-14
15
39-03
15
35-12
15
14
15
15
15
15
15
35-01
37-03
33-08
32-12
32-07
31-08
31-06
Day 4
Fish lbs-oz
5
13-11
5
8-09
5
9-02
5
1
8-15
2-00
Days 1, 2, 3 & 4
Fish lbs-oz
Winnings
20
49-09
$43,419
20
47-12
$17,368
20
44-14
$13,026
+ Cabela’s Angler Cash: $1,000
20
44-00
$14,353 *
15
39-03
$10,178 *
$7,381
$6,947
$6,513
$7,834 *
$5,645
*Optional pot. Anglers may choose to enter the optional pot for an additional entry fee and chance to win more money.
90
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WEIGHING IN
TOURNAMENT HIGHLIGHTS
Division: FLW American
Fishing Series
Southeast Division
Event Location: Lake Seminole
Date: 4/29-5/1
Winning Angler: Frank Jordan Jr.
Hometown: Bainbridge, Ga.
Winning Pattern: Fished the Flint
River arm, targeting
grass lines, edges
and points in 6 to 8
feet of water
Winning Lure(s): War Eagle spinnerbait and War Eagle
buzzbait
Winning Weight 56-03
Division: FLW American
Fishing Series
Central Division
Event Location: Lake Ouachita
Date: 4/15-4/17
Winning Angler: Matthew Jones
Hometown: Spokane, Mo.
Winning Pattern: Sight-fished for
bedding bass
Winning Lure(s): Texas-rigged green
pumpkin Zoom Big
Critter Craw and
drop-shot
Roboworm
Winning Weight: 53-05
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Bama
Logan Martin Lake
5/8
Mike Parrott
Alexander City, Ala.
Fished shallow
bedding spots near
a drop-off
Winning Lure(s): 3/8-ounce jig
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
BFL Choo Choo
Lake Guntersville
4/24
Buddy Gross
Hometown: Chickamauga, Ga.
Winning Pattern: Fished for
postspawn bass
Winning Lure(s): Storm swimbait and
green pumpkin jig
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Cowboy
Sam Rayburn
4/24
David Waller
Fort Worth, Texas
Fished main-lake
points
Winning Lure(s): Zoom Fluke and
4-inch worm
92
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Gator
Lake Okeechobee
4/17
Robert Crosnoe
Inverness, Fla.
Fished shallow,
open pockets near
grass lines
Winning Lure(s): Soft-plastic frog
and Reaction
Innovations Skinny
Dipper
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Division: BFL Mississippi
Event Location: Tombigbee
Waterway at
Columbus Pool
Date: 5/8
Winning Angler: Gene Bishop
Hometown: Madison, Miss.
Winning Pattern: Fished near wood
in 3 to 5 feet of
water
Winning Lure(s): Shad-colored topwater lure
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Hoosier
Patoka Lake
4/17
Terry Tucker
Albion, Mich.
Fished near sunken
islands in 2 to 8
feet of water
Winning Lure(s): Watermelon seed
Chompers grub
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Illini
Rend Lake
5/1
Colby Schrumpf
Highland, Ill.
Caught suspended
bass in 8 to 10 feet
of water
Winning Lure(s): Shallow-diving
crankbait
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL LBL
Lake Barkley
4/17
Tim Sprouse
Clarksville, Tenn.
Flipped creek
channels
Winning Lure(s): Green pumpkin jig
BFL Okie
Fort Gibson Lake
5/8
Brandon Mosley
Choctaw, Okla
Flipped to shallow
rock ledges, laydowns and stickups
Winning Lure(s): Green pumpkin
craw lure
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Gator
Lake Okeechobee
5/8
Val Osinski
Hometown: Pompano Beach,
Fla.
Winning Pattern: Fished the south
end of the lake,
near isolated grass
and flat reeds
Winning Lure(s): Gambler Big EZ
and Gambler
Flappy Daddy
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Mountain
Lake Cumberland
5/8
Drew Sadler
Richmond, Ky.
Fished main-lake
points for
postspawn bass
Winning Lure(s): Shaky head with
Jackall Flick Shake
worm and War
Eagle Screamin
Eagle spinnerbait
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
Winning Lure(s):
Winning Weight:
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Piedmont
Kerr Lake
4/17
Chris Baldwin
Lexington, N.C.
Sight-fished for
bedding bass
Winning Lure(s): Zoom Baby Brush
Hog and Zoom
Critter Craw
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
BFL South Carolina
Clarks Hill Lake
4/17
Marty Quesada Jr.
BFL Music City
Kentucky Lake
4/24
Adam Vance
Mount Juliet, Tenn.
Fished surface lures
Heddon Zara Spook
18-06
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFL Northeast
Potomac River
5/1
John Lorenzo
Kane, Pa.
Fished for spawning fish in mainriver grass beds
Winning Lure(s): 1/2-ounce homemade jig with a
Zoom Super Chunk
Jr. trailer
Division:
Event Location:
Date:
Winning Angler:
Hometown:
Winning Pattern:
BFl Ozark
Lake of the Ozarks
5/1
Jason Weast
Macks Creek, Mo.
Flipped to docks in
2 to 4 feet of water
Winning Lure(s): Crawfish-colored
jig
BFL Okie
Lake Eufaula
4/24
Elmer Roberts
Claremore, Okla.
Fished for prespawn bass near
rocky banks in 5
feet of water
Winning Lure(s): Terminator spinnerbait
Hometown: Appling, Ga.
Winning Pattern: Fished for schooling bass
Winning Lure(s): Zoom Super Fluke
Division: BFL Volunteer
Event Location: South Holston
Reservoir
Date: 5/1
Winning Angler: Joe Leonard
Hometown: Bristol, Va.
Winning Pattern: Fished near rocky
points
Winning Lure(s): Carolina-rigged
swimbaits
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WEIGHING IN
BACKLASH
Greg
Bohannan
by Sean Ostruszka
I know you played college football and baseball, but, as a
bass pro, do you still consider yourself an athlete?
Absolutely. I still do cardio and weights three times a week. I
think being in shape gives you an edge on that third day. Besides,
anyone who thinks you don’t have to be in some sort of athletic
shape to be a pro should come spend a 12-hour day of practice
with me and then fish a four-day tournament.
Think you could tackle everybody on the FLW Tour?
You put me in a one-on-one drill with any of those guys, and I
can beat him.
I used to play noseguard and defensive end back in college,
and I loved seeing the scouting report that the other team had a
330-pound center because I could outquick him every time. I will
say that I was pretty sore after those games, though (laughs).
You never go fishing without …
Two turkey sandwiches. I eat two every time I’m on the water,
usually at 70 mph. And more than once I’ve lost them while running. One will fly out of my hand by the time I try to take a bite
(laughs).
Which would you rather have: a 10-pound bass or a
10-point buck?
I’d take the 10-point buck every time. I’m an avid bowhunter.
The only thing is I have a four-head limit in my house. We built our
house specifically so I could have one area where I can have four
deer heads and one elk. I have to do a lot of swapping.
I’d try to sneak in more, but I know the rules and I try not to
break them. My wife works with anesthesia, so she could put me
to sleep and make me not wake up for days (laughs). She never
threatens me with that, but I always joke with her that she could
do it.
After working as a plant manager for Tyson, do you still eat
chicken?
I actually grew up on a chicken farm, and I hated chicken. I
never ate it. After working for Tyson, now it’s my main diet item.
But if I don’t ever see the inside of a chicken house again I’d be
OK.
What’s your best co-angler story?
I’ve had some good co-anglers, but the best may have been at
the 2007 American Fishing Series Championship [on the Mobile
Delta]. His name was Teddy Bradley.
We were way up the Alabama River, and I’m tossing a little
Bandit crankbait when I hook a 4-pound Kentucky. A 4-pounder
there is like an 8-pounder everywhere else. So I’m fighting it to the
boat, and Teddy gets the net in the water. Somehow the crankbait
hooks on the net, but Teddy thinks the fish is in it, so he starts lifting it out of the water. So here is this 4-pounder dangling and
thrashing from the hook outside the net as Teddy’s lifting it up. He
realizes this and manages to roll the net just as the fish comes
unhooked.
I tell you what, there are not many times guys will be in a boat
hugging each other, but there were a lot of hugs after that fish.
96
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TBF
THE BASS FEDERATION
Keith Edges out Knapp for Championship Win
T
wo hours in, and Jay Keith was looking unbeatable.
The angler from Camden, S.C., had four fish in his
livewell, including a pair of 4-pounders. If he could
catch a fifth keeper to join them, his victory at The Bass
Federation National Championship presented by the
National Guard would be virtually assured. Too bad the
fifth keeper never came. Clouds rolled in over Watts Bar
Lake, and Keith’s bite died.
“I was pretty sure my chances of winning were slipping
away when I couldn’t get a final keeper,” he says.
As it turned out, that elusive fifth bass didn’t matter.
Keith’s 12-pound, 13-ounce bag on the final day pushed
him to 46-11 for the tournament, edging out second-place
angler Jason Knapp by just 5 ounces.
The fishing ranged from red-hot to lukewarm for the
tournament’s 94 anglers. Although only a handful of boaters
blanked, many of those in the boater division did well one
day and not so well the
second day. Keith figured that was due to a
couple of reasons.
“The water temperature went up about 7
degrees
over
the
course of the tournament, so that moved
the fish around some,”
he explains. “A lot of
guys keyed on bedding fish, which got
tougher as those fish
got pressured.”
Figuring that might
happen, Keith spent
all three days focusing
on bluffs, particularly
those with flats that
abutted the rock walls.
He flipped wood on the flats with a 3/8-ounce jig tipped
with either a NetBait Paca Craw or Gambler Flappy
Daddy trailer. In fact, Keith believes the wood was key to
his success.
“The more the better,” he says. “Every time I came across
a flat next to a bluff and with wood on it, I knew I was going
to catch a fish.”
The victory means Keith will represent the TBF at the
2010 Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Lanier this August.
However, it also means he will have a chance to test his
skills with the country’s top anglers on the FLW Tour. As the
winner of the $100,000 “Living the Dream” package, Keith
won $6,000, paid entry into the 2011 FLW Tour, and the use
of a wrapped Chevy tow vehicle and Ranger boat, along
with assorted merchandise and money to cover other
expenses along the tournament trail.
Just as the previous “Living the Dream” winners had to
make some tough decisions, Keith is evaluating his work
situation and how it will fit into his new life as an FLW Tour
pro. Two of the previous winners, Dave Andrews of Bolton,
Mass., and current TBF representative Robert Harkness of
Elizabeth, W.Va., had understanding supervisors who gave
them the freedom to fish while maintaining their “real”
jobs. The third winner, Brian Travis of Conover, N.C., used
his win as a stepping stone. He quit his job and is now fishing full-time. Keith, however, isn’t exactly sure how he’s
going to make the adjustment from a nine-to-five employee
to a professional angler. He just knows he’s going to make
it happen one way or another.
“You only live once,” he says.
Meanwhile, as close as he came to winning, Knapp came
even closer to finishing third. He and Clint Farris of
Crowley, Texas, actually caught the same weight and number of bass in three days, but since Knapp had the heaviest
individual limit between the two, Knapp took second place.
That tie-breaker was a big one. As the highest finishing
Ranger Boats owner, Knapp not only walked away with a
$2,000 check and a berth in the Bass Fishing League AllAmerican presented by Chevy, he also won a Ranger
198VX.
Considering Farris wasn’t originally in the boater division – he filled in after Donny Awtry of Watauga, Texas, had
to drop out at the last minute due to family obligations – the
finish was a welcome surprise. He caught all of his fish
around deep bluff walls with a 1/2-ounce jig.
“I lost four nice ones on the final day before I put the first
one in the boat,” Farris says. “I believe I could have won the
tournament had I been able to get a couple of those I lost.”
Despite those lost opportunities, Farris won the Central
Division. Eric Guimond of Maine took top honors in the
Eastern Division with 36-6. Texan Jason Rayls, who was
fishing for Arizona in the Southwest Division, brought
29-11 to the scales to win for that division. And Brandon
Palaniuk of Idaho won the Northwestern Division with
17-8. All of the division winners will advance to the 2010
BFL All-American.
Matthew Hartman of Fredericksburg, Pa., won the coangler division after bringing 11 bass to the scales that
weighed 27-7. The weight just bested South Carolina’s
Adam Williamson, who caught 10 bass that weighed 26-2.
Randy Pierson of California won the Southwest coangler division. Matt King of Kansas took top honors in the
Central Division. Kevin Wells of Kentucky won the
Southern Division. Boyd Golightly of Idaho won the
Northwestern Division. All of the co-angler division winners will advance to the BFL All-American as co-anglers.
TBF1
Farren
Mounts
TBF
Too Bad It Didn’t Count
When Farren Mounts of Stevensville, Mont., felt
the familiar “tick” of a fish taking his drop-shot
worm, he set the hook. When his lure didn’t budge,
Mounts figured it was just caught in the shallow rocks he was fishing. Then the
“rocks” moved, and it didn’t take long for him to figure out it wasn’t a bass.
“It went straight under the boat and doubled over my rod,” he says.
Mounts, competing in The Bass Federation National Championship presented by the National Guard on Watts Bar Lake, was fishing his drop-shot on 6pound-test line and held little hope for landing whatever was pulling so hard.
Still, he asked his co-angler if he would mind if he tried to land the unseen
giant.
“He wanted to see what it was, also,” Mounts says.
After a 30-minute give-and-take, Mounts brought the fish up to the side of
the boat. It turned out to be a giant flathead catfish that Mounts conservatively
estimates at 80 pounds. He snapped a few pictures, released the giant and
went back to fishing.
Tennessee’s state record flathead catfish is 85 pounds, 15 ounces.
Louisiana Members Help Local Fisheries
B
ass Life doesn’t hold tournaments. It doesn’t even hold monthly meetings. That’s because the nonprofit organization
isn’t even really a club. Bass Life is a fundraising entity made up of regional bass anglers that focuses on bass conservation, habitat restoration, youth fishing opportunities and community.
“We hold one event a year,” says Louisiana Bass Federation Vice President David Sherrer, who, along with other LBF
members, serves on the Bass Life board. “That’s it. It’s a banquet where we hold a raffle and other fundraising activities to
raise money for various projects throughout the region.”
The banquet attracts about 1,500 people each year, and
Signs promoting the work of
since 1993, Bass Life has raised and donated more than
the Bass Life organization.
$500,000. The money helps fund such programs as the youthoriented Get Hooked on Fishing. Bass Life also paid for GPS
units for game wardens in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas.
One of the organization’s signature programs is a costshare effort to help sustain the region’s trophy bass population. Any angler who catches a big fish can weigh it, release
it, and apply for a free or partial payment for a replica mount
of the fish. Sherrer says Bass Life will pay a portion of the
cost for a replica mount for any bass caught and released that
weighs 8 to 10 pounds and the entire cost of a replica mount
for a bass caught and released that weighs more than 10
pounds. So far, it has helped return more than 800 trophy
bass to local waters. Bass Life also helped pay for thousands
of fingerling bass over the years by donating to a local hatchery that was closed due to funding shortages.
“We have made a significant impact in our local fisheries,” Sherrer says. “It’s great that so many people from various
organizations such as The Bass Federation can come together for the greater good.”
Vermont Federation Sends a Kid to Camp
Tyler
Thomas
Vermont Bass Federation officers could have scanned a stack of applications and chosen the
best one, but why skip a chance to hold a tournament? All seven VBF clubs met in 2009 on Lake
Champlain for a club-versus-club tournament to see who would get the privilege of choosing a
young man or woman to receive a scholarship to the Green Mountain Conservation Camp.
Interested children were required to submit an application along with a brief letter stating why they
should be chosen to win the $200 scholarship.
In the end, the Chittenden County Bassmasters won the event and selected Tyler Thomas as the
winner, a young angler fully worthy of the honor.
“He really wanted to go, but I don’t think his family could afford it,” says VBF President Frank
Scalise.
This was the first VBF scholarship to the camp, but it won’t be the last. The conservation camp is popular, and VBF wants to do all it can to
help promote outdoor activities among the state’s youth.
TBF2
TBF
Harkness Struggles and Learns
When Robert Harkness of Elizabeth, W.Va., won the 2009 The Bass
Federation National Championship presented by the National Guard and the
“Living the Dream” package, he set just one simple goal: Make a check in at
least one FLW Tour event during his tenure as TBF representative. It didn’t take
him long. The West Virginia resident came in 13th at the first tour event of 2010
at Table Rock Lake.
However, Harkness quickly learned that professional fishing is all about
enjoying the ups and learning from the downs. His next event at Lake Norman
was surely a learning experience as he placed 118th. Unfortunately, it was a similar story at the next stop at Fort Loudoun-Tellico Lakes, where he finished
132nd.
“I just couldn’t get anything going during the tournament itself,” he says. “I
Robert
lost a couple of nice fish that would have moved me up, but overall, I just didn’t
Harkness
execute it like I should have. I can’t make any excuses.”
So far Harkness is enjoying the opportunities provided by winning the “Living the Dream” package. He’s met some
wonderful people and says he has experienced a great network of support from fellow TBF members at all tour stops.
California Capitalizes On Home-Water Advantage
Ryan Voorhees knows luck was on his
side on the final day of The Bass Federation
Southwest Division Championship, held on
the California Delta in May.
The Fresno, Calif., angler was casting a
Texas-rigged worm around isolated clumps of
offshore grass when he set the hook on a big
fish. He almost got the bass in the net when
it made one last pull and buried itself deep in
a patch of submerged grass.
“I pulled a little, but I just couldn’t feel anything down there other than the weeds, so I
just knew the fish had gotten off,” he says. “I
laid my rod down and sat there thinking that
Ryan
Voorhees
I had just lost the tournament. I couldn’t
believe it.”
After several minutes, Voorhees picked up
the rod so he could either pull the lure free or
break it off and continue fishing. Instead, he
felt something pull. Amazingly, the big bass,
still hooked, came out of the grass on its
own. Twenty seconds later, the fish was in
the net and then in his livewell. It weighed a
whopping 9 pounds. Thanks to that one fish,
Voorhees’ three-day total weight of 47
pounds, 13 ounces beat second-place angler
Larry Hardy of Tonto Basin, Ariz., by nearly 5
pounds.
While luck had a hand in the victory,
Voorhees capitalized on his own strength,
finesse fishing, in waters best known for big
bass and power-fishing techniques. Other
anglers flipped heavy lures on stout tackle to
thick cover. Voorhees instead worked 5-inch
Yamamoto Senkos and finesse worms on
12-pound-test fluorocarbon along the outside
edges of isolated grass.
“I think my pattern was more consistent
because the shallow fish were moving in and
out a lot because the weather was so unsta-
ble,” he says. “The fish I was targeting
stayed on those offshore clumps.”
It seems finesse dominated the tournament, as Hardy also fished small lures on
light line. Most of his 15 bass came on a
drop-shot rig on either 6- or 8-pound-test line.
Meanwhile, the 12-man California team
proved there is no such thing as the homewater curse after blowing away the four other
state teams with a total catch of 343 pounds,
14 ounces. Five of the top 10 anglers were
from California, and when the three-day tournament ended, the second-place team from
Arizona trailed by nearly 45 pounds. Utah
placed third overall with 230-8, followed by
Colorado and Nevada.
Two anglers from each state – the top finisher as a boater and the second-place finisher as a co-angler – will start with a clean
slate at the 2011 TBF National Championship
presented by the National Guard. Boaters
will compete for the coveted “Living the
Dream” package valued at $100,000 and a
slot in the Forrest Wood Cup. The co-anglers
will also compete for prizes and a chance to
advance to the Forrest Wood Cup.
Anglers representing their states in the boater division include (back row left to right): Ryan
Voorhees, Mike Isbell, Joe Raftery, Greg Gizzi and Larry Hardy. Co-anglers include (front row
left to right); Philip Garcia, John Hill, Mitch Geyer, Mike Hubbard and Bill Petersen
TBF3
TBF
Pennsylvania Club Rocks with Docks
An obvious project has turned into a calling.
The members of Brandywine Bassmasters of Downingtown, Pa., were looking for a conservation project when someone
mentioned the lack of a dock at nearby Struble Lake, an electric-motor-only reservoir. The club had already placed fish
habitat structures in the 386-acre lake, yet somehow no one had thought to build a dock there. They immediately put the
plan in action. Club President Bill Barlow says the materials were purchased entirely through fundraisers and the structure
built by a dedicated group of club members.
While that project was a few years back, that dedication continues. Since then, Brandywine Bassmasters has built three
other docks: another at Struble Lake and two at Marsh Creek State Park, a 1,700-acre state-owned property surrounding
535-acre Marsh Creek Lake. Marsh Creek is also an electric-motor-only lake, but Barlow says many club members fish the
lake even though they can’t run their gas outboards.
“It’s a great fishery, and we are a very community-oriented club, so it just seemed like the
right place for that kind of project,” Barlow says.
“Besides, we don’t think of ourselves as just a
bass fishing club.”
The most recent Marsh Creek project
involved pouring a concrete bulkhead and placing a floating dock near the wall. It was a twoday process that involved digging a foundation,
building forms and pouring concrete. Barlow
says the club is fortunate to have a landscape
contractor as a member who brought his own
backhoe to dig the footers. That saved the club
Brandywine
several hundred dollars. And since Brandywine
Bassmasters
Bassmasters worked with money it raised
club members
construct a
through open tournaments, it needed all the
new dock for
financial help it could get.
Marsh Creek
“The state owns the park, but they couldn’t
Lake.
come up with any money for the project, so we
had to do it all on our own,” Barlow recalls. “We had some money left over from a grant from Exelon Energy last year that
we used for this dock, but we did have to come up with quite a bit of money on our own.”
Barlow says the club isn’t through with Marsh Creek State Park. It has plans to add two more docks even though it will again
have to raise more money on its own as well as contribute all the manpower. So far, finding both hasn’t been a problem.
David Hart writes the TBF section of FLW Outdoors Magazine. To submit TBF club, youth, conservation or tournament news, e-mail him at [email protected].
EPNJOBUF
®
Shaw Grigsby doesn’t take just any weapon into battle. He takes the one he believes will give him the advantage, TroKar. The one with the
surgically sharpened point and quicker-penetrating barb. Because sometimes it’s not just how strong or how smart you are. But how fast.
5SPLBSMB[FSUSPLBSDPNXSJHIU. D (JMM$P%&/7&3$0
TBF4

FLW_CoversBassAug:Layout 1 - EZ

Transcription

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