Lake Dardanelle Elite Series

Competition Recap
Saturday, May 17, 2014

Brent Chapman
I'm still pretty disgusted with my performance this week. I was watching things today and saw how Aaron (Martens) and Rick (Clunn) are fishing, and I'm just kicking myself because it's right up my alley. I'm not sure how I missed the shallow cranking deal. I thought the flipping deal would be good, but it didn't pan out and that was really frustrating.

I'd just gotten myself out of a hole in the points and now I've dug myself back into it. I've got two events left to dig back out of it or I won't be fishing the Classic next year.

I just never had that many bites (cranking). I never got those key bites in practice to clue me into it. The flipping bite was so strong and never did I think it would go away like it did. I wish I knew why. It's one of the big mysteries about that body of water. I know just talking to some of the guys that several of them are still scratching their heads.

I look back at the last time we fished here when (Mark) Menendez won. On day 1, we had a short day because of fog and I went out and caught 19 pounds and had the lead. Then the next day I got out and catch two fish.

Flipping shallow wood was the deal in practice. I was also flipping reeds and bulrushes, but they were biting off wood in the rain and wind and typically when the sun comes out, that deal gets much better. I'm still scratching my head over it. I concentrated on the lower end because I didn't want to spread myself too thin.

Competition – Day 2
Friday, May 16, 2014

Aaron Martens
I gambled Thursday and went to try to catch a couple big ones up river and wasted half my day. I had some good stuff up there, but it didn't pan out. I caught about 13 pounds and came back down around noon and culled once or twice and that was it. I caught them up there good in practice. I just had a bad day. It wasn't happening.

Today, we missed a good part of the morning bite. They've been biting good early on, but it was really foggy. Losing that time made it a little more frantic and stressful, but I picked on them all day long. I didn't really hammer them. I caught maybe a dozen keepers today. I didn't run up the river.

In practice, I tried to find both shallow and deeper stuff, but the water's so dirty, it's making everybody fish kind of shallow. Tomorrow, I have to be ready for anything. It's crazy how cool it is here. I probably have 15 rods that I have ready and I've 10 or 12 on the deck at one time. Some I don't use and some I do. It's just organized chaos at times.

Practice Recap
Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Brent Chapman
It was 54 degrees out tonight and the rain has quit, so that's the good part. It pretty much rained all day today and the lake is all the way full again. It's amazing how they can fluctuate this place. The think I'm hoping for is once this rain has gone through that they bring back down to where it was and let it stabilize. The problem today was they let it fill up and it caused the current to slow down. Maybe they'll let some more out and get some more current going tomorrow.

I feel like I practiced well. I didn't practice like I did at Toledo Bend and try to look at the whole place. I don't feel like I spread myself too thin and I hopefully will have plenty of stuff to fish. There have definitely been more boats practicing in the area I picked than I would like to see, but it's hard to tell until everybody gets out there on Thursday and plays their cards.

Hopefully, I'll only have about five rods on the deck. Somebody may catch them off shore, but I just don't see it happening. I saw a few try, but no one was doing it consistently. I just think the water's too dirty. We really haven't had good conditions to get out off shore either because the wind has been too bad.

I'd like to have at least 15 pounds tomorrow. Obviously I'd like to have way more than that, but 15 would have me in the right ball park of where I need to be. If we can get the sun out and get it to warm up it could get really good. The fish seemed to bite really well in the rain the last 2 days, but they're calling for record lows tonight so it'll be interesting to see what that does to them.

Practice – Day 1 Recap
Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Brent Chapman
I cut my day a little short, but probably shouldn't have. We have a pretty good line of storms coming through and it's supposed to rain all through Wednesday. I have a feeling whatever guys found (Monday) they'll go back to it and whoever wins will be adjusting and figuring it out as it goes along. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

I don't call this a home lake, but I used to fish the regional circuits here so I've fished it a fair amount of times. It's a river so it's always changing. From the local reports I heard in preparing for this, the numbers are as a good as it's ever been. We were here Saturday for Kevin Short's charity tournament and there were some really good stringers caught. I suspect we'll have a decent tournament and guys are going to have to catch them pretty good.

I have no idea how the next 2 days will play out with the conditions we have. I'm going to stay optimistic. I feel comfortable with the type of fishing and doing what I feel I need to do to catch 'em. I just hope to figure it out more in the tournament.

I found one area I feel comfortable with, but one thing I'm trying to remember is when it comes to tournament time, we all stress out about trying to find too much. What I found today, I probably wouldn't be able to fish it all in the tournament. I'm going to try to fine tune what I did find and eliminate some more.

They had a lot of rain last Thursday and things got really muddy Friday so tomorrow, I expect to see lot of mud and I expect the tournament will be muddy as well. I'm fine with that. I like the mud.