David Dudley has compiled a pretty strong record at Lake Ouachita over the years. In five events at the Arkansas lake, including this year’s Forrest Wood Cup, he had three Top-10s and no finish worse than 16th.
He stuck with what worked last week, sticking with the same general areas that had produced for him in the past. The only drawback was he doesn’t feel like he was around the winning fish, hence his 11th-place result.
“I stayed in the same areas where I’ve had all of these finishes in, but I don’t think I was doing the right thing in there to win,” he said.
On day 1, he fished a popular area toward the west end of the lake and came in with 9-15.
“I thought that would be good, but evidently it wasn’t because I was in 21st,” he said.
He went back to the same area on Friday, but never had a bite in the morning under cloudy skies. He left, but back came later when the sun had burned through and “bloodied up the area” to the tune of 11-12 that moved him into 9th place. A shallow-running square-bill crankbait was his main bait around shallow stumps and on flats.
“I told myself, ‘If I can catch 100, I’m going to catch 100,’” he added. “I must’ve caught 40 fish between keepers and non-keepers.
“On (Saturday), I knew deep down I could grind some out to give myself a chance, but I caught them so good on day 2. I already knew I wasn’t going to catch them like I did the first 2 days.”
The Big Bite Lookback, which focuses on the angler who's first out of the final cut at each tour-level event, is brought to you by the great folks at Big Bite Baits.
