Jason Williamson didn't change much of anything about where or how he fished from day 1 to day 2 of last week's Lake St. Clair Bassmaster Elite Series. He simply slowed down and took advantage of some improved conditions.
He weighed just 13-12 on the first day of the final regular-season event of the season, which relegated him to 74th place. He fared much better on the next 2 days however, catching stringers that weighed 19-04 to gain 30 places and 19-12 to climb another 16, eventually settling for a 28th-place finish.
"The first morning didn't go well," he said. "I stayed in my area (on the American side of the shipping channel in the middle of Lake St. Clair) until 12:30 and I only got three bites. Then I just kind of abandoned it and started running around and caught the 14 pounds.
"I think the majority of what was going on was I was fishing too fast. It's a real big area and several guys caught them (well) there. On the second morning I went back and I just slowed down, and I started getting more bites."
He said the emergence of the sun that day was another big factor.
"A lot of the fish were suspended on the first half of the first day, but the second day they were on the bottom. Several of the big ones I caught, I saw on my graph and I just dropped down to them. It wasn't like that on the first day – those fish were roaming around."
He threw a spybait and a deep-diving jerkbait for much of the 3-day practice period and says he stuck with those techniques for too long on day 1 of the derby. He got an ample number of bites on a dropshot that afternoon, but few were the size he needed. He figures that if he'd remained in his starting area and employed the dropshot, he'd have weighed a heavier sack.
He switched his bait to a Zoom Z Drop worm on day 2 and used it for the remainder of the tournament. He found several humps and depressions that day that he exploited on day 3.
"The third day was cloudy but slick and it was the toughest day for getting bites," he said, "but I got bigger bites from the places I'd found the day before. I think I caught seven keepers, but they were all quality."
A tip from Jacob Powroznik led him to the area where he spent the tournament.
"Except for day 2, the fish were moving constantly – they weren't sitting on the structure. It was about a 5-mile-square area and you could look down at any given time and see a huge ball of shad under the surface.
"The other cool thing was that when I'd look in my livewell in the afternoon it'd be full of crawdad pinchers. That area was very fertile and it had all the ingredients it needed."
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