After a tough practice and a first day of competition where he couldn’t get any sort of momentum going, Jason Williamson made the call to go shallow and commit to sight-fishing with a wacky-rigged finesse worm at Toledo Bend.
Much like other decisions he’s made so far this season, this one paid off as he climbed 44 spots over the course of the tournament, going from 68th on day 1 to a 24th-place finish. In the process, he shaved a couple points off Ott DeFoe’s lead in the Angler of the Year chase. Williamson is currently 2nd, 11 points behind DeFoe.
“In practice, I got a couple big bites fishing out deep, but not enough,” he said. “On day 1, I scrambled around for a limit and caught a couple deep and a couple shallow, but I couldn’t get anything going.”
He went through the same areas on Friday, but the bites were few and far between.
“I felt like I needed to be on the bank so around 11 a.m., I went to the bank with a Zoom Trick Worm on a light wacky rig and started throwing at light spots,” he said.
He caught a few off beds that way and then refined the pattern to include main-lake pockets since he discovered the quantity of opportunities didn’t exist in the major creeks. Plus, he was able to avoid areas where other anglers, local or Elite Series, were fishing.
He went from 12-04 on day 1 to a 17-03 stringer on day 2 and moved up an additional nine places Saturday with a 14-08 effort.
“Figuring that out halfway through day 2 was what propelled me to making that jump,” he said. “The key was making that move to go shallow and covering water and covering new water, and staying away from the crowds.”
The Sunline Strong Performer, which focuses on the angler who makes the most significant single-day move in the standings at each tour-level event, is brought to you by the great people at Sunline.
