Jim Moynagh caught a 3 1/2-pound bag on day 1 of the recent Red River FLW Tour Major in Louisiana and sat in 108th place when he launched the following morning. When that day was over, he'd climbed all the way to 16th, thus making the Top-20 cut.
His was by far the most significant one-day move of the event.
"My whole strategy was I wanted to fish in Pool 5 (the launch pool), so I looked at a bunch of stuff and found two areas where I got some bites and it looked like I could catch some fish," he said. "One area was a backwater lake near the takeoff, and that's where I fished the first day.
"For whatever reason, I couldn't figure them out and I didn't get the bites I'd gotten in practice. I ended up weighing just those three fish for 3-09."
He opted to abandon that place and go to his other area on day 2. He doesn't know whether it was the location change or a bait switch that was the biggest key en route to a 14-04 stringer that was tops for the day.
"That morning I tied on a spinnerbait. I hadn't hardly thrown one in practice or the day before, but several years ago I finished 15th or 17th or something like that in a tournament down there and I'd caught them all on a spinnerbait.
"I had my first keeper within 5 minutes, then maybe 15 minutes later I caught the one that weighed 5-05. I was pretty excited at that point."
His target weight for the day was 11 pounds, thinking that might get him a paycheck. He'd exceeded that by 9:30.
"I culled one more time the rest of the day and that was it. Every fish came on the spinnerbait."
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