Yesterday, BassFan published an inside look at how Harris Chain Elite Series winner Shaw Grigsby and runner-up Grant Goldbeck caught their fish (click here for that story).
Below isa look at how the rest of the Top 5 fished at the Harris Chain.
3rd: Stephen Browning
> Day 1: 5, 19-13
> Day 2: 5, 14-08
> Day 3: 5, 16-01
> Day 4: 5, 16-03
> Total = 20, 66-09
If there's one type of fishing Stephen Browning will avoid if at all possible, it's sight-fishing in a crowd. So he never bothered to work much on sight-fish during practice, and instead spent his time looking for a pattern outside the spawning areas.
He spent the event throwing soft-plastics within spawning areas, but he fished blind and was able to avoid the crowds. His bait of choice was a 5" Z-Man ElaZtech ZinkerZ.
"The water was off-color in the areas I fished," he noted. "You'd go down the bank and there'd be some Kissimmee grass, flat reeds and eelgrass all mixed up. I'd target the little holes within those areas, where you'd just kind of envision a bed being. It was very similar to what Bobby Lane did a few years ago.
"I fished over in Griffin the first 2 days, then in Dora the final 2 days," he added. "I felt like I was running out of fish so I just made the decision to change water on day 3."
He added that most times the boat was in 5 to 6 feet of water and he'd pitch up to 3 or 4 feet.
> Pitching gear: 7'11" heavy-action St. Croix Legend Extreme flipping stick, Shimano Curado E7 casting reel, 40-pound Daiwa Samurai braid (tied direct), Reaction Innovations 5/0 BMF hook, 1/4-ounce Strike King tungsten weight (pegged), 5" Z-Man ElaZtech ZinkerZ (black/blue laminate).
> He noted that he likes the Z-Man ElaZtech baits because they're much softer than the first-generation super plastics, and because they're so durable, he only used up two bags of plastics over the final 2 days. "If it would have been any other soft plastic, I'd have used 10 to 12 bags. But another huge key is the bait stands up off bottom. The fish liked that, and it also kept the muck off your hook."
Kevin VanDam felt casting and winding gave him the best opportunity for good bites.
4th: Kevin VanDam
> Day 1: 5, 17-09
> Day 2: 5, 18-03
> Day 3: 5, 12-14
> Day 4: 5, 17-03
> Total = 20, 65-13
Kevin VanDam veered far from the conventional course and largely threw hardbaits. He fished exactly the same way he did when he won the New Orleans Bassmaster Classic a month ago, except that his target was Kissimmee grass, not stumps. By the final day, he'd narrowed his bait choice to a crank.
"My pattern was kind of different each day based on the weather conditions, but I ended up throwing the same Strike King KVD 1.5 from the Classic – it was actually the very same bait," he noted.
"When the fish are wanting to spawn like that – and I was targeting the fish just coming in from the main lake on the outside lines of Kissimmee grass – you can flip and catch them, but you have to make so many casts in an area. It seemed to me that I could get some of those big bites by throwing a crank. They'd just react to it."
> Cranking gear: Quantum Tour KVD Cranking rod (fiberglass/graphite blend), Quantum Tour KVD casting reel (5.3:1), 20-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon, Strike King KVD 1.5 square-bill (chartreuse/black-back).
> He replaced the factory trebles with two No. 2 Mustad KVD Elite Triple Grip trebles.
> He also employed the new HydroWave fish-activation system.
Jonathon VanDam slowed down and flipped and milked an area for everything it had.
5th: Jonathon VanDam
> Day 1: 5, 13-14
> Day 2: 5, 12-07
> Day 3: 5, 19-00
> Day 4: 5, 11-08
> Total = 20, 56-13
Jonathon VanDam, rookie and nephew of Kevin, spent his tournament flipping in Lake Dora.
"I was flipping isolated stretches of reeds and stuff like that," he said. "I think most of the fish were pre-spawn, because I caught a lot of bucks. I only caught five females all week. I was fortunate the first day to get one good bite, about a 4-pounder, and then a bunch of males to go with it. The second day I caught another about 4 pounds, then the third day they seemed to turn on and I caught one about 6 and another about 5.
"I really feel like the area I was fishing – the fish were coming to me more than anything," he added. "I think it's a real good area that I happened to find, because the fish just replenish there. I caught multiple fish on the same clump of weeds."
> Flipping gear: 7'2" medium-heavy Shimano Cumara rod, Shimano Core casting reel, 20-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon, 5/16-ounce Strike King tungsten weight (pegged with bobber stop), 4/0 Lazer Trokar EWG Worm hook, Zoom Super Speed worm (redbug) and Strike King Game Hog (Bama bug).
Much of the tackle referenced above is available at the BassFan Store. To browse the selection, click here.
