Stacey King's victory at the recent Table Rock PAA Tournament Series was an important one. King, of course, is a name synonymous with Table Rock. The Springfield, Mo. veteran has long been regarded as one of the best on the lake, and he showed why when he slammed a 23-pound
final-day bag that blew the event wide open.
The win also provided King with a new boost of momentum. He'd been right in the thick of the FLW Tour Angler of the Year (AOY) race, but suffered a setback at Kentucky Lake. The win here is thus another step forward for King, who's having his best season in a long time.
Here's a look at how King won Table Rock.
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 20.12
> Day 2: 5, 15.41
> Day 3: 5, 22.99
> Total = 15, 58.52
King, intimately familiar with Table Rock, didn't practice every day prior to the event. But he checked up on things enough to know that the fish were set up in their community holes and he was going to fish deep with big worms in the quest for big bites. The only place that mattered to him was 1st. If he zeroed, he said, it wouldn't hurt his feelings.
He focused on the classic summertime Table Rock pattern – long points that tapered to gravel flats with an adjacent deep channel swing. The bass would move up on the gravel to eat shad, then move back out and suspend over the channel, so the key was fishing the flat when the fish were there and actively feeding.
"They don't have to move vertically to find the depth they want, and they don't have to move far to feed," King noted of the pattern.
"They're bluff ends – long bluffs that taper out gradually," he added. "The point might be a quarter-mile long. On the final day, I fished one where the point ran probably close to 300 yards out into the lake. It had a flat with a channel alongside of it and I caught most of the fish from about 12 to 20 feet."
That final spot that King described was key. He fished there the morning of day 1, caught a 5-pounder, then left to work the community holes. On his way up the James River on the final morning, he decided to pull over and try it again. The fish were there and chomping and he boated his 23 pounds in about 90 minutes.
King's main weapon was a Texas-rigged big worm. He fished both plum and redbug.
Winning Gear Notes
King said he caught every fish that he weighed on a Texas-rigged big worm.
> Worm gear: 7' heavy-action Bass Pro Shops CarbonLite pitching stick, Bass Pro Johnny Morris Signature Series casting reel, 17-pound Bass Pro XPS fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Bass Pro tungsten weight, 5/0 offset round-bend Gamakatsu hook, 12" Bass Pro Squirmin' Super Worm and 13" Go To handpoured straight-tail worm (plum and redbug).
> About how he worked the worm, King said: "I was swimming the worm pretty fast early in the week and the first 2 days of the tournament. Then the bite slowed down (on day 2), when I only caught 15. I heard Mike McClelland say onstage that he slowed his baits down, so I started doing that the final morning. Man, they wanted it crawling along bottom real slow. I caught a 6-pounder on my second cast and I don't know how many more, but it was steady for 2 hours."
The Bottom Line
Notable
> King does see this win as a momentum boost as he prepares for the FLW Tour finale at Pickwick in a few weeks. "It's a real longshot for me to think about winning AOY down there, but at least I'm going down there with the feeling that I've been catching a lot of fish lately," he said. "I had a little bit of a stumble at Kentucky Lake and I'm hoping I'm able to have a good tournament at Pickwick. No matter how that comes outs, I want to have a good tournament there and make sure I cash a check in all 6 (FLW Tour) events."
> The Pickwick Tour finale is actually a rescheduled event. This year's Table Rock FLW Tour was canceled due to high water.
