Table Rock fished tough over the Columbus Day weekend. There's probably no definitive answer as to why, but local and FLW Tour pro Robbie Dodson, who won the Central EverStart there last weekend, was unable to work any type of pattern.
He feels the fishing
is always tougher there in October for largemouths – the fish it often takes to win – but this year in particular the spotted-bass fishing has been slow.
On the final day of the 3-day event, he weighed just 10 pounds to clinch the win, and half of the 10-angler final-day field weighed less than 8 pounds.
Here's a look at how Dodson won.
Practice
Dodson noted that he practiced "pretty hard" for the event, but he spent all of his practice out deep in the effort to discover a pattern.
Two weeks prior he and his father won a boat in a Heartland event, and they did it with bank-fish up the river. He planned to fish that bite, but wanted a backup deep pattern to go with it.
"I just wanted to find one school of fish out there," he said. "I never could find it. In 2 days I don't know that I caught a single keeper. I caught 20 to 30 Kentuckies (spots), but they were all 14 1/2 and 14 3/4 and wouldn't keep.
"So I just went into it with an open mind and put out four poles. I've fished (the lake) all my life so if it was going to be bank fishing I knew where I was going to fish – up the river where we won that Heartland tournament."
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 15-00
> Day 2: 5, 12-02
> Day 3: 5, 10-04
> Total = 37-06 (15)
Dodson started up the river on his Heartland stuff and caught 15 pounds.
"I was just running creeks in a little dirtier water there with a spinnerbait and the new Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn Square Bill," he said. "I really didn't fish them that hard and just covered a lot of water."
Things were different there on day 2. There were more boats there and "it was just different," he said. He stopped short of his Heartland stuff, turned around and went to a finesse jig. He flipped, pitched and threw the jig and hit what seemed like a hundred places. His primary targets were laydowns, big rocks, points – typical fall stuff – but there was no common thread to his bites and he was never able to establish a pattern.
Day 3 turned even tougher. He started on his Heartland spot up the river and caught one on the spinnerbait, missed another good fish, then went three or four hours without a keeper.
He eventually landed a keeper on the square-bill, then worked through the same circle of history he did the previous day. He only caught six keepers on day 3 – one on a spinnerbait, one on the square-bill, three on the jig and one on a spoon off a dock. He culled that spoon fish out.
He weighed all largemouths.
The water temperature was 70 to 72 degrees.
Winning Gear Notes
> Spinnerbait gear: 7' heavy-action G. Loomis GLX rod, Shimano Curado casting reel, 20-pound Bass Pro Shops XL mono, 3/8-ounce Luck-E-Strike Trickster spinnerbait (white).
> Square-bill gear: 7' heavy-action Wright McGill Rick Clunn rod, same reel, same line, Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn Series 3 Square Bill crankbait (spotted shad).
> Jig gear: 7' heavy-action Duckett Fishing rod, same reel, 15-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon, 5/16-ounce Luck-E-Strike finesse jig (black/brown), Luck-E-Strike Guido Bug (natural shale).
The Bottom Line
Notable
> This was the only Central EverStart Dodson fished this season. He's also fishing next week's Guntersville FLW Tour Open – again the only Tour Open he's fishing this season.
> Field size was light at 87 boats. Official standings can be found here.
Much of the tackle referenced above is available at the BassFan Store. To browse the selection, click here.
