By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor
History was a common thread among the top finishers at last week’s Lake Dardanelle Central Rayovac Series season finale.
Winner Jason Lieblong is a frequent visitor to the lake and relied on his past experiences to find the winning stringers. Runner-up Spencer Grace and 3rd-place finisher Jeff Keene both have extensive backgrounds at Dardanelle and both said their comfort level was a big contributor to their success.
There wasn’t one dominant technique or tactic that showed itself. Dardanelle’s bass are locked in their summer mode and they were plucked off wood, out of shallow and deep brush piles, and while chasing schools of shad. Big worms, jigs (conventional and vibrating) along with crankbaits and topwater frogs seem to be the top producers last week.
Here's a rundown of how Grace and Keene finished where they did.
2nd: Spencer Grace
> Day 1: 5, 16-06
> Day 2: 5, 11-01
> Day 3: 5, 16-10
> Total = 15, 44-01
Last year, Spencer Grace won the Angler of the Year title in Arkie Division of the BFLs, a sizable accomplishment in a division loaded with local talent. He was nearly just as good on a much bigger stage last week. Grace finished 2nd at Lake Dardanelle by sandwiching 16-plus pound days around an 11-pound bag on day 2.
“I’m happy with it,” Grace said. “It’s hard to win, especially on your home water. That day 2 killed me. After having the day I had, I felt like I needed a big day 3.”
He had a shot at it, too, catching three quality fish out of brush piles. He wasn’t able to upgrade the other two and he fell a couple pounds shy of Lieblong’s total.
“It’s up there for sure,” Grace added when asked to rank where this finish falls among his tournament accomplishments. “Everybody that I know around here always chokes on their home water. I was glad to make a Top 10, to be honest.”
Grace called his practice “awesome” and said he had “a lot of things working.”
“I had a big school found, but I never got to make a cast on it,” he added. “My main deal was running new water every day.”
He started quick on day 1, bagging 14 pounds in 15 minutes with a Texas-rigged worm fished along a sand drop off a point.
“There was a school on it, but I think that turned out to be my biggest mistake,” he said of his decision to leave them shortly after boxing a limit. “I thought I was making the right decision. I ran back down lake to fish deep the rest of the day, but I didn’t cull until 2:15 p.m.”
He caught one upgrade out of a brush pile and finished the day with 16-06.
Grace returned to the sand drop on day 2, but couldn’t coax any biters.
“It was a different day,” he said. “I struggled big time. I didn’t have a keeper until 10:30.”
He changed gears and flipped wood to scratch out an 11-pound limit and make the Top-10 cut.
He threw a frog to start the final day and it helped him put a small limit in the boat pretty quickly. Knowing he had some ground to make up after day 2, he targeted deep brush down lake in hopes to tangle with bigger fish.
“I changed up what I was doing and went after it,” he said. “I came close. I needed one or two more bites.”
He said he had put out new brush piles just for this tournament, but none of it produced any keepers.
Grace, who owns a landscaping company and also does welding work in the winter, felt like his history on the lake gave him an advantage.
“It was a big help,” he said. “Instead of me running around and fishing with my motor, I made myself settle down and grind it out. I told myself to get settled and stay in a certain area.
“This derby was hard for me because typically I spend 99 percent of my time in Illinoi Bayou. I never fished in there this tournament. Nobody could get a bite in there. It was the Dead Sea.
“Seventy percent of the field ran up the river and that helped because when I came back down and fished deep, I had everything to myself. I knew if I could grind it out I could get a couple key bites a day. I just never got them on day 2.”
> Worm gear: 7’3” medium-heavy Dobyns Champion casting rod, Lew's casting reel (7:1 gear ratio), 20-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon line, 3/8-oz. unnamed tungsten worm weight (unpegged), 5/0 unnamed extra wide gap worm hook, Missile Baits Tomahawk (blue fleck).
> Grace said he has more confidence in the Tomahawk than any other worm. “Even on day 2, I was able to go behind guys and scratch out a limit. I have all the confidence in the world in that worm. I don’t know if it catches them everywhere but it catches ‘em here.”
> His frog of choice was the LIVETARGET Hollow Body Frog (tan brown), which he threw on 65-pound PowerPro braided line.
> Main factor in his success – “My knowledge of the lake and being able to put my head down and grind it out and pick a few areas and stay in those areas.”
> Performance edge – “My Phoenix 721 and Mercury got me to where I was going and got me back.”
Jeff Keene caught the majority of his weigh-in fish out of a brush that he'd planted.
3rd: Jeff Keene
> Day 1: 5, 17-00
> Day 2: 5, 9-10
> Day 3: 5, 17-03
> Total = 15, 43-13
Jeff Keene is originally from Russellville, Ark., and recently moved to northeast Oklahoma earlier this year. He currently lives 3 miles from Grand Lake, but Dardanelle is still his home waters.
Like Grace, he had a strong start, but slipped a little on day 2 only to rebound on the final day. He was more than satisfied with his 3rd-place showing.
“I wish I’d done better on day 2, but that’s part of it,” he said. “It’s hard to duplicate success on that lake.”
The former Mr. Bass of Arkansas winner said he basically camped in Dardanelle Bay all tournament long, swimming a jig and hopping a worm around brush he’d planted in 3 to 5 feet of water.
“I never went to a ledge,” he said. “The lake is full of shad right now. There are some of the biggest gizzard shad I’ve ever seen in this pond. I felt like my fish would feed and come back to the piles and I could catch them during the day.”
Keene caught 17 pounds and culled three times by 10 a.m. on day 1 mainly fishing brush piles.
He struggled on day 2, but was able to get five keepers in the boat.
“For some reason, I had five bites where all I got back was half of the worm,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d scaled back on size, I might’ve gotten more bites. I was committed to that big worm.”
After making the cut, he struggled through the morning on the final day. At 1 p.m., he was three fish short of a limit. A 4- and a 5-pounder quickly got him past the 15-pound mark. He ran into the river to crank and he finished his limit, but lost two others that would’ve helped him more.
“I lost one that would’ve given me 2nd,” he said.
> Jig gear: 8’ heavy-action Powell casting rod, Shimano Chronarch Super Free casting reel, 20-pound Stren monofilament line (clear/blue fluorescent), 3/8-oz. homemade swimjig (black/blue), 4.5” VIP eel trailer (black red neon).
> The jig produced three of his day-1 fish and two on the final day.
> Worm gear: Same rod, same reel, same line, 1/4-oz. unnamed lead worm weight, 5/0 Gamakatsu EWG worm hook, Zoom Magnum Ol’ Monster (black red and red bug).
> He also caught one of his day-3 keepers on a Strike King KVD 1.5 crankbait.
> Main factor in his success – “Just my knowledge of the lake.”
> Performance edge – “There was not a local fisherman that fished this tournament that came in on my stuff. They respect me a lot.”
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