Clarks Hill Patterns - 2-5
Topwaters, Jigs, Cranks Caught 'Em At Clarks

Photo: ESPN Outdoors Davy Hite relied on a Buckeye Lures Mop jig to carry him to his 2nd-place finish. That's the same bait he used to score his win at Clarks in 2006.

Just about every successful pattern at Clarks Hill had two things in common. The first, as already noted, was that each angler was targeting points. The second was that the Bassmaster Elite Series pros were covering miles upon miles of water in hopes of finding that one magical point that happened to have a handful of feeding bass on top of it.

However, that's where most of the similarities end. Each pro seemed to have a specific method and bait they favored most for dissecting their points in search of big bites.

Here's how the Top 5 finishers caught their fish.

2nd: Davy Hite

> Day 1: 5, 18-15
> Day 2: 5, 9-02
> Day 3: 5, 18-14
> Day 4: 5, 12-09
> Total = 20, 59-08

South Carolina veteran Davy Hite knows just as much, if not more about Clarks Hill than any angler in the 108-man Elite Series field. He scored a win on this reservoir in 2006, but he said the lake was fishing much differently last week than it had in years past, since it was about 8 feet low.

In spite of the low-water conditions, he was able to rely on past experience to guide him to where the post-spawn largemouths were staging in anticipation of the upcoming blueback-herring spawn.

"All the points where those fish would usually be were completely dry," he said. "But even though that water was down, the fish were still trying to group up in the same general areas where they have in the past.

"I could just motor around in that same vicinity and eventually I'd find them."

He relied on "the old Clarks Hill special" Buckeye Lures Mop jig to put the majority of his fish in the boat.

> Jig gear: 7' medium-heavy All-Star casting rod, Pflueger Patriarch casting reel (6.3:1 gear ratio), 20-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Buckeye Lures Mop jig (brown), Gary Yamamoto Flappin' Hawg II (green-pumpkin with green- and purple-flake).

> He also used "a variety of topwater baits" included a Cotton Cordell Pencil Popper and various popping and walk-the-dog style baits.

> Main factor in his success – "Focusing on getting bigger bites. I wasn't catching nearly as many fish as the other guys, but the bites I was getting were good quality."

> Performance edge – "That Buckeye Lures Mop jig. That bait is what produces those bigger bites. There's something about that living rubber skirt that just looks a whole lot better in the water than regular silicone. I think it really triggers those bigger fish to bite."

Photo: ESPN Outdoors A pre-Classic Clarks Hill scouting trip paid off with a 3rd-place finish for Edwin Evers.

> Day 1: 5, 15-01
> Day 2: 5, 18-13
> Day 3: 5, 17-03
> Day 4: 3, 6-00
> Total = 18, 57-01

The blueback-point strategy paid dividends for Edwin Evers as it did for most of the other Top 12 pros. Evers didn't find his points by burning water blindly, though. He spent time at Clarks Hill just before the Bassmaster Classic kicked off in February, and the extra effort paid off last week.

"When I ran the lake back then it was about 12-feet low, so I got to see a lot of stuff that's submerged now," Evers said. "I probably marked 300 waypoints and 50 pictures of points that were different than all the others. Some would have a little turn or a key feature on them. Those are the spots I visited last week."

He relied on a 1/2-ounce Booyah football jig for the majority of his bites. "I was just scooting that jig along the bottom and I'd get it caught up in a rock and then just start shaking it off the rock and that's when I'd get my bites."

He weighed the big bass on days 2 and 3, and seemed to be on a better quality bite than many of the other competitors.

About his success in finding kicker bites, he noted: "This sounds crazy, but I really think it was that jig I was using. I only had a couple of them and when I lost them my bigger bites went way down. When they ate it, they choked it. It felt like somebody cut your line - everything would just go limp.

"I think it was a combination of just being a productive color and those finer strands that they put into the skirt," he added. "I never lost a single fish on that jig all week."

> Jig gear: 7' heavy-action Bass Pro Shops Pro Qualifier rod, Bass Pro Shops Pro Qualifier casting reel (6.3:1), 17-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Booyah football jig (brown/purple), 5" Yum Gonzo twintail grub trailer (green-pumpkin).

> Main factor in his success – "Confidence. I felt confident after learning the lake the way I had back before the Classic. I had a good idea of what to look for and what was under the water. I think I fished a lot of stuff that got overlooked by other guys."

> Performance edge – "My Wiley X sunglasses and that Booyah jig. A key for me was casting to little irregularities on my points - stumps, dark spots, stuff like that. Those sunglasses helped me see that stuff from far away."

> He noted he wore an amber lens the first 3 days, then switched to a gray lens on the final day because "it got so bright and calm out there."

Photo: ESPN Outdoors Kevin VanDam concentrated on color changes created by wind and wave action on red-clay points.

> Day 1: 5, 13-07
> Day 2: 5, 11-06
> Day 3: 5, 16-13
> Day 4: 5, 13-07
> Total = 20, 55-01

Kevin VanDam was no different than anybody else in that he employed a run-and-gun strategy that involved covering as many points as he could cast at in a day. But one thing that made his pattern distinctive was that he found fish that were keyed on the movements of threadfin shad, as opposed to blueback herring.

"I was trying to target areas that were getting hit by the wind, and because of that, the water I was fishing had a little more color to it than a lot of other places," VanDam said. "I think that colored water had a lot to do with why those shad were there."

He added: "The wind and waves bouncing off those red-clay banks were actually forming a subtle color change off my points. And with the lake being so low and all the usual cover being out of the water, I think those bass were really using that color change as an ambush point."

KVD lived and died by the wind last week. "A 10 mph breeze works wonders," he noted. "When it was windy, it was easy. But once that water slicked off I had to go to finesse stuff and that was just torture."

When asked how he singled out his points with so many to choose from, he said: "I wanted points that ran out in the lake a little further than the rest. But more than anything I was looking for something irregular. Something like a clay point surrounded by a bunch of rock points, or the other way around. If you found a point that was unique to the area, that's where (the fish) would be."

A Strike King RedEye Shad lipless crank in the blue gizzard shad color was his primary producer. "I actually helped them develop that color to imitate those blueback herring," he noted.

> RedEye gear: 7' Quantum Energy PT crankbait rod (composite), Quantum Energy 750PT casting reel, 17-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Strike King RedEye Shad (blue gizzard shad).

> He said he threw "everything in the tackle box at them" including a Carolina-rig, a shakey-head worm, a Strike King King Shad swimbait, a Strike King Zero soft-plastic jerkbait, and topwaters. "I literally had like 15 rods out on the deck. But I weighed more fish on that RedEye than I did with everything else combined."

> "My Biosonix unit played a big role, too. I'd pull up on a point and there would be nothing, and then baitfish would just start popping and the schooling would start. These Clarks Hill fish are weird though. It was taking me a lot longer to trigger that activity than it normally does."

> Main factor in his success – "Tenacity. I really had to cover a lot of water. If I found a point that had fish on it I'd go back to it three, four or five times a day."

> Performance edge – "A combination of stuff. The Biosonix was key for me. The Quantum rod and reel setup was important, too. I felt like I really had to stay back and make really long casts to my fish. I can throw that RedEye shad 60 yards with that setup."

Photo: ESPN Outdoors Casey Ashley says he revisited some of his points up to seven times a day.

> Day 1: 5, 12-03
> Day 2: 5, 16-12
> Day 3: 5, 13-05
> Day 4: 5, 12-06
> Total = 20, 54-10

Like Hite, Casey Ashley has spent "pretty much (his) whole life" fishing Clarks Hill, and he knows the popular areas where the blueback herring pull up to spawn. But he noted that he found activity on several points where he'd never seen it before.

"Everything was different this year," Ashley said. "The herring seemed to be just choosing those points at random. As long as the point had a flat top on it and deep water nearby they'd use it. It was really just all about finding the bait. If you found the bait you found the fish."

He made a decision before the tournament to live and die by the topwater bite. He used a trio of topwater baits to catch his fish: a Lucky Craft Gunfish, a Pencil Popper and a Heddon Super Spook.

About using three different topwater presentations, he said: "It was all about changing it up. There were a lot of guys throwing topwaters and a lot of them were all running the same points. If you pulled in behind them and threw the same bait they were, you wouldn't get bit, so I switched it up until I found what they wanted."

He said he worked the topwaters "pretty fast," but nothing out of the ordinary.

> Topwater gear (all three lures): 6'6" medium/fast Fenwick Techna AV rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX casting reel (7:1 gear ratio), 50-pound Stren Super Braid, Lucky Craft Gunfish (ghost minnow), Cotton Cordell Pencil Popper (chrome/blue), Heddon Super Spook (green/turquoise)

> He also caught a couple fish on the final day on 5-inch Basstrix swimbait in the hologram-shad color.

> Main factor in his success – "I just kept moving. It's a timing deal on this lake. I'd run most of my points six or seven times a day."

> Performance edge – "Probably the line and the reel. The fast reel takes up line fast and just makes it easier on you throwing those topwaters all week. Same thing with the line - the braid makes it so that you don't have to work as hard as when you're fishing mono."

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