By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor


Talk about catching a lake at the right time.

That was the refrain heard from pros throughout the Smith Lake FLW Tour last week. The typically-stingy mountain reservoir in Alabama that can turn on a dime showed off its true potential from day 1 when many took advantage of the conditions to sight-fish the latest wave of spawners in the backs of pockets and creeks.

From there, any number of tactics and techniques worked to fill weigh-in sacks. From swimbaits, topwaters and swim jigs to wacky-rigged worms, shaky-heads and jerkbaits, just about anything put fish in the boat. The only drawback was the cold front that moved through Friday and led to two straight 30-degree nights that seemed to blunt the next wave of fish from moving into their staging areas.

It made for a challenging final two days, but there were still nine bags in excess of 15 pounds weighed in on the weekend, including Dave Lefebre’s whopper 19-05 on Sunday to close out his come-from-behind win.

Following is a rundown of how the rest of the Top 5 went about their work.

2nd: Clark Wendlandt

> Day 1: 5, 16-03
> Day 2: 5, 17-05
> Day 3: 5, 17-05
> Day 4: 5, 12-10
> Total = 20, 63-07

Clark Wendlandt was focused primarily on big fish and at Smith Lake, that can sometimes be a challenge. Last week, however, he was able to catch above-average fish on a consistent basis by focusing on two main areas that gave him access to spotted bass as well as largemouths that had moved in to spawn.

“I caught them around all kinds of cover – logs, bluff rocks, regular banks, docks,” he said. “I caught them everywhere.”

He also weighed in five fish caught off beds, but that pattern grew more daunting as the water continued to rise.

“I didn’t mark it, but it sure looked like the water came up 2 1/2 to 3 feet during the tournament and those bedders kept getting deeper and it was harder to see them,” he said.

In practice, he was focused on covering as much water as possible and wound up pinpointing 15 bedding fish that he deemed might be catchable once the tournament began.

“I only caught one on day 1 that I knew where it was so the ones I knew about were no good to me,” he added. “I had some good bites (in practice). These fish were wanting to spawn and they were staging. I don’t know if I had an unbelievable practice, but I found an area I liked. A lot of the battle is having confidence in those areas and I did.”

He pitched white and natural-colored tubes to fish around beds and also threw a jerkbait, mainly on day 2 when the conditions got cloudy and breezy. He added in a 1/4-oz. white swimjig as well.

“Each day I changed a little bit and adapted as best I could,” he said. “Those two cold nights (Friday and Saturday) really shut down new ones coming in. If new ones had kept coming, I could’ve done well. There were just fewer fish on the beds.

“If the cold front hadn’t come through, the weights may not have been all that different, but I would’ve caught ‘em because it was conducive to what I was doing.”

> Swimjig gear: 7’1” medium-heavy Cabela’s Tournament ZX swimjig/spinnerbait casting rod, Cabela’s Verano casting reel, 20-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid line, 1/4-oz. 4x4 Jigs swimjig (white), Reaction Innovations Skinny Dipper trailer (pearl blue shad).

> Jerkbait gear: 6’9” medium-action Cabela’s Tournament ZX jerkbait/topwater casting rod, Cabela’s Tournament ZX casting reel, 10-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid line, Yo-Zuri 3DB Series jerkbait (prism shad), Rapala Shadow Rap (albino shiner).

> Sight-fishing gear: 7’2” medium-heavy Cabela’s Tournament ZX jig/worm casting rod, same reel as jerkbait, 17-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid line, 1/4-oz. unnamed tungsten worm weight, 4/0 Owner Wide Gap Plus worm hook, 4” unnamed tube (white and green-pumpkin).

> Main factor in his success – "Deciding to fish for suspended fish instead of fish that were on the bottom.”

> Performance edge – "Those Cabela’s rods are fantastic. I like how they feel and they make casting really easy.”



FLW
Photo: FLW

Jason Reyes spent the whole tournament slinging a small swimbait to schools of spotted bass.

3rd: Jason Reyes

> Day 1: 5, 13-02
> Day 2: 5, 18-04
> Day 3: 5, 16-07
> Day 4: 5, 14-07
> Total = 20, 62-04

Jason Reyes missed the equivalent of a day of practice for Smith Lake, but it didn’t seem to hamper his performance come tournament time.

He practiced Sunday and part of Monday before flying back to Houston in order to coach his son’s t-ball team that night. He returned to Alabama on Tuesday in time to get another half-day on the water.

“What I figured out real quick was that I could catch some fish on 45-degree transition banks with rocks,” he said.

On day 1, while throwing a swimbait around docks, he noticed some fish nearby breaking the surface over deeper water. He turned his attention to those fish and rode them to his best ever finish in a Tour event.

“It was just a fortunate deal around noon that day, I saw them blowing up and started fishing for them and that got me dialed in,” he added. “On day 2, I started on them and cracked them pretty good.”

He caught 18-04 last Friday to make the Top-20 cut in 8th place.

He spent his whole tournament on the lower end of the lake and caught his fish on a small swimbait rigged on a small lead head. He was targeting spotted bass chasing schools of blueback herring.

“I don’t understand the whole herring thing so I was trying to learn on the job,” he said. “Once I saw one choke up a herring, I switched to a bigger size bait. They were a lot bigger than I had imagined.

“I’d make a long cats and count it down to 10 or 12 feet and use a super slow retrieve,” he added. “You hear so much about herring and a swimbait and I went with it. I know fish got caught behind me on a jerkbait, but that’s not my forte. The swimbait was a better fit for me.”

He had multiple pockets inside a 4-mile stretch of water and he just worked back and forth throughout the day.

“A couple of the pockets they were out over deep water,” he said. “In between, I mixed in docks and rocks.”

> Swimbait gear: 7’1” medium-action G. Loomis GLX 852 casting rod, Shimano Metanium casting reel, 6-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, 1/8- and 3/16-oz. unnamed jig heads, 2.8” and 3.3” Keitech Swing Impact FAT swimbaits.

> He also had a swimbait rigged up on a G. Loomis NRX 822 spinning rod paired with a Shimano Stella spinning reel.

> Main factor in his success – "Just fishing in a good clean mental state and leaving everything wide open and adapting to the daily conditions. To me, coming in with positive attitude was key. I had some momentum coming from Toho as well. I really believe fishing is 95 percent mental and the other is skill and ability.”

> Performance edge – "I think my HydroWave played a big role is keeping those schooling fish going. I had it on 30-second loop on the frenzy shad setting. When I’d pull in and drop the trolling motor and look over see nothing going on, then all of a sudden you’d see one raise, I knew it was working. If it puts one bass in the livewell that makes the difference, then it’s worth it.”

FLW
Photo: FLW

Tracy Adams went pocket looking for bedding fish and also caught a good number fish by skipping a small worm around docks.

4th: Tracy Adams

> Day 1: 5, 18-09
> Day 2: 5, 13-03
> Day 3: 5 17-14
> Day 4: 5, 11-09
> Total = 20, 61-03

Tracy Adams worked on a few different patterns in practice, but eventually settled on sight-fishing and targeting deep docks with a wacky worm during the tournament.

“I fished in the river the first day of practice and caught some little ones,” he said. “Then I threw a jerkbait and caught several, maybe 20 to 25, but they were all little ones. On the second day, I went looking for bedding fish and found a few after a while. I spent the rest of practice seeing what I could find that way.

“As it turned out, I may have hurt myself doing that because I caught five of them and culled all but two the first day of the tournament.”

Adams eventually weighed in half of his tournament fish off beds and the rest of his fish fell for a wacky worm skipped in and around docks.

“The deal with the wacky worm just happened during tournament,” he said. “That’s when it usually works the best. The deeper docks seemed to be better in like 40 feet of water. Most of them have more than that. The shallow ones had no fish on them. I think what they were doing is moving to the docks and suspending and then move in to spawn.”

He’d make five to six skips to each dock and wait for the Zoom Trick Worm to “do its thing,” he said. “It’s like throwing out a bobber and letting it sit there.

“What hurt was the cold weather. Those fish moved in, but no other new fish moved in after them. What was there stayed, but there was no new stuff coming.”

As far as what particular pockets appealed to him and matched his pattern, he quipped, “The next one.”

> Sight-fishing gear: 7’ medium-heavy Cashion Fishing Rods casting rod, Bass Pro Shops Pro Qualifier casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 20-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon line, 5/16-oz. Bass Pro Shops XPS tungsten flipping weight, 4/0 Gamakatsu offset worm hook, Zoom Centipede (watermelon seed).

> When working on fish he could see, Adams would pitch the bait past the fish and work it back close to the bed. “It just depended on the fish,” he said. “I’d work some fast and other slow.”

> Wacky gear: 6’6” medium-action Cashion Fishing Rods spinning rod, Bass Pro Shops Pro Qualifier spinning reel, 6-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon line, 1/16-oz. Jackall Weedless Wacky Jig Head, Zoom Trick Worm (watermelon seed).

> Main factor in his success – "Just being patient with that wacky worm. It was a slow go for sure.”

> Performance edge – "My Nitro boat and Mercury performed flawlessly all week.”

FLW
Photo: FLW

Scott Martin spent the first part of the tournament focused on largemouths, then targeted spots on the weekend.

5th: Scott Martin

> Day 1: 5, 18-06
> Day 2: 5, 12-09
> Day 3: 5, 15-10
> Day 4: 5, 14-03
> Total = 20, 60-12

Scott Martin had a score to settle with Smith Lake this year after placing 93rd there in 2013. He came away satisfied with a Top-5 showing last week by fishing how he likes to fish – targeting shallow-water largemouths.

He initially got on some schools of deeper spotted bass in practice, but those thinned out during the tournament. By noon on the first day of practice, he started seeing a few fish around the bank. When he noticed no one else was looking for bedding fish, he started to expand on it.

“On Monday, I devoted more time looking for them and found a better bunch,” he said. “It just progressed each day from there. I was committed to find as many as I could find. I had a hard time catching them any other way. I couldn’t catch them off docks or just going down the bank.”

He figured he could find enough bedders to make the Top-20 cut, which he did, and with the weekend cold front coming, he’d figure it out from there. He caught 18-06 to start the tournament and added 12-09 on day 2.

“I exclusively sight-fished for largemouths on days 1 and 2,” he said. “I just didn’t get any big females. There were more fish up there on day 2, but I couldn’t get them to react.”

When the cold front started to set in on Saturday, he opted to go back to the deeper spots from practice. He caught a 4 1/2-pound spot doing that and from there he bounced back and forth between pockets where remaining bedders were and the spots.

“In the tournament, those schooling fish basically left,” he said. “There were a few there, but not near the numbers from practiced. I used that new Garmin Panoptix to scan around and I saw this big blob 60 feet out and 20 feet deep, so I took a swimbait and threw it out that way. I started reeling through that area and I catch that 4-09. It was ridiculous. I lost four other fish there on Saturday. They were just short-striking it.”

> Sight-fishing gear: 7’ heavy-action Okuma TCS Scott Martin Signature Series casting rod, Okuma Komodo casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 20-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, 1/2-oz. unnamed tungsten flipping weight, 4/0 Lazer TroKar TK130 flipping hook, Bruiser Baits Crazy Craw (green-pumpkin), Bruiser Baits Hog (green-pumpkin), Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Craw (white).

> Swimbait gear: 7’11” medium-heavy Okuma TCS Scott Martin Signature Series casting rod, Okuma Helios TCS casting reel, 8-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, 1/4-oz. unnamed jig head, Bruiser Baits Baby Swimmer (blue midnight).

> He also caught a key 3-pounder drop-shotting the Baby Swimmer on the final day. “I couldn’t get them to eat a worm,” he noted.

> Main factor in his success – "Knowing that I could go out and do what I love to do and I didn’t have to stress out about if my area will hold up. I felt like the whole lake was going to be productive.”

> Performance edge – "The new Panoptix from Garmin was key. It allowed me to catch fish I otherwise wouldn’t have caught. Also, people think of Smith Lake and think they’d never have a need for Power-Poles. Without a doubt, I wouldn’t have caught half the fish I caught without my Power-Poles. With the wind blowing, they paid for themselves this week.”