Most Targeted Brush While Gussy Stayed On Top

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

The conditions at Lake Eufaula a couple weeks ago played right into the hands of anglers who enjoy fishing shallow. The water was high and up in the bushes and there was enough water in the bank grass that plenty of bass felt comfortable there.

The FLW Tour anglers got only a brief taste of those conditions at the beginning of practice for last week’s event. The water started to back off the bank and the fish went with it. That meant the countless brush piles that litter the bottom of the lake in the 5 to 20-foot zone became safe havens for the bass that vacated the shoreline cover.

The brush piles were the story of the event as the top finishers combed them with swimbaits, crankbait, big worms and even some vertical presentations. There were still plenty of fish shallow, hanging under lily pads or around laydowns and docks, but the dominant way to catch them was in and around the brush.

Here’s a rundown of how the rest of the Top 5 caught their fish on the Alabama-Georgia border.

2nd: Troy Morrow

> Day 1: 5, 21-08
> Day 2: 5, 18-01
> Day 3: 5, 15-04
> Day 4: 5, 12-02
> Total = 20, 66-15

Morrow’s runner-up finish resulted in a 30-spot jump in the points standings and he’s now 45th with two tournaments to go. His big move was a product of tedious preparation for the Eufaula event.

He spent time there before the lake went off limits, riding around to locate brush piles, but he employed a more detailed method rather than staring at his electronics. When he’d come over a brush pile that looked fishy, he’d lower a Marcum submersible camera down into to see what it looked like in real time.

“I used the camera because of where I live,” he said. “Both Hartwell and Lanier are big-time offshore brush pile lakes. Lanier’s brush replenishes decent, but not Hartwell, especially up the river. Once you take a fish off a pile, it’s going to take a while before another one gets there.

“My team partner and I developed a way to use the camera in practice instead of burning up fish because it’s not like new fish are going to swim to these piles immediately. There were two or three fish in these piles and that’s about it.”

Using the camera gave him all the details he needed to decide if the spot was worth coming back to in the tournament.

“I know how they’re sitting, the size, species, what’s in there with them and what kind of wood is there,” he said. “I also can tell you which way the limbs are pointing so I knew how to approach each one with a crankbait. I know the bottom around it and I know the temperature.”

He said the water temperature on the bottom in 15 feet was 10 degrees cooler than the surface temperature so he knew how to better manage the water in his livewells for fish care.

When the water started to recede in practice, he had a strong feeling the brush piles would be a big player in the tournament.

“There were quit e few shallow when we got here, but it was like 75 percent of them left and went to the piles when the water dropped,” he said.

Once the tournament started, he settled on a crankbait, big worm and drop shot as his three best fish-catchers. He also had a progression of baits he’d throw depending how far off of a brush pile he was.

“When I’d approach and get to be about 100 feet away, I’d throw the crankbait,” he said. “If I hit it, usually a big one would eat it on the first cast. I’d set the crank down and pick up the big worm and bomb it in there two or three times. As I got closer, I’d pitch the drop shot in there.

“I slowed down on some and did catch some after pulling over top of them a little bit.”

He said brush piles in creek mouths or outside of creek mouths seemed to have better concentrations of fish in them.

“It seemed like some of the fish were getting way out finally, but the piles in the smaller pockets were vacant, he added.

> Crankbait gear: 7’11” medium-heavy Duckett Fishing Micro Magic casting rod, Lew's BB-1 Speed Spool casting reel (5.4:1 gear ratio), 16-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, SPRO Little John DD 70 crankbait (citrus light).

> He swapped the stock Gamakatsu trebles on the Little John DD for No. 2 short-shank Gamakatsu trebles to limit getting hung up.

> The Little John DD is designed to run 16 to 20 feet deep and Morrow said the bait was grinding the bottom all the way to the brush pile on the retrieve and he said the big lip helped it deflect better off cover.

> Worm gear: 7’7” extra-heavy Duckett Fishing White Ice casting rod, Duckett Fishing320R casting reel (7.1:1 gear ratio), 20-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, 1/2-oz. Eco Pro Tungsten worm weight (pegged), 6/0 Gamakatsu offset worm hook, Zoom Magnum Ol’ Monster worm (plum apple).

> Dropshot gear: 7’ medium-heavy Duckett Fishing Micro Magic spinning rod, unnamed spinning reel, 16-pound Sunline SX-1 braided line (main), 8-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon line (leader), #1 Gamakatsu Finesse Heavy Cover hook, 6” unnamed worm (morning dawn).

> Main factor in his success – "The number of piles I had marked and knowing what was in the ones I was fishing.”

> Performance edge – "The way I run my Lowrance units – I run so many of them, I don’t have to switch screens. I don’t miss near as much as some guys.”

3rd: Clent Davis

> Day 1: 5, 22-09
> Day 2: 5, 15-12
> Day 3: 5, 14-07
> Day 4: 5, 13-05
> Total = 20, 66-01

Clent Davis kept his momentum going at Lake Eufaula after a Top-10 finish at the Kentucky Lake Central Rayovac Series the previous week. He held the day-1 lead at Eufaula after catching 22-09, but his stringers fell back into the 13- to 15-pound range after that as he played the brush pile game.

“To me, it feels really good,” he said. “At Kentucky Lake, we hit it perfect. Here, I had a shot. I’ll win one eventually.”

He made a 38-spot jump in the AOY standings and is up to 69th with two tournaments go. He’ll need two more Top-20s to have a shot at making the Forrest Wood Cup.

“I know I’m going to have to bust them the next two tournaments,” he said. “I put myself in hole right away this year. We’re expecting a baby the week of the Cup so I don’t know if I’d even be able to fish anyway.”

At Eufaula, Davis spent most of his practice behind the steering wheel, idling and watching his Garmin electronics.

“I was looking for schools, but I never found them,” he said. “I found a couple hundred piles, but I don’t ever fish brush when I’m fishing off shore. I’m usually out on the ledges. If it was a brush pikes, I marked it. I have it two marks for a pile that looked like it had fish on it. I just marked everything I saw.

“I caught a couple up toward takeoff, but the big ones live on lower end so that’s where I focused my time.”

Eventually, he developed a three-pronged attack when it came to fishing brush. He caught some out of shallow brush, but his big fish came out of the 15- to 18-foot window.

“I had a routine where I’d start way back off the spot,” he said. “I’d feel like the further back you were the better off you’d be. I’d make the first cast with a swimbait, then follow up with a big Mister Twister worm. I also cranked a few, but for the most part is the swimbait and worm.”

The crankbait produced in the afternoons on shallower piles, he added.

“I’d make three to five casts and then be off to the next one,” he said. “Some I worked more because it seemed like the fish were off around them on the sides. There was one in particular where I caught big ones that were just off to the side.”

He fished within sight of several of the Top 10 finishers, including runner-up Troy Morrow and winner Bryan Thrift.

“It was wild the amount of fish (the lower end) put out,” he said.

> Swimbait gear: 7’7” heavy-action Phenix Ultra MBX casting rod, unnamed casting reel, 15-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid line, 3/4- and 1-oz. swimbait jigheads, 7” Nichols Lures swimbait (shad), 5” Mister Twister Magnum Swimsation (pearl).

> He rigged the Nichols swimbait on the 1-oz. head with an 8/0 hook and the Swimsation on the 3/4-oz. head with a 4/0 hook.

> Crankbait gear: 7’6” heavy-action Phenix X-Series crankbait rod, same reel, 15-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid line, Duel +4 crankbait (chartreuse blueback).

> He also caught a few keepers on the Mister Twister HANG 10! 10” worm.

> Main factor in his success – "Not fishing in practice. The main thing to me was covering water and looking for fish. I wasn’t interested in seeing how big they were just yet.”

> Performance edge – "My Garmin electronics. The new mapping they have is unbelievable. At Eufaula, they have couple brush piles where nothing shows up on a Navionics chip.”

4th: Wesley Strader

> Day 1: 5, 13-05
> Day 2: 5, 15-02
> Day 3: 5, 21-01
> Day 4: 5, 13-09
> Total = 20, 63-01

Strader has competed at Eufaula in May before, but he’d not before seen the set of conditions that faced the field last week. Falling, warm water with most of the fish in a post-spawn phase before they move out to their summer haunts.

The frontrunner for the AOY title year pieced together several different programs and saw his weights jump on days 2 and 3 to make his second straight Top-10 cut.

“I was a little worried because I knew it’d be a totally offshore deal, but I found out I could catch them a lot of different ways,” he said. “I like tournaments like that.”

He spent two days of practice searching for brush and offshore spots down the lake and spent the other day fishing in the Chattahoochee.

“I had a really good day in the river, but the water fell a little and messed it up a bit,” he said. “It’s all about timing in the river just like the lake. When I saw the water falling and figured if it would come back up, somebody had a chance to do well in the river.”

Ultimately, he made the call to fish brush and hydrilla on the lower part of the lake. He threw a mix of worms and creature baits and combed the tops of the hydrilla clumps with a vibrating jig.

“After what I saw with hydrilla and brush down the lake, I knew that’s where it would be won,” he said.

One of the keys to his 21-01 stringer on day 2 was his slow retrieve on the Zoom Magnum Trick Worm.

“If you pulled it up high or moved it too fast, they wouldn’t bite it,” he said. “I had to drag the bait and I couldn’t shake it or hop it. It had to be subtle. That Magnum size is beefy, but subtle.”

The hydrilla fish were keying on yellow perch and Strader feels the trailer he used allowed him to catch fish behind other competitors.

> Finesse worm gear: 7’5” medium-heavy Powell Max 3D casting rod, Lew's Team Lew's Lite casting reel (6.8:1 gear ratio), 12-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line, 1/4-oz. Reins Tungsten slip sinker, 4/0 Lazer TroKar offset worm hook, Zoom Magnum Trick Worm (redbug).

> Big worm gear: Same rod, same reel, 16-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line, 3/8-oz. Reins Tungsten slip sinker, same hook, Zoom Ol’ Monster worm (redbug).

> Creature bait gear: 7’6” medium-heavy Powell Max 3D casting rod, Lew's Team Lew's Lite casting reel (7.6:1 gear ratio), 20-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line, same hook, Zoom Z-Craw.

> Vibrating jig gear: 7’2” medium-heavy Powell Max 3D casting rod, same reel as creature bait, same worm line, 1/2-oz. homemade vibrating jig, Zoom Swimming Fluke Jr. trailer (Tennessee shad).

> Main factor in his success – "Just keeping an open mind and trusting my gut and following that. If something came to me, I did it.I didn’t fight it, I just did it.”

> Performance edge – "I cannot stress enough the important of your electronics. Without the side imaging and DownScan on my Lowrance, there’s no way I would’ve found what I fished. To be able to tell exactly what you’re looking is makes such a big deal.”

5th: Jeff Gustafson

> Day 1: 5, 18-12
> Day 2: 5, 16-15
> Day 3: 5, 14-00
> Day 4: 4, 13-04
> Total = 19, 62-15

Turns out it was a good thing Jeff Gustafson brought his dad along for the trip to Lake Eufaula last week. Without Jim Gustafson in the back of the boat during practice, it’s safe bet Jeff wouldn’t have tapped into the shallow-water surface feeders that ultimately carried him to the best finish of his Tour career.

While fishing shallow one day in practice, Gustafson’s dad, who fished the event as a co-angler, opted to tie on a topwater popper-style bait. The younger Gustafson didn’t endorse the move right away. After his dad caught three good ones on it, he was sold.

“I probably would’ve never gotten on that program if he hadn’t have been in the boat with me,” he said. “I didn’t come here thinking to fish topwater the whole time.”

While others were playing musical brush piles, Gustafson went around and threw a couple different poppers at laydowns, “do-nothing banks,” docks and over some shallow brush. He said there were shad around the areas he fished, but he didn’t catch fish keying on clusters of bait fish.

“That was surprising, but I’m there were places on the lake where there was some big-time feeding going on,” he sad.

He made the Day-2 cut in 4th with 35-11 and stayed in the Top 5 the rest of the way despite catching four on the final day.

“Whenever I come to these touraments with a notion of how I’m going to catch fish or should fish, I never do as well,” he said. “Whenever I stumble into something and get on a pattern that’s unique, those are the tournaments I’ve done better in.”

While those running the brush piles said they went long stretches between bites, especially in the middle of the day when the sun got high, Gustafson was still catching fish consistently.

“You just throw out all the rules,” he added. “I almost think in the middle of the afternoon, the bite was better than first thing in the morning on the topwater. It certainly wasn’t worse.”

> Topwater gear: 7’5” medium-heavy G. Loomis NRX casting rod, Shimano Chronarch Ci4+ casting reel (7.6:1 gear ratio), 30-pound PowerPro braided line (main line), 20-pound unnamed monofilament line (leader), Jackall Binksy (HL Chart Strike Gill), Rebel P-70 Pop-R (bone).

> Main factor in his success – "Committing to doing something different and recognizing I was getting the right kind of bites doing that. I think it was important to be open minded and do something that wasn’t by the book.”

> Performance edge – "Those Shimano reels. I was making a lot of casts easy day and they are so smooth and light that it made it easy to do.”

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