Jordon Camped Out And Threw The Tube

The recent Okeechobee FLW was a difficult tournament fraught with potential pitfalls. First, the lake was hit hard by hurricanes and only a small fraction of the water was left fishable. That packed the field of 200 boats into just three clear-water areas. To top it off, a cold front with 30 mph winds swept across the lake during practice and put a serious hurt on the already tough bite.

The conditions then flip-flopped as days 3 and 4 delivered bright sun, warm weather and a near-still surface.

Kelly Jordon's ranked 10th in the world right now and has seen his share of crowds and cold fronts. He

was 10 pounds back on the morning of day 4, but he stuck with his plan, worked his area for everything it was worth, and in one 30-minute stretch of fishing caught 23 pounds to dominate the final day.

It was his first FLW Tour win. Here's how he did it.

Practiced To Eliminate

"I'd say I had a good practice," Jordon said. "I wasn't real excited about the conditions. I brought shorts and T-shirts and I was ready to get a tan. I picked up my boat Friday at the Skeeter factory, got here Saturday night and started practice on Sunday.

"On Sunday we had 30 mph winds and spitting rain. It wasn't cold, but it wasn't hot either. It got windier and colder the next day though."

He said he already knew Okeechobee "pretty well" from prior tournaments, so his goal in practice was to eliminate unproductive water. "Although I knew it pretty well, it changed a lot. The only clear areas were Moonshine, Monkey Box and South Bay.

"I never really got into South Bay before – I don't like it. I always liked the north end better. So I fished in South Bay the first day of practice just so I could eliminate it. I had about 30 bites there on worms that I pitched into holes. I caught some on a spinnerbait too. But they were all tiny fish – there wasn't a 2-pound bite out of those 30 fish.

"After that, I knew I could go there and catch a small limit."

With South Bay handled, he turned his attention north. "The next day I fished over toward the mouth of the Kissimmee River. I scouted the whole area and found one good mat over there.

"Monkey Box and Moonshine are big, but I know them well enough to know what I like. On the last day of practice (Tues.), I spent the entire day in Moonshine and Monkey Box.

"I found four different groups of fish. All the groups were really good, and I had one killer limit spot. It took no more than 30 minutes to catch a limit there, but they were small fish."

Jordon said his areas weren't difficult to find. "It's pretty specific. You see the right stuff – you already know what it is – then you have to determine if the fish are there. In Florida, the fish are where they are. It's weird. It's like a big, loosely associated school of fish, and they can leave you at any time."

He said a key factor in his practice strategy was a tube rattle. "I don't practice with a hook. Say I'm flipping a tube in practice, which I was. I put a Lake Fork Tackle Rattle inside the tube, then tie my line to the rattle. It holds the tube so you can really feel the fish when you get a bite. You can play with the fish a little and get a feel for their size.

"When you do that in practice, you never have to catch one flipping."

At the end of practice, he had four areas. Three he considered big-fish spots, the other a limit spot.

Days 1 & 2

> Day 1: 5, 17-09
> Day 2: 5, 12-15 (10, 30-08)

Jordon wasted no time the morning of day 1 and headed right for one of his three big-fish spots. "I went to the area where I felt like I had really good bites," he said. "I got there and the first bite was a 7-pounder. I got it in the first 5 minutes.

"The second bite was 10 or 20 minutes later, and it could have eaten my first one. It was over 8 pounds for sure – probably a 9. I lost him though. I had him up and he came off. That's about all I caught on that first spot.

"Then I went over to my limit area and finished my limit. I continued to fish, but didn't upgrade."

On day 2, he headed straight for his big-fish spot where he caught the 7-pounder the day before. "It was an early bite there," he said. "I pulled in right away and in 10 minutes my partner and I each caught 7-pounders.

"We didn't get any more bites for the next hour, so I went to my limit spot and limited out again. I culled a few times and my partner caught a 5 from the limit spot.

"After that I went practicing. I saw some other good stuff and tried it, then spent the last 20 minutes back in my big-fish spot.

"I was worried about the cut, but I ended up in 2nd place."

Days 3 & 4

> Day 3: 5, 7-13
> Day 4: 4, 23-00 (9, 30-13)

Although Jordon finished day 2 in 2nd place, it meant little. The Top 10 anglers all started day 3 with zero weight, and the best 2-day catch would decide the winner.

"I started day 3 on my big-fish spot again," he said. "But I never got bit, so at about 10:00 I ran to my limit area. I fished all the way through it, caught one keeper and was like – man, this is late, I should have caught a limit by now."

He said he didn't abandon the limit spot, but turned right around and fished back through it. "At about 11:00 I hit one 50-yard stretch I'd already fished. The bite just turned on and I finished my limit in 5 minutes."

He said he then returned to his big-fish area and never had another bite that day. He finished the day in 6th.

He was 10 pounds back on the morning of day 4. "I sat there thinking, I need an early bite – one or two right off the bat. Then we get a fog delay. I thought, oh great, I'm done.

"They let us go at about 8:45, and we had to be in at 2:00. So basically, by the time they let us go, we only had 5 hours to fish. It was a real short day."

The day became even shorter when Jordon lost track of his bearings. "I ran up toward my big-fish spot and the fog was like pea soup. I was running only 27 mph – you could barely see maybe 100 yards – so I had to take it slow and careful.

"I inched along, got into the Monkey box, and we were using a different (electronics) system. I had not GPS'd my spot and I couldn't find it. I knew it was close, so I just set the trolling motor down and started fishing. Right about then I saw a boat moving – it was Toshinari (Namiki). I said, hey Toshi, you know where we are?

"He told me, 'Your area's right back there.' So instead of 17 minutes, it took me 35 minutes to drive to my big-fish spot. I probably got there at 9:30."

Jordon fished the area for about 1 1/2 hours, but didn't get a keeper bite. "I started expanding a little bit," he said. "I fished about 50 yards away, in thicker mats. There was a small stretch, about 50 yards long, and around 10:30 I caught all the fish I weighed. It might have taken only 15 minutes, I don't know. But it was definitely 30 minutes or less.

"The first fish was almost a 7-pounder. I got him in the livewell, flipped right back into the same hole and caught a 2. I knew I'd beaten that hole up and started fishing other holes. I caught another 6-pounder 15 feet away from there.

"Then I worked on down – probably another 50 feet from that hole – punching every hole possible. I saw a hole back on one part of the mat that had broken apart. I pitched back in there, picked up on the line and it felt kind of heavy. I reeled up some more, felt him barely moving – barely wiggling down there – and set the hook. It was an 8-02 – my fourth and final fish. It was probably 11:00 by then.

"I fished there until 1:30, then had to come in. It was the most awesome 30-minute stretch of my fishing career."

Mat Factors

Jordon said the strike window throughout the tournament was very small. "You had to hit them between the eyes and roll it off their nose to get a bite. The strike zone was extremely small.

"But you knew when you were on the right stuff, and when you were, you had to keep making flips just inches apart."

What was the right stuff? "I caught my best fish on floating weed islands – they call them tussocks. It was where the bog bottom had broken loose from the hurricanes. It was a mix of cattails and shoreline stuff, but it was actually floating.

"(The tussocks) were in about 5 feet of water, and they had a huge undercut area underneath. The mats had to be as thick as possible, and you had to pitch as close to the hole as possible to get the bait to penetrate."

Winning Gear

Jordon used only one bait all three days: the Lake Fork Tackle Craw Tube (pictured).

"That's the only tube I flip," he said. "I've caught a lot of fish and won a lot of my money on it. Absolutely, it's my number-one bait. It's all I flip."

> Tube gear: 7'6" Fenwick Techna AV flipping rod, Abu Garcia 4007 casting reel, 65-pound Spiderwire Stealth (tied direct with a double-palomar knot), 5/0 Owner Wide Gap Plus hook, 1 3/8-ounce tungsten weight (pegged), Lake Fork Tackle Rattle, Lake Fork Tackle Craw Tube ("I mainly used junebug, but some blue bruiser too").

> He said he hung the rattle from the bottom of the hook, "just down from the barb, so the rattle is basically where the tentacles are. When you get bit, the rattle slides up the hook like the bait does."

Notable

> Main factor in his success – "Being in an area with big ones, knowing it, and camping out there."

> He lives on Lake Fork, Texas but has kind words for Okeechobee. "Okeechobee is my favorite lake outside of Texas. I've always wanted to win one here. I finally did and it's awesome. It's one of the greatest fisheries in the country."