The post-spawn topwater bite – it's something every BassFan looks forward to. The pig females group up and attach their feedbags, then reveal their location every few hours as they crash bait near the surface.
It's some of the most exciting fishing of the year. Trouble is, everyone can catch them – or not catch them, which is just as common. Sometimes it's a simple coin-toss. Heads is a hookup, tails is a slack line.
The key to tournaments during this brief window is to learn how to catch the 'down-fish.' It can be maddening. You see them swimming around down there, but if they're not eating, you're not beating anyone.
The recent Clarks Hill Bassmaster Elite Series in Georgia was that kind of tournament. Anglers who caught 20 pounds limped onstage with 10 the next. The only angler who caught them every single day was Davy Hite.
His secret was down-fish.
When you can catch the down-fish, your day doesn't dwindle to a coin-toss. When you can catch down-fish, you're not the angler who walks offstage with forgettable utterances about lost fish.
When you can catch down-fish, you're the last angler standing, and Hite proved it. He led days 2 and 3, then left everyone in the dust on day 4. Hite's closest competitor, Kenyon Hill, finished almost 9 pounds behind him.
It was a dominating performance by Hite and it marked his seventh BASS win. Here's how he did it.
Practice
Hite came to the lake with significant experience. He estimated he fished Clarks 150 times in his life and lives within 40 minutes of the lake. But that wasn't necessarily an advantage.
"The one thing I had to be real cautious of – and it bit me before – is fishing on memories," he said. "On lakes where I have experience, I'm real cautious of that."
Of those 150-odd visits to Clarks, he said 80% had been during the first week of May – the period that coincided with this event. He arrived to find that the bass were on the blueback herring spawn, just like he expected.
"I went out the first day (of practice) and tried to have an open mind with some things to try," he said. "I found probably six or eight good spots the first day. On day 2 I went up the river, which can sometimes be really good, and didn't do very well."
On the final day of practice he stayed on the lower lake. He selected his starting area, and it was a good one – he began each of his 4 tournament days there.
And he confirmed he could catch them on topwaters when they were busting herring. "But I've fished those fish enough to know that sometimes they can be real finicky – even though they're aggressive," he noted. "They're so dialed in on those herring that it's not as easy as you'd think.
"Even though you can get some strikes, the fish really aren't eating that topwater bait."
Instead, he wanted to be able to catch them when they were down. That way he could keep his line wet all day, and his hookup percentage would be better.
"I thought the key to winning this tournament would be to find fish that would really eat. Most of the fish I was catching were actually biting my bait. And because of the bait I was throwing, they were really wanting to eat it, instead of slapping at it."
That bait was an oversize 1/2-ounce Buckeye pro jig. It's a bait that's popular on the lake, but lesser known around the country. It's not available on the open market, but will be by this weekend.
Hite didn't swim the jig – he worked it along bottom with short hops.
Buckeye makes the Spot Remover jighead, which stands up on bottom. And its Flipping jig has somewhat of a stand-up design. But its pro jig – which has been formally renamed the Mop jig – is a little different. It has a straight J-hook (as opposed to the EWG on the Flipping jig).
Most important about the jig is that it's built with the widest-diameter Living Rubber available. It looks like a softball in the water, or as Kevin VanDam noted to Hite, a mop. In fact, it was VanDam's quip that led to the new name.
"Those fish were so aggressive toward the herring, that most guys were throwing saltwater-type topwaters," Hite noted. "But I was throwing the big jig to intimidate the fish and make them respond. With these fish, I usually either try to finesse them or intimidate them."
With that jig, Hite emerged from practice with a strong set of shallow shoals and points to fish, and the confidence that he could catch them all day long.
Also notable about his practice was that he threw 4- and 5-inch Storm swimbaits, which he custom-painted to look like a blueback. He thought they would be a strong players, but the fish wouldn't bite. It wasn't until day 4 that a swimbait would work its way back into his hands.
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 20-01
> Day 2: 5, 20-09
> Day 3: 5, 15-07
> Day 4: 5, 15-11
> Total = 20, 71-12
Hite caught a limit by 8:00 on both days 1 and 2. They were fish that were breaking the surface. With a base limit in place, he went to culling. He weighed 10 fish across both days, nine of which he caught on the jig.
Day 3 went much the same, but he didn't catch an additional kicker and his weight dropped by 5 pounds.
Day 4 started differently. He caught two small fish on the jig.
"Then I threw right on top of some breaking fish with a Spook, and some other topwaters, but they wouldn't touch it," he noted. "I said, 'Let me try this swimbait.' I had a ton of confidence in it coming into (practice), but hadn't caught anything on it."
That was it. He started rocking and boated at least another 20 fish on the swimbait. "It was awesome the way they were eating it."
About the importance of consistency, he said: "The guys like Kenyon (Hill) who were 2nd and 3rd and 4th, they had days where they only caught 10 pounds. A 10-pound day on a lake like this really kills you."
Pattern Notes
Hite concentrated on main-lake shoals, plus some points in the afternoon, but there was nothing particular about his areas.
"It wasn't so much the places," he said. "Jason Quinn (who finished 3rd) was talking about all the big fish he was losing. And when I was hearing guys talking about losing 7s and 8s, or three 5s, I thought, 'I'm not getting bites like they are.'"
Hite noted that the Buckeye Mop jig (shown) has wide-diameter Living Rubber, and the size intimidates fish into biting.
He was casting the jig, then working it back to the boat in short little hops off the bottom. "So many people thought I was swimming that jig, but I definitely was not," he said.
He fished the swimbait on a straight retrieve.
Winning Gear Notes
> Jig gear: 7'6" All Star medium-heavy flipping stick, Pflueger President casting reel, 20-pound Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Buckeye Mop jig (brown), plastic crawfish trailer (green-pumpkin).
> About the Mop jig, he said: "It's so big and bulky, it amazes you when you see it. You say to yourself, 'How do they bite this big thing?' It has big, thick rubber and the skirt's 5 inches long. I gave one to Kevin VanDam and he said, 'Oh, I need to trim this.' I said, 'Oh no you don't.'"
> Swimbait gear: 7' medium-action All Star rod, Shakespeare Supreme casting reel, 17-pound Berkley Sensation (lower-stretch monofilament), 5" Storm WildEye swimbait (shad plus custom hues).
> Although he practiced with both the 4- and 5-inch swimbaits, he caught his tournament fish on the 5-inch version.
> He painted the back of the swimbait. "I made the back an olive drab color. They call those (herring) bluebacks, but they don't have a blue back – at least at Clarks Hill they don't."
Notable
> Main factor in his success – "My knowledge of the lake, and then finding baits that I could actually land the fish on that were biting. And figuring out how to work a pattern for 4 days."
> Hite noted that fish management was important. "This is my seventh BASS win, and I kind of take pride in the fact that I've never lost the lead in a tournament. I try not to burn fish. I try to expand, and plan toward a 4-day event. Sometimes it bites you, but in 13 years, seven wins isn't too bad."
> He's had some bad years alongside the good ones – and twice won BassFan's Comeback of the Year award. "People talk about all the bad years I had, but I've made 12 out of the last 14 Classics," he said. "I'm not sure anyone's done much better than that, except maybe Kevin (VanDam). But when I have a bad tournament, I have a real bad one. I get off in left field trying to make them bite that big old jig, when maybe I should be throwing a dropshot or something."
> One of his newer sponsors is Pro Tour Trailers. "They make custom boat trailers with fiberglass storage compartments on the side. They're more streamlined than big haulers. They look very similar to regular trailers, but they're built with custom boxes that fit around the sides."
