River Rat Rook Flipped, But Went Deeper At End

For the first time this entire season, a tough fishery slapped the Bassmaster Elite Series pros upside the head. The Arkansas River at Little Rock, Ark. isn't a bad fishery – but the recent Bassmaster Legends Major hit the venue at the worst possible time.

The result was a host of zeroes and one-sacks. It took only 12 pounds to make the Top 12 cut on day 2, after which the field moved into the pre-designated six-hole course.

Three locals made the final Top 6 cut on day 3 – Scott Rook, Kevin Short and Greg Hackney (a former local). No angler caught a limit on either day 3 or 4, and Rook locked up victory with just a little over 15 pounds.

It was his first-ever BASS win. Here's how he did it.

Practice

Rook grew up on this stretch of the Arkansas River and knows it like his truck cab. He did a little prep and planted some brush before the off-limits period, but entered practice with one goal: to establish a pattern, rather than rely on hotspots.

"I was just trying to put together a pattern," he said. "I got a couple of little things going, but man, it was really tough."

He couldn't establish a reliable overall pattern, but did have one spot – a backwater area – that he wanted to check. He went there on Tuesday and got six or seven bites on a worm and stuck one, which measured. Then he pulled two or three more toward the boat that were under the 15-inch minimum.

"Then I had another bite that felt like a keeper, and I'd caught keepers there before, so I thought, 'Well, I'll just come in here on day 1 and catch two or three, then go fish some underwater dikes.'"

About the underwater dikes, he said: "They were basically submerged rocks from 2 to 5 feet deep. The fish get up on top of them this time of year."

So that's what he carried into the tournament – his backwater area, his submerged dikes, and the scattered brushpiles he'd planted.

Days 1 & 2

> Day 1: 5, 12-13
> Day 2: 3, 6-08
> Total = 8, 19-05 (2nd)

On days 1 and 2, anglers were allowed to roam, but they couldn't fish most of the Little Rock pool, which was reserved for the hole course.

Rook started in his backwater, flipped up three keepers in the first 20 minutes and decided to stay longer. "I ended up with another keeper 3 hours later, then with 20 minutes left caught my last one," he said.

He ended the day in 2nd, with a comfortable 5 1/2-pound buffer between him and the 12th-place cut spot.

With that buffer, he knew he could be less aggressive on day 2, so he spent almost the entire day in the backwater once again.

"It was 11:00 before I got one bite, then about a half-hour later I caught another keeper," he noted. "I just milled around in there, then caught a 3-pounder with 30 minutes left."

He only weighed three fish, but retained his 2nd-place position.

Days 3 & 4

> Day 3: 3, 7-14
> Day 4: 4, 7-06
> Total = 7, 15-04

Day 3 marked the beginning of competition inside the six-hole course, where anglers fish each of the six holes for 70 minutes. During the final hour, anglers can fish wherever they like.

All weights were zeroed for day 3, so effectively, a new tournament began.

Rook started the morning of day 3 with 18 rods. "I did the old hometown deal," he said. "I fished a lot of key areas where I'd caught fish in the past. At about 11:00, I hadn't caught a fish and was staring a zero in the eyes."

At that point, he moved into a creek and "flipped around." He finally caught a keeper, then several shorts. "All those fish were shallow," he noted.

He left hole 3 and moved into hole 4, where he immediately flipped grass on the topside of a jetty. He caught a 3 3/4-pounder.

"Then, two jetties up from there, I caught a 2 1/2-pounder. When I got to the next hole, there wasn't that type of cover. It was at the upper end of the (Little Rock) pool, and I didn't get that many bites at all."

He ended day 3 with a three-fish, 7-14 sack. Not bad, but not nearly as good as Shaw Grigsby's 11-05. He trailed Grigsby by 3-07.

The morning of day 4, he noticed the water in the Little Rock pool had dropped 10 inches. He'd caught his fish shallow the day before, but knew that bite would be over.

He caught an early keeper, then basically waited until he could get into his creek in hole 4. When he got there, he moved away from the bank and targeted submerged cover. He caught two keepers in the creek, then returned during happy hour for his fourth and final fish of the event.

"I caught three of my four keepers out of that creek," he said. "With the water drawn down, I had the local knowledge of knowing I should go in there. I flipped bridge pilings, a concrete culvert with water and shade around it, and laydown logs.

"It was a narrow creek – not more than about 60 yards wide," he added. "I caught a keeper off a laydown, one off a culvert and one off a bridge piling."

Winning Gear Notes

He flipped plastics all 4 days. He caught his day-1 fish on an 8-inch Snaketail worm (black/red with silver glitter), which he said he recently bought.

The second day, he caught his fish on a junebug Berkley Bungee Power Hawg.

On day 3, he ran out of the Berkley Hawgs and switched to a Zoom Tiny Brush Hog in two color variations – junebug and black/red-flake.

He flipped with a 7-foot medium-heavy St. Croix Legend Elite rod and Abu Garcia Revo STX-HS casting reel (7.1:1 gear ratio).

He fished the plastics on 20-pound Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon. His terminal tackle included a 1/4-ounce lead weight (unpegged) and 5/0 Daiichi straight-shank hook.

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success –"Local knowledge – I could adjust to the water drop (on day 4) because I knew where the fish would go when they pulled out of the grass."

> Performance edge – "It's not that any of my tackle gave me an advantage so much as everything worked solid. I probably made 100 stops (on day 4), and my big motor, my trolling motor, my batteries – they all held up good. It came together like it was supposed to."

Notable

> The brushpiles Rook planted produced one fish – a 3 1/2-pounder on day 1.

> He's currently 53rd in the Elite Series Angler of the Year race, which means he needs another explosive finish if he hopes to qualify for the 2007 Bassmaster Classic. Only the Top 36 in the points will qualify. Last year, he finished 16th in the points.