The Rad Lures Chatterbait was Chris Baumgardner's primary weapon en route to winning the Potomac River FLW Tour. It accounted for all of his weigh-in fish but one.
Ah, but that "other" fish – caught on a bait borrowed from his day-2 co-angler – was a beauty, and he wouldn't have won without it. In fact, he wouldn't even have made the Top 10.
The 46-year-old veteran from North Carolina was the only angler in the field who caught at least 15 pounds on all 4 days, and he dominated the final 2 days to claim his first tour-level victory. His 33-05 total was 6-12 better than runner-up David Dudley.
Here's how he did it.
Practice
Like most in the 200-angler field, Baumgardner had an excellent practice. He caught fish just about wherever he went and got quality bites on several different baits.
When everything's working, it can be tough to narrow down a gameplan. But he finally settled on a couple of primary areas – one for mornings and one for afternoons – and determined that the Chatterbait was producing his highest-quality bites.
One huge bonus was that he could get bit in either area regardless of the tidal stage. He wasn't forced to chase the outgoing tide up and down the river, as many of his competitors were.
"The tide really wasn't too much of a factor, although I seemed to get the most bites when it was changing. I could get bites on any tide, but especially when the water was moving one way or the other."
He caught at least 15 pounds on each practice day, but was a bit apprehensive about whether he could continue that type of production through 4 tournament days.
"Sometimes you can get stuck on what you did in practice, and then things change and you don't make the right adjustments in the tournament. I was fortunate that everything just continued to fall into place."
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 15-06
> Day 2: 5, 18-10 (10, 34-00)
> Day 3, 5, 16-07
> Day 4: 5, 16-14 (10, 33-05)
Baumgardner spent the early portion of the first 2 days at his lily-pad spot, which was in Quantico Creek. At about 1:00 he relocated to the milfoil area, a few miles south of Mattawoman Creek on the main river.
He brought in his lightest bag of the tournament on day 1. He was outfished by his co-angler, Donald Tross of Virginia, who caught 17-03 to lead that division.
"The tide was real high that day, and I was kind of worried," he said. "We went to the pad fields and (Tross) threw a buzzbait and I threw a Chatterbait, and we just caught a bunch of fish.
"Both of us had a good limit, and we went to the milfoil late in the day to try to catch a few on the low tide. He got a 5-pounder, and I got a 3 1/2."
On day 2, he got a huge boost from his co-angler, Larry Hostetler of Indiana.
Baumgardner holds up the two fish that completed his limit and sealed his first tour-level victory.
"He was catching them real good on a (Yamamoto) Senko," Baumgardner noted. "I didn't have any, so I asked him if I could borrow one – and a hook."
Hostetler obliged, and a short time later, Baumgardner was hooked up with a brute that weighed nearly 7 1/2 pounds. It was the biggest fish weighed in during the event, and his 18-10 bag moved him up 32 places to 7th at the cut.
He only spent about an hour on the pads on day 3, and had just two small fish to show for it.
"I could see that the pad bite was going away. So I went to the milfoil and just kind of fished around and caught a few, but it was kind of slow.
"Then right about when the tide turned (around noon), I hit a little place and caught three good ones right in a row."
His bag was more than 2 pounds lighter than the previous day, but it was a pound better than anybody else in the Top 10 field could manage. He was just 1 more solid day away from the biggest win of his career.
He went straight to the milfoil to begin day 4 and had one 10-minute spurt early on that produced three good fish, including a 4 1/2-pounder. From there on, he picked up one here and one there until he had a stringer that pushed 17 pounds.
It was the best sack of the day by more than 4 pounds.
Baumgardner tipped his Chatterbait with a Zoom Super Speed Craw.
Pattern Notes
> Many anglers had concluded that the spawn was over before the tournament started, but Baumgardner thinks at least some of the fish he caught from the milfoil might have been in the midst of the reproductive ritual. "Several of them had bleeding tails," he said. "And that big one I caught (on day 2) sure looked like it was full of eggs."
> His prime milfoil stretch was only about a 10-minute run from the lily-pad field.
Winning Gear Notes
> Chatterbait gear: 6'10" medium-heavy American Rodsmiths Dion Hibdon signature series jig and worm rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX casting reel (6.4:1), 17-pound Berkley Trilene fluorocarbon line, Rad Lures Chatterbait (brown/green-pumpkin and black/blue), 4" Zoom Super Speed Craw trailer (green-pumpkin).
> The Chatterbaits he used were equipped with wider-gap hooks than the original. That's a new addition, and those baits aren't on the market yet.
> He used the brown/green-pumpkin bait to catch nine of his 10 weigh-in fish over the final 2 days. Fellow competitor Andy Montgomery tied the skirt on that one, so he nicknamed the bait "Little Andy."
The Bottom Line
Main factor in his success – "Probably just having patience with the Chatterbait and knowing the bites would come. I've been throwing it for about 3 years now and I'm gaining more and more confidence in it all the time."
Performance edge – "The Chatterbait with that Speed Craw on it. That's a real good trailer for it, and the boys from Chatterbait turned me on to it."
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