Arizona's Andre Moore won the FLW Wal-Mart Open on Beaver Lake the same way many anglers figured it would be won, even with the high water: by sight-fishing for bedding bass. Amazingly, he managed to do this better than a field chock-full of deadly sight-fishermen, notably Clark Wendlandt who won two of the three prior tournaments at Beaver.

Before getting into his pattern, take a look at how he did:
> Day 1: 4 bass, 9-08, tied for 13th
> Day 2: 4 bass, 7-05, 14th
> Day 3: 5 bass, 7-15, 6th
> Day 4: 5 bass, 10-06, 1st

Practice: Cold Water

Moore practiced 7 days at Beaver. When he arrived the water was high and cold (high 40s), and thoughts of sight-fishing were non-existent. Then warm, stable air descended into the valleys of the Ozark Mountains. Highs near 80 and muggy nights warmed the lake considerably.

"The water temperature warmed 12 degrees in just four days," Moore said. "A few days before the tournament, the bass were suspending around the bushes looking at the bank. I knew they were close to spawning."

From previous experience on California waters, he knew that smallmouths would be the first fish to bed. "Smallmouth usually bed deeper," Moore noted, and "the last two days (of practice) I looked out deep on main-lake banks and found one bank that had a good bunch of smallmouths on it." He was excited for the tournament to start, and rightly so.

Day 1: 8's a Crowd

Moore figured he would have the smallmouth bank to himself because so many people were looking back in pockets during practice. He was wrong: On the first morning eight boats visited his bank.

"I got there early and boated four smallmouths before the boats started flooding the bank," said Moore. "I was working on my fifth bass when I noticed something: all the boats were up shallow, in 5 to 6 feet. Nobody was looking out deeper. I already had about 10 pounds so I decided not to educate my competition anymore and I left."

Day 2: All to Himself

On the day 2, nobody started on the smallmouth bank. "I was really surprised," Moore said. "I guess they thought everything had been caught."

With less pressure, Moore boated four smallmouths and figured he had enough for the cut. That was at 9:30. So for the rest of the day he looked for new areas. On his travels he found two largemouth spawners that he decided to leave alone for day 3.

Day 3: Big Gamble

The morning of day 3 found Moore back on his primary bank. He quickly caught a limit, and then went looking for largemouths.

"I checked those two that I'd found the day before," he said. "They were there, but they were not committed. Then I found another keeper largemouth that had just moved up."

But in a serious gamble for the win, he didn't fish for them. "I decided that if I was going to win, I'd have to save those three largemouths and hope that nobody found them," he said.

Luckily for Moore, none of the Top 20 semi-finalists found his fish.

On the final day he caught all three of the largemouths he had been saving, plus a couple of decent spotted bass. His weight of 10-06 was enough to beat runner-up Randall Hutson by 9 ounces.

California Experience Helped

Moore took a risk in leaving fish and being confident with his weights, and it paid off. But that wasn't the only reason for his win. He also appeared to find spawning bass where others weren't looking for them, and not just the smallmouths.

Moore said that Beaver is similar to Shasta and Oroville, two California lakes where he honed his sight-fishing skills. "Shasta and Oroville are deep, clear lakes and they have the three species of bass, just like Beaver. So although I wasn't familiar with Beaver, my history on those California lakes really helped me."

While most competitors concentrated on finding bedding bass in traditional spots, such as coves, Moore said that his California experience has taught him to look on "outside banks" instead of inside coves and pockets when sight-fishing.

"I've found that outside fish, those that live out on the main lake, are usually better-quality fish and less-pressured than fish back in the obvious spawning pockets," he said. "On clear lakes like Beaver, fish don't need to migrate a mile back into a creek to spawn. They just pull up on the bank and do their thing."

Winning Gear

Moore caught most of his fish on baitcasting equipment. He used St. Croix rods in a variety of sizes and actions -- 6' 6", 7' and a 7' 10" flipping sticks depending on how the fish were positioned in the cover. He used TUFF XP braided line (15-lb. and 30-lb.) for most of his sight-fishing.

All of his bass were caught on two prototype plastic baits that he designed. "I really don't want to say too much about the baits," he said. "Bait companies have a lot more money and they could put them on the market before I do." But he did reveal that "one is like a cross between a worm and a tube and the other is a creature bait that has wings and claws."

He used a variety of colors, but pearl-white was the best.

The baits were fished on a Texas rig using Japanese prototype sinkers (1/4- and 3/8-ounce). The bullet-style tungsten heads are colored to match the plastics.

The final part of his rig was Gamakatsu 2/0 Superline hooks.