Brent Ehrler won the recent Table Rock FLW Tour with a bunch of different baits. He changed up each day to catch a kicker and a few extra keepers, and targeted a staging area. Especially intriguing was his note that he fished a flat that didn't have trees. There were trees where the flat dropped off, but not in the 12- to 15-foot range that was his focus.
Here's how the rest of the Top 5 caught their fish.
2nd: Ron Shuffield
> Day 1: 3, 9-05
> Day 2: 5, 15-06
> Day 3: 5, 14-04
> Day 4: 5, 17-10
> Total = 18, 56-09
Ron Shuffield spent his tournament up the James River. Unlike the rest of the Top 5, his pattern actually got stronger as the tournament wore on.
During practice, he caught a few keepers the first day in surprisingly shallow water, along with a number of short fish. "So I was thinking the jerkbait or maybe a jig bite in that 8- to 15-foot range would be the deal," he noted. "But it really wasn't. It got so cold at night, that fell apart and I started backing out on day 2 and fished some isolated trees – groups of three and four – where I caught a few keepers.
"I knew a couple of other areas that had that, so I basically took my Humminbird Side-Imaging unit and started going down those banks looking for isolated groups of trees. I felt like more fish would be coming that way, and they did. There were more fish moving onto those isolated trees during the whole tournament, and I just spent my entire time in that one creek going from isolated group to isolated group."
What made the biggest difference for him, he said, was line size. At Table Rock, anglers typically like to fish heavy line, even though the water's gin-clear, in order to extract fish from the trees. But Shuffield made a switch from 10- to 8-pound fluorocarbon as the sun moved higher.
"Early in the morning, when the fish were more active, I'd go with 10-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon. As the day progressed, even though more fish were moving up, I'd go to 8-pound and continue to get bites throughout the day. That was real crucial because I caught fish, for the most part, all day long for the last 3 days of competition.
"You had to fish extremely slow – let the jerkbait sit for 10 or 15 seconds maybe two or three times per retrieve," he added. "And you couldn't sit in there tight. I was catching my fish right under where most contestants had their boats. I barely got any bites less than 15 feet deep."
> Jerkbait gear: 6' and 6'6" Fenwick Techna AV rods, Abu Garcia Revo STX casting reel, 8- and 10-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, Megabass Vision 110 (shad) and Spro McStick (chrome shad).
> He said he threw the McStick more than the Vision 110.
> What helped him fish slowly through the afternoon was the fact that he had a limit in the box nearly every day by 10:00.
Mike Wurm ran a classic pre-spawn pattern with a small jig.
3rd: Mike Wurm
> Day 1: 5, 16-14
> Day 2: 5, 13-05
> Day 3: 3, 7-09
> Day 4: 3, 8-10
> Total = 16, 46-06
Mike Wurm fished what he called "typical pre-spawn patterns" up the White River – rock points, bluff ends, creek channels and river channels leading into creeks.
"When you had occasional standing timber, the fish seemed to relate to the standing timber," he added. "What made it work was a small jig – a 5/16-ounce (Jewel) Eakins' jig on a spinning rod. It's one of my favorite things to do. I used braid with a fluorocarbon leader, and that makes all the difference in the hookset. Just a short snap with that braid and they were hooked solid. And there's no trouble with twisted line."
He said he fished slowly and "inched" the jig along bottom. The bites were subtle – the braid helped there too.
He kept his boat in 35 to 40 feet and generally threw into 20 to 30 feet.
> Jig gear: Quantum Mike Wurm signature series rod (Tennessee handle), Quantum Tour Edition PTi 30 spinning reel, 10-pound Spiderwire Stealth braid, 10-pound Cajun fluorocarbon leader, 5/16-ounce Jewel Eakins' jig (PBJ), Zoom Lil' Critter craw (green-pumpkin).
Bryan Thrift developed his strategy in the final hours of practice.
4th: Bryan Thrift
> Day 1: 5, 14-13
> Day 2: 5, 14-03
> Day 3: 4, 9-14
> Day 4: 1, 5-03
> Total = 15, 44-01
Bryan Thrift also fished up the White, and dragged a jig just like Wurm. But Thrift's bite degraded to the point that he changed to a jerkbait for the final hour of day 4, which accounted for a 5-pounder.
Thrift targeted points with trees. Critical was that the point had "a little break at the end, and the best ones had a little rock where the point broke into the channel."
He fished depths from 15 to 30 feet. Some of his points were main-lake, some were secondary.
He actually fished the winning area on days 1 and 2 but never saw Ehrler, who left both days after an early limit. By the time Thrift got there, though, the bite was pretty much over.
> Jig gear: 7' heavy-action Damiki rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX casting reel, 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 3/8-ounce Damiki jig (brown), unnamed crawfish trailer (green-pumpkin).
> Jerkbait gear: 6'6" medium-heavy Damiki rod, same reel, 12-pound Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, Megabass Vision 110 (pro blue).
Greg Pugh fished a jig with painstaking focus.
5th: Greg Pugh
> Day 1: 5, 18-11
> Day 2: 4, 10-08
> Day 3: 4, 9-05
> Day 4: 0, 0-00
> Total = 13, 38-08
Greg Pugh led day 1 but things went downhill from there. His big day-1 bag carried him a long way, but on day 4, his area was besieged by white-bass fishermen and he blanked.
He lost several fish in the trees, and estimated that he could have weighed 30-plus pounds on day 1 if not for lost fish.
"I was throwing a Lunker Lure 5/8-ounce black-and-blue jig," he said. "On day 1, I was fishing in 16 feet of water, where a creek channel went up against a flat. There were four big trees laying down there where the channel met the flat, and that's where the big fish were coming from. The second day was almost the same thing, but I fished more isolated cover up on the flat."
He fished up the White River.
> Jig gear: 7'11" heavy-action Fenwick Elite Tech Flippin' Stik, 20-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, Abu Garcia Revo SX casting reel, 5/8-ounce Lunker Lure jig (black/blue), Zoom Super Chunk Jr. (black).
