By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
Brandon Palaniuk made an educated guess about what the pre-spawn females at Bull Shoals Lake would be doing last week. His presumption was right on the screws.
The Idahoan, in his second year on the Bassmaster Elite Series after winning the 2010 Federation Nation National Championship, claimed his first tour-level victory at a venue that he – along with the majority of the field – had never seen before. Limits were easy to come by at the massive Arkansas reservoir that was hosting its first tour-level event in 21 years, but 4-pound-plus bites were scarce.
He weighed the field's biggest bag on each of the first 3 days and coasted to victory with a 4-day total of 78-06. His margin over runner-up Britt Myers was nearly 12 pounds.
The triumph marked a turnaround after a difficult start to the season in Florida and earned him an early berth in the 2013 Classic, which will be his third straight appearance in the sport's premier event. Also, the $100,000 winner's check just about doubled his career earnings as a pro.
Here's how he did it.
Practice
The 24-year-old Palaniuk relies heavily on Internet research to formulate his practice plans, and reading an interview with Robbie Dodson, a Bull Shoals ace and winner of an FLW EverStart there earlier this month, put him on the right path.
"He mentioned the Sugar Loaf/Lead Hill area and said that if he couldn't catch them there in that tournament, then he wasn't going to catch them anywhere on the lake," he said. "That told me that area must hold good quality and it gave me a starting point. The lake's just huge, and I wanted to be able to break it down and concentrate on one area."
Knowing that the water level had dropped about 8 feet over the previous couple of weeks, he came up with a theory that a lot of the bigger females that had been on the verge of moving to the spawning beds might have pulled back into deeper water. The water temperature was in the mid to high 60s, however, so there was a chance that notion might be a bust.
He went West Sugar Loaf Creek on the morning of the first practice day and pulled up on a big, long point he'd located on his Navionics chip. He idled around and found one small rock pile and graphed some fish on it.
He turned around, got lined up and made a cast with a crankbait. It resulted in a 3 1/2-pounder.
"That got me instantly fired up. I thought that maybe my plan would work."
He fished around a little more and while looking at his map, he saw a creek channel at the back of West Sugar Loaf with a road bed running through it. The road was littered with brushpiles and rocks below the 10-foot mark – the last pieces of deep structure the fish could visit before moving to the spawning grounds.
He caught a 4 1/2-pounder and a 3 1/2 there, and then left it alone. He spent the remainder of practice searching for similar locales with water in the same depth range and located a handful that would play a role in his victory.
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 21-09
> Day 2: 5, 24-04
> Day 3: 5, 19-10
> Day 4: 5, 12-15
> Total = 20, 78-06
The West Sugar Loaf spot produced just a single 4-pounder for Palaniuk on day 1, but he picked up a couple of 5s from other places and came in with the day-best sack. He weighed the heaviest stringer of the event the following day – all from the road bed – to extend his lead to 8 pounds.
"It was drizzly and rainy that day, and they were feeding," he said. "I caught them quick."
He started on the road bed again on day 3, which featured post-frontal conditions and a much tougher bite, and pulled about 17 pounds off of it. He upgraded a couple of times from other places and had a 13-pound lead after the weigh-in had concluded.
Palaniuk caught all of his fish from depths of 12 feet or below.
His starting area surrendered just one fish on day 4, so he made a substantial run (more than 10 miles) to the north to a single rockpile he'd been saving. He got the rest of his 13-pound sack from there.
He threw two deep-running crankbaits for the entire event. He said his shallowest weigh-in fish came from about 12 feet of water and he caught some from as deep as 20 feet.
Winning Gear Notes
> Cranking gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Abu Garcia Veritas Winch Series cranking rod, Abu Garcia Revo Winch casting reel (5.4:1 ratio), 10-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line, Rapala DT16 (Ike's Custom Ink - blueback herring) or Strike King 6XD (brown ghost craw).
> He said he switched up the crankbaits every now and again just to give the fish a different look and sound. "The only reason I threw the 6XD originally was because the Ozarks lakes are really well-known for a (Storm) Wiggle Wart bite and that looks similar, but it gets down deeper. On the second day I caught my whole bag on the DT16."
> He believes his Hydrowave unit enticed some of his better bites.
The Bottom Line
> Main factor in his success – "I think committing to the deeper fish in practice set me apart for catching a larger average than the guys on the banks."
> Performance edge – "I'd say the DT16 in Ike's Custom Color. It looks so realistic in the water and it's something that maybe the fish haven't seen as much. It seemed to be able to trigger the bigger bites."
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