By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor
Aside from smallmouth fishing at Lake Erie, Jeremy Starks can’t recall another lake he’s fished where the quality fish were holding in as deep of water as they were at Douglas Lake.
Unlike Erie, though, dipping a drop-shot rig into a deep school of fish at Douglas wouldn’t have even caught a limit. They wanted no part of a finesse presentation. Instead, it was a big, wobbly crankbait that ruled the day and triggered reaction strikes from fish stalking wads of shad.
Cast after cast, he made sure his deep-diving plug got into the strike zone and with the help of an old technique that got his baits to run real deep, he pulled more than 80 pounds of bass out of the French Broad River impoundment in eastern Tennessee to lock up his second career Elite Series title.
“I don’t think anything will compare to the first win because it changes your entire career, but it still means a lot,” he said.
His 20-plus-pound average blew away what many thought it would take to claim victory and he needed virtually every ounce to overtake Britt Myers, who led the middle 2 days of the event and held nearly a 6-pound lead entering the final day.
After sitting out the 2011 season due to medical reasons, he’s in the mix for the Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year (AOY) with four tournaments remaining and has earned himself a ticket to his first Bassmaster Classic next February.
Here’s how he did it.
Practice
Deep water was not on Starks’ practice agenda.
He estimates he made maybe 10 casts on offshore fish and decided he would stalk the deeper schools once the event got started.
“I practiced shallow and caught some small fish,” he said. “I thought it was terrible. I knew there were a lot of fish offshore and I thought I’d just figure out how to catch them through the tournament. It was a terrible practice for me.”
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 16-01
> Day 2: 5, 23-01
> Day 3: 5, 19-11
> Day 4: 5, 22-05
> Total = 20, 81-02
Starks came off the water early on day 1 after experiencing a recurrence of the extreme dizziness that kept him out of competition last year. Luckily, he had bagged 16-01, but he thought his chances to contend for a victory were gone.
“Honestly, I thought quitting early with 16 pounds was going to cost me the tournament, but it didn’t,” he said.
He felt much better when he woke up on day 2. His catch improved dramatically as well. His 23-01 stringer was surpassed only by Myers’ 24-01 sack and it was enough to propel him into 3rd place.
All of his weigh fish came out of Muddy Creek, a vast creek arm that’s situated to the southwest of the takeoff point. Myers and 3rd-place finisher Aaron Martens also caught a majority of their fish there.
The school of fish he worked on day 2 numbered into the 60s and he was not faced with the spot-sharing others had to deal with.
He boxed 19-11 on day 3 to clinch his second career Top-12 finish. It also moved him past Martens and into 2nd place behind Myers.
When he pulled into his key spot on day 4, there were upwards of 200 slashes on his sonar graph. He worked them over the entire morning, but by 2 o’clock the school had dissipated.
“There was not one fish left,” he said.
Starks provided this photo he took of his graph to illustrate how the fish were packed against the bottom.
It prompted him to run to new water where he found a similar-sized school. He upgraded with a pair of 5-pounders in the final hour that virtually sealed the win.
Pattern Notes
As is evident in the picture of Starks’ sonar graph, the fish he was targeting were hugging the bottom on points in 35 to 45 feet of water.
To reach those depths, he would cast his bait as far as he could and not engage his reel. Then, he would idle away from the area, allowing the line to freely peel off his reel.
How much line was he letting out?
“I’d let it go completely down to the spool every time. I had 300 yards on it,” he said.
Once all the line was out, he would engage and start cranking – fast. He’d also kneel and reel to maximize the time the bait would spend around the fish.
Frequently, he’d get bit halfway back to the boat as the bait zipped through the school. The technique made for a couple of sore arms that he’ll gladly deal with.
“They don’t make enough Aleve for how sore they are,” he said.
> Despite the changes in weather the field endured during the course of the tournament, especially in the mornings, he didn’t notice a negative impact of the fish he was after. “Those deep fish are so less affected by pressure changes than shallow fish,” he said.
> He tried a jigging spoon on day 4, but couldn’t trigger any bites even though he could feel the slab bouncing off the fish as he snapped it through the school.
Winning Gear Notes
> Crankbait gear: 7’11” medium-heavy Airrus Ken Whiting prototype cranking rod, Abu Garcia Revo (6.4:1 ratio) or Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris CarbonLite (5.1:1) casting reel, unnamed fluorocarbon line, Strike King Series 6XD (green gizzard shad, powder blue back chartreuse or sexy blue back herring).
> Starks declined to disclose the brand or weight of the fluorocarbon he used, saying, “That was the trick to getting it deep.”
> He used the silent version of the Series 6XD because it triggered more true reaction strikes.
The Bottom Line
> Main factor in his success – “Patience, no doubt. And not getting in a hurry.”
> Performance edge – “My Lowrance electronics. It’s unbelievable how you can drive around and find these fish and tell how big they were. You could see the fins on them.”
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