Hall Stuck With Rattlebait, Thrift Mixed It Up

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

In recent years, Lake Guntersville has been a popular venue on the Southeast Rayovac Series schedule and for good reason. The Tennessee River lake is one of the bass fishing jewels of the country and when the Rayovac field shows up, it typically takes three pretty stout bags of fish to be in contention for the win.

In May 2012, it took 81-12 to win. In late February 2013, three anglers broke the 80-pound mark. Last year, 77 1/2 pounds took top honors. This year was no different in terms of big fish and big bags.

Jay Kendrick cracked 31-05 on the final day to win with 83-07. A specimen weighing 12-10 crossed the stage on day 2. Make no mistake, Guntersville was in a giving mood last week, but it took a little bit of work to figure her out.

While Kendrick slung a big swimbait around, runner-up Joe Hall stuck with a lipless crankbait and third-place finisher Bryan Thrift used an assortment of presentations to nail down his second straight Top-5 result at Guntersville.

Following are more details about how Hall and Thrift went about their business.

2nd: Joe Hall

> Day 1: 5, 28-01
> Day 2: 5, 27-05
> Day 3: 5, 22-00
> Total = 15, 77-06

Hall had only been to Guntersville once before last week’s Rayovac Series, but he said he felt a little more comfortable on the Tennessee River than someone else with as little experience since he lives on the Mississippi River in Lake City, Minn.

“I do think things set up somewhat similar,” he said. “Both places are current oriented and the fish’s season movements are pretty predictable.”

He put a lot of time into map study prior to heading south and once at Guntersville, he relied on his electronics to shorten the learning curve. He put in five days of practice and thought he had a good pattern figured out the weekend before the event.

“I caught everything shallow on a ChatterBait,” he said. “I was only catching 4 1/2s or bigger. On Monday and Tuesday, with the nice weather, for whatever reason that all changed. I only caught one bass each day.”

On the final day of practice, he slid out deeper and started throwing a 3/4-oz. lipless crankbait and caught three, but they were on three key areas.

“I knew there were more there because I was marking them and every time I’d get a bite, it was in their throats,” he added.

The areas he found were mostly in creek arms right off the main channel heading into the main creek channel.

“I had confidence in those three areas and figured if I caught one of those fish an hour, I could put together a strong showing. I was a little worried about getting enough bites, though. I wasn’t super confident because I hadn’t caught them out of big groups of fish, but everybody I described what I was doing to told me it was what I needed to be doing and those areas would keep reloading.”

He was boat number 163 on day 1 so he didn’t have his pick of fishing spots.

“I knew the shallow areas would be covered up,” he said. “I went to my first spot and grass had blow in there and it was unfishable. I went to my next spot and there were three boats on it. My gut told me that to have a chance I needed to go deep and that’s when things started to click together.”

He moved to a ditch where the fish were positioned in 8 to 10 feet. He managed one keeper in two hours before expanding on the area.

“I knew they had to be there somewhere,” he said. “That’s when I stumbled on the sweet spot.”

With two other boats within 100 yards of him, he boated three more keepers on the lipless crankbait. He gave his co-angler the same bait and told him they were going to try to catch everything they could off that spot. Hall wound up slaying 28-01 and his co-angler caught 27-15 – a massive 56-pound haul off one area.

“I caught one at 9 a.m. and I remember looking at my GPS,” he said. “I wanted to catch one more an hour and I’d be alright. At 10:50, I hadn’t caught another one, but I still felt okay if I caught one then and at 11:50, 12:50, 1:50. By 11:17, we had our weight.

“It was an insane 30 minutes. We had baits in the net, fish laying on the bottom of the boat, the boat drifting off the spot. That’s what happens when you’re catching 4s, 5s and 6s.”

His bag was anchored by a 7 1/2- and a 6 1/2-pounder on day 1 with the 7 1/2 representing the biggest bass of his life.

“All of the days combined, I had 20 boats fish through that area and half of them fished right over the sweet spot or the spot on the spot,” he said. “Not many realized there was a key shell bed there.”

Not surprisingly, day 2 was a little slower on the same spot, but he did manage five bites there with the lipless crank that weighed 27-05, including a 9-03 brute. He carried a 1-12 lead into the final day.

“I probably left that spot prematurely,” he said. “I wanted to catch another 5 to cull out a 16-incher.”

He started the final day by catching a couple fish on a swimbait.

“They came up schooling, but I figured they’d be getting tired of hearing that rattle,” he said. “I just gave them a different look. I tried a bunch of other stuff like football jigs, Carolina rigs and jerkbaits, but they’d just inhale that Rat-L-Trap. It had to be digging on the bottom.”

His co-angler Saturday put two 5-pounders in the boat right away and when he went to his key spot, there was another boat on it.

“I had to rush up there and at least make my presence known, but that had me spun out,” he added. “I had three of the first four fish pull off. They weren’t hitting it the same as they had been. I thought about changing colors, but then you’d catch another one and it’d be in their throat.”

He still had a good day, but 22-00 wasn’t enough to hold off Jay Kendrick’s final-day surge.

“It’s really tough to get that close and wonder how many opportunities you’ll have to win one of those things,” he said. “I wish it’d went differently, but that’s life. It was still a successful week and lot of fun.”

> Regarding his retrieve on the lipless crankbait, he said he’d cast up into 5 feet of water and bring it back out. “I wanted to keep it slow rolling while making sure it was hitting bottom,” he said. “A lot of times it would get hung up and I couldn’t always tell if it was a bite. I noticed on day 1 when my co-angler gave my bait bait, he mentioned I was catching three fish to his one and the front hook on mine was all beat up and the finish was gone. I think that’s because he wasn’t getting his bait down far enough.”

> Lipless cranking gear: 7’ medium Powell 703 casting rod, Shimano Curado 200E casting reel (7.0:1 ratio), 15-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, 3/4-oz. Strike King Red Eye Shad (chartreuse baitfish).

> Prior to heading to Guntersville, Hall put in a tackle order for a few things, including a bunch of Red Eye Shads. All of the colors he ordered were on back order except for the chartreuse baitfish pattern he ultimately competed with.

> Main factor in his success – "I think it helped to be an underdog. I didn’t have the pressure of being at home and nobody picked me to go from Minnesota down there to take a check, let alone finish 2nd. I felt like I was playing with house money after day 1. That was the biggest bag I’d ever caught and I fished loose and didn’t feel any pressure.”

> Performance edge – "I’m not sponsored by Phoenix (Boats) or Mercury, but I wanted to thank them because I have a ton of confidence in their products. I’ve been running their stuff for five years and they take care of me if I have an issue.”

3rd: Bryan Thrift

> Day 1: 5, 21-04
> Day 2: 5, 25-00
> Day 3: 5, 27-15
> Total = 15, 74-03

Thrift said his practice was “pretty much a wash” as he spent time trying to find groups of fish, but was unsuccessful.

“I did find stuff that looked good that I didn’t get bit on in practice, but went back to in the tournament and caught fish there,” he said. “I never was on a big wad of fish like other guys were. I just junk-fished and did a little of everything to get what I caught. Guntersville is a good lake to be on nothing like that because you still have a chance since there are so many good fish there.”

The first day of the tournament saw him catch more fish than any other day of the week. He didn’t catch any giants, but he still had 21-04 to show for it.

“The main key was there was no key,” he quipped. “I bounced around a bit and wasted two hours throwing a ChatterBait where I’d caught a couple good ones in practice. I scrapped that and through the umbrella rig and a crankbait.”

He went to an area that’s historically good for a crankbait pattern and caught a 17-pound limit there. He then culled four times with the umbrella rig around off-shore grass.

“I had what felt like an 8-pounder run through my rig, but I didn’t hook up,” he said. “Then I caught a 4-pounder right at the end of the day.”

He started day 2 on the same area he finished day 1 and opted to stay with the umbrella rig all day, targeting eel grass flats in 8 to 12 feet of water.

“Eighty percent of my places were on the main river channel,” he said.

His 25-00 was enough to get him up to 8th place entering the final day.

He continued his climb on Saturday with the heaviest bag of his tournament career – a 27-15 sack that he caught a variety of ways.

“I just fished off the cuff,” he said. “I went back to where I’d caught those fish in practice on a ChatterBait and caught a 6 1/2 and a 5 1/2 in the first two hours. I cranked a 4-pounder, then caught two more 6s on the umbrella rig.

“Numbers wise, it was slower, but I still caught about six 2- or 3-pounders. That was the beauty of not having a school of fish to sit on. I could go where I wanted to and if they weren’t biting, I just went somewhere else.”

> Umbrella rig gear: 7’3” heavy-action Fitzgerald Rods Stunner HD casting rod, unnamed casting reel, 20-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, 5-arm ER Lures Willow Rig (4 blades), 1/8-oz. homemade jig heads, 4” Damiki Anchovy Shad, 3.8” Keitech Swing Impact.

> He used a range of colors on his swimbaits from pearl white and pro purple on the Anchovy Shad to pro blue red pearl with the Swing Impact.

> He prefers fluorocarbon to braid when fishing an umbrella rig because “braid allows the rig to fall too fast and you have to reel faster to keep it off the bottom,” he said. “With the fluorocarbon, it allows you to maintain better depth control.”

> Crankbait gear: 7’ medium-heavy Fitzgerald Rods crankbait casting rod, unnamed casting reel, 15-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, Damiki Brute square-bill crankbait (real shad).

> Bladed jig gear: 7’3” medium-heavy Fitzgerald Rods casting rod, same line as umbrella rig, 3/8-oz. Z-Man ChatterBait (brown/black), 4.8” Keitech Swimg Impact trailer.

> Main factor in his success – "My ability to run around and fish the moment. I would sample a little of everything so if I ran by a bridge or a dock and it looked good, I’d throw on it. It also helped having three baits that I had confidence in and knowing if I had got around fish, I’d get bit.”

> Performance edge – "My new Evinrude G2. I was running all over that lake, from the back of Browns Creek to north of the B.B. Comer bridge and only burned 23 gallons of gas.”

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