Changing Conditions Called For Adjustments

By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

Competitors in the Beaver Lake FLW Tour could catch decent fish in just about any manner they chose when practice started. But as the ensuing days passed, the number of techniques capable of garnering a 15-pound sack continued to winnow.

Beaver is a true "pattern lake" – it's much more important to be doing the right thing than to be fishing in the right place. There's usually no place on the impoundment that an angler can pull into and pop numerous 3-pound plus specimens, but a productive technique can be employed in hundreds of different locales that feature a similar scenario.

The four anglers who finished closest to winner Scott Canterbury made the necessary adjustments as the water continued to get clearer and warmer. Those conditions caused many of the fish to complete their transition from the pre-spawn mode to the bedding ritual during the course of the event.

2nd: Darrel Robertson

> Day 1: 5, 14-14
> Day 2: 5, 16-04
> Day 3: 5, 13-01
> Day 4: 5, 17-01
> Total = 20, 61-04

Darrel Robertson resides only about an hour from Beaver in Jay, Okla. He had an abbreviated practice session, as a brother-in-law died unexpectedly the day before practice began and he was shuttling back and forth to tend to family matters.

Nonetheless, he posted his second single-digit finish of the season and his third in the past four regular-season derbies dating back to the end of the 2015 campaign.

"I practiced until about 2 o'clock every day and by the time it was over, I had enough to get started," he said. "I had some in the clear water and some in the stained and I did a little bit of sight-fishing, but not a lot."

He spent the majority of the first 2 days throwing a shaky-head and a Senko. The majority of day 3 was a real struggle for him until he started throwing a jig around buckbrush. The fish he caught doing that gave him enough weight to make the cut to the final day and then catch day 4's largest stringer.

That final-day haul would've been considerably heavier had he not lost seven of his 20 bites.

"The better fish were about a foot deep and they weren't spawning – they were feeding. They'd pick up the jig and run a hundred miles an hour toward the boat and I just didn't get a good hookset on two or three of them."

> Jig gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Lew's Custom Lite rod, Lew's Tournament Pro casting reel (6.8:1 ratio), 20-pound Seaguar AbrazX fluorocarbon line, 1/2-ounce Clifford Pirch Outdoors jig (green-pumpkin), Uncle Josh Meat Craw trailer (green-pumpkin).

> Senko gear: 7'4" medium-heavy Lew's Custom Lite Rod, same reel and line, 5/0 Gamakatsu hook (with weedguard), 7" Yamamoto Custom Baits Senko (green-pumpkin).

> Shaky-head gear: 7' medium-action Lew's Custom Lite rod, Team Lew's Pro spinning reel, 12-pound Seaguar Smackdown braid (main line), 10-pound Seaguar AbrazX fluorocarbon (leader), 3/16-ounce homemade shaky-head jig, 6 1/2" Zoom Trick Worm (green-pumpkin).

> Main factor in his success – "Probably experience from fishing the lake as many times as I have. I knew where to go to find those patterns."

> Performance edge – "I'd say the Lew's rods and reels. They're so smooth that I can flip 20 yards accurately."

3rd: Jeff Sprague

> Day 1: 5, 15-06
> Day 2: 5, 13-02
> Day 3: 5, 15-08
> Day 4: 5, 16-13
> Total = 20, 60-13

Jeff Sprague focused on pre-spawn fish throughout the event and kept moving farther up the White River to maintain the scenario that produced for him.

"I was keying on certain ledges that ran a little ways out," he said. "The males were moving up (to spawn) and the females were coming behind them.

"They had chunk rock with deep water close by. They were staging areas that the females would move into. A lot of them were holding in the 4- to 6-foot (depth) range.

He weighed two fish that he caught flipping, one that bit a floating worm and one sight-fish, but the rest were all enticed by a crankbait. That bite disappeared by day 2 or a lot of the anglers who'd gotten on it during practice, but he kept it alive by continually advancing upriver.

"I felt like it was the best way for me to keep getting quality bites. I'd catch some (non-keepers) too, and that kept me interested. It wasn't too slow and monotonous."

> Cranking gear: 7'2" medium-action Reel Time rod, Abu Garcia Revo SX casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 12-pound Hi-Seas fluorocarbon line, custom-painted Lucky Craft RC 1.5 (craw).

> Flipping gear: 7'6" heavy-action Reel Time IMX rod, same reel, 20-pound Hi-Seas fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce V&M flipping jig (green-pumpkin), V&M Baby Mudbug trailer (green-pumpkin).

> He also flipped the new V&M J-Bug.

> He caught his lone sight-fish on a V&M Pork Pin worm.

Main factor in his success – "The fish were spawning down in the clear water (near the dam) when I got here, and I just went in reverse order and followed the water temperature up the river. I had fish still coming to me rather than leaving and that's why it held up for me. I ended up 10 to 15 minutes upriver in a couple of cuts where they were moving in to spawn."

Performance edge – "The durability of the 12-pound Hi-Seas line on all those rocks was tremendous, and my rod was a huge factor in what I had to do to get those fish in."

4th: Scott Martin

> Day 1: 5, 15-09
> Day 2: 5, 12-00
> Day 3: 5, 15-12
> Day 4: 5, 16-03
> Total = 20, 59-08

Scott Martin follows the same routine at every tournament these days – he spends his practice period searching for patterns and areas that'll allow him to catch enough weight to make the Top 20 cut, then seeks the right adjustments to move up in the standings on the weekend. It's a phenomenally effective program – the reigning Angler of the Year (AOY) has advanced past the initial cut nine times over the past 12 regular-season events.

For this derby, he opted to sight-fish in the clearer end of the lake on days 1 and 2.

"I knew I had enough (fish marked) for 1 day or maybe a day and a half," he said. "The first day I caught 15-09, which was a good bag, but my weight shows that I really didn't have enough for the second day. I had to switch gears.

"Not having enough sight-fish on day 2 cost me, and I stayed with it a little too long."

He threw a variety of baits in darker colored water over the final 2 days, during which he moved up from 11th to 4th.

"I fished different every day – different places and a different rotation. (On day 4) I was 20 miles upriver, flipping laydowns and logjams on steeper banks.

He also caught a couple of key fish around shallow bushes with a swimjig and a vibrating jig, and he connected a couple of times with a crankbait.

> Sight-fishing gear: 7'6" heavy-action Okuma Scott Martin TCS rod, Okuma Helios TCS casting reel (8:1 ratio), 17-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, 5/16-ounce tungsten bullet weight, 5/0 Lazer TroKar TK 130 hook, Tightlines UV Craw (green-pumpkin).

> Flipping gear: 7'6" heavy-action Okuma Scott Martin TCS Flipping/Jig rod, same reel, line, weight and hook, Tightlines UV Beaver (green-pumpkin).

> Cranking gear: 7'11" Okuma Scott Martin TCS Power Crank rod, same reel (6.6:1 ratio), 10-pound P-Line fluorocarbon, LiveTarget HFC Crawfish (brown crawdad with a touch of red added with a Sharpie pen).

> His swimjig was a 3/8-ounce MPack Lures model (black/blue) with an unnamed double-tail trailer. The vibrating jig (unnamed) weighed 1/4-ounce and he employed the same trailer.

Main factor in his success – "Versatility – I had to do so many different things throughout the tournament."

Performance edge – "I'd have to say it was the Power-Poles with the 10-foot blades for allowing me to stay in position in 8 or 9 feet of water to catch those sight-fish, and also the accuracy of the Garmin electronics units for keeping my waypoints."

5th: JT Kenney

> Day 1: 5, 18-04
> Day 2: 5, 9-06
> Day 3: 5, 13-05
> Day 4: 5, 16-15
> Total = 20, 57-15

JT Kenney was the day-1 leader with a tournament-best 18-05 stringer that was topped by a 6-10 brute – the biggest fish caught during the event. He boxed only about half that on day 2, though, and remained in the lower portion of the Top 10 until the final day, when he put together another big bag.

He cranked for the first 2 days, then stumbled into the good jig bite late on day 3.

"That day wasn't going very well either until I finally got on that jig deal in the afternoon," he said. "I didn't have a fish at noon, and then I caught nine keepers from then until 3 o'clock.

"I didn't know that was how a lot of other guys were catching them. I had about 20 rods on my deck and I was just flailing everything I could think of out there. It was nice that I didn't have to pull out the spinning rods. Maybe that's what I need to do at Beaver every time – fish it like a man."

He saw a couple of extremely large crawfish in the water and imitated them with a 3/8-ounce jig and a massive Gambler MegaDaddy trailer.

"I was throwing it in fairly clear water and they were just clobbering that thing."

> Cranking gear: 7'10" medium-action Halo cranking rod, Ardent Apex Elite casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 16-pound Sunline Reaction FC fluorocarbon line, 6th Sense Crush 250 MD (blue-treuse shad).

> Jig gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Halo Twilight Series rod, Ardent Apex Grand casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 16-pound Sunline Shooter, 3/8-ounce Nichols Jig (JT's best color ever, which is a mix of black/blue and green-pumpkin), Gambler MegaDaddy trailer (green-pumpkin shadow).

> He caught one sight-fish on day 2 using half of a Gambler Ace. "It kept biting the back 3 inches, so I made the whole thing 3 inches."

Main factor in his success – "Absolutely, 100 percent it was keeping an open mind and trying to find a new pattern as the tournament wore on. And I listened to guys like Andy Morgan and Bryan Thrift and never fished the same place twice in 3 days of practice and 4 days of the tournament."

Performance edge – "One critical thing was the mapping on my Lowrance unit. I was looking for steep banks, but the had to be in the backs of creeks and I could look at the Lowrance and see where the contour lines ran real close together."