By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
There was no need for an angler to be extremely versatile at this year's edition of BASSFest. If you couldn't employ a flipping stick to pull bass from flooded vegetation – or chose not to do so – you stood very little chance of claiming one of the top slots in the final standings.
Lake Texoma, located on the Texas-Oklahoma border, was a flipper's Nirvana last week. The water level was way up (9 feet above full pool when the derby got under way), millions of normally dry trees and bushes were within the lake's expanded confines and high, sunny skies had the bass sticking close to cover. They didn't have to venture far to eat well, either, as the shallows were teeming with shad – the result of a prolific spawn aided by another high-water event a year ago.
It took an average of more than 14 pounds per day to make the Top 5. That may not seem like a lot for an impoundment in that region in mid-June, but quality bites weren't easy to come by for a variety of reasons – lots of muddy water, the amount of water and cover that fish could utilize (which made some of them all but inaccessible) and the fact that the bass never go hungry these days because the baitfish are absolutely everywhere.
Here are some pattern details for the four anglers who ended up closest to winner Greg Hackney.
2nd: Brandon Card
> Day 1: 5, 16-00
> Day 2: 5, 10-08
> Day 3: 5, 16-09
> Day 4: 5, 21-02
> Total = 20, 64-03
Brandon Card gave Hackney a serious run for the big paycheck by catching a tournament-best stringer on the final day. He'd flipped for the first 3 days, but went with a gut feeling and switched to a walking topwater bait (a Yo-Zuri 3DB Pencil) on day 4 when the sun disappeared behind gray clouds.
"I just signed on with Yo-Zuri this year, so about a month ago I went out on my home lake and threw that bait and caught a bunch of smallmouths," he said. "It's a good walking bait with a nice sound to it, but what I like best is I can cast it really far and really accurately – it doesn't grab the wind at all."
He flipped bushes exclusively for the first 3 days. His light bag on day 2 was the result of getting stuck on a bad rotation – he found other competitors' boats on all of the places he'd exploited the previous day. That wasn't an issue on day 3 after the field had been cut from 108 anglers to 50.
He didn't get onto the flipping pattern until the final hour of the practice period when he decided to explore some of the deepest vegetation he could locate, most of it on points. Prior to that, he'd been targeting smallmouth in the vicinity of the Denison dam.
"The water dropped almost 4 feet from the first day to the last day. At the start of the week I was fishing in 7 to 8 feet of water, but by (day 4) they were in bushes in 3 to 5 feet."
Hackney reported catching suspended fish almost exclusively, but Card said most of his were tight to the bottom. He got key bites in the closing minutes on days 1 and 3 (a 5 1/4-pounder and a 4-pounder, respectively).
> Flipping gear: 7'6" heavy-action Abu Garcia Villain rod, Abu Garcia Revo Rocket casting reel (9:1 ratio), 20-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line, unamed 1/2-ounce tungsten weight, 4/0 Gamakatsu straight-shank heavy cover hook, various creature baits (green-pumpkin with tails dipped in chartreuse JJ's Magic dye).
> Topwater gear: 7' medium-action Abu Garcia Veritas rod, Abu Garcia Revo MGX casting reel, 30-pound Spiderwire UltraCast braided line, Yo-Zuri 3DB Pencil (bone).
Main factor in his success – "Keeping the flipping stick in my hand the first 3 days. I didn't experiment a lot because I had confidence that was what I needed to be doing when it was sunny."
Performance edge – "My Suzuki 250 SS engine is the most dependable motor I've ever used, and that was important because I was running around a lot."
Fishing slow was a big key to Gerald Swindle's program.
3rd: Gerald Swindle
> Day 1: 5, 14-11
> Day 2: 5, 17-10
> Day 3: 5, 16-00
> Day 4: 5, 12-01
> Total = 20, 60-06
Gerald Swindle, who's 2nd to Hackney in the Angler of the Year race, ran a program similar to the winner's that keyed on vegetation along the normal full-pool shoreline. After fishing clean through the first 3 days, he had the bites on the final day to compile a considerably larger sack than the one he took to the scale.
"I (was focused on) isolated bushes and fishing slow was the key," he said. "I lost several fish (on day 4) in the bushes."
The Top-12 appearance was his third of the year and he's had no finish lower than 40th through the season's first six events.
> Flipping gear: 7'6" Quantum EXO flipping stick, Quantum Exo Smoke HD casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 22-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon line, unnamed 1/2-ounce tungsten weight, 5/0 Gamakatsu straight-shank heavy cover hook, Zoom Z-Craw (green-pumpkin).
Main factor in his success – "The wind was key for me – staying in it was a difference-maker, for sure.
Performance edge – "The Quantum Smoke HD reel with the bigger cranking handles and the bigger spool allowed me to have a lot of line on the reel. You have to re-tie a lot after setting the hook in bushes that are in 8 to 10 feet of water."
Chad Morgenthaler focused on areas that didn't have a lot of water behind the cover.
4th: Chad Morgenthaler
> Day 1: 5, 19-06
> Day 2: 4, 11-02
> Day 3: 5, 13-00
> Day 4: 5, 14-01
> Total = 19, 57-09
Chad Morgenthaler spent most of the tournament flipping two main-lake areas.
"I figured out while the water was still rising that I had to fish areas where there wasn't a lot of water behind my targets," he said. "That allowed me to fish with the confidence that the fish weren't back in places where I couldn't get to them.
"The water rose for all 3 days of practice, and then when it crested and started to fall, the stuff that was so deep was still good for a couple of days. Then I figured out on the third day that some areas that I'd been bypassing that I knew had fish, the water was falling and the fish were coming out. I started being able to reach some of them."
If he was around willow trees, he flipped a jig with a chunk trailer. When fishing bushes or buck brush, he went with a Missile Baits D Bomb.
He was forced off the main lake and into the creeks on day 4 when the sun disappeared for the first time during the tournament. He caught one weigh-in fish on the flipping stick that day, with the rest coming via a Lunker Lure buzzbait.
> Flipping gear: 7'11" extra-heavy Lew's Custom Lite rod, Lew's SuperDuty casting reel (8:1 ratio), 20-pound Gamma fluorocarbon line, 3/4-ounce Lunker Lure Rattleback jig (black/blue), Zoom Big Salty Chunk trailer (black/blue).
> When flipping the D Bomb (California love), he used a 1/2-ounce Reins Tungsten weight and a 5/0 Owner straight-shank hook.
Main factor in his success – "Fishing in a way that I had confidence."
Performance edge – "I really felt like the most critical thing was the Lew's Custom Lite rod. It's got just the right action and I could get the fish turned quickly in those deep bushes."
Ott DeFoe quickly figured out that the places he caught fish from would not replenish.
5th: Ott DeFoe
> Day 1: 5, 18-05
> Day 2: 5, 12-00
> Day 3: 5, 11-05
> Day 4: 5, 15-01
> Total = 20, 56-11
Ott DeFoe spent the morning hours swimming a jig around docks, then switching to a flipping program at mid-day.
"I could get bites on the jig nearly all day, but there'd be no weight to them after 9 or 10 o'clock," he said. "There'd be nothing but 1 1/2-pound (spotted bass) after that.
"The first morning I caught a 5-pounder and another one almost 3 doing that, and the last day I caught a 3-pound smallmouth."
He had a terrible first day of practice, getting just three bites and catching only one 13-inch smallmouth. Two of the bites came while he was flipping willow trees. He got six bites from docks the following day, so he knew that tactic would be good for at least a few keepers.
"Later that day I got some more bites flipping main-lake stuff, and the last day I tried that some more and got four or five bites. After that I knew what I was going to do – fish the docks in the morning and hope to catch three or four keepers, then go flip the rest of the day."
> Swimjig gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Fenwick World Class rod, Pflueger Patriarch casting reel (7.9:1 ratio), 17-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line, 1/2-ounce Terminator Pro Series jig (white), unnamed swimming-style chunk trailer.
> Flipping gear: 7'8" heavy-action Fenwick World Class rod, same reel, 20-pound Trilene 100% flurocarbon, 1/2-ounce Reigns Tungsten weight, 4/0 VMC wide-gap heavy-duty hook, Berkley Havoc Change Up (green-pumpkin with tips dyed orange).
Main factor in his success – "Probably not going back to too much water that I fished on the first day. The areas where I caught my better flipping fish seemed to be one-fish places. Some were small and some were big, but when I went back on the second day I didn't get any bites. I just had to go fish new water each day."
Performance edge – "The 12-foot Minn Kota Talons were important. The water would be 8 feet deep around those bushes and I could put them down and pick the bushes apart."
Much of the tackle referenced above is available at the BassFan Store. To browse the selection, click here..
