Lipless Baits, Eelgrass Were Dominant In Opener

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

Prior to last week's Lake Guntersville FLW Tour, there was no talk about weight records being broken like there was prior to the 2014 Bassmaster Classic. There was, in many ways, plenty of consternation about catching a limit once the tournament got started.

Despite a relatively mild winter, the 165-man field arrived to find the lake full of bass still very much in their winter phase. The hydrilla was starting to wilt and the shallow milfoil wasn't harboring much of anything. That left the eelgrass, which has grown more prolific in recent years at Guntersville, as a viable option for fish that had moved up off the main river channel in advance of their pre-spawn feeding frenzy.

Many competitors noted how spread out the fish were and that they had one, maybe two, spots that had a group of fish that would replenish before having to hit a milk run of other areas to fill out their limit or hunt for upgrades.

It was largely a grind – only 39 limits were recorded on day 2 – but those who had success largely made it happen around eelgrass, with a lipless crankbait tied on – standard fare for Guntersville during the pre-spawn.

There were just 10 bags in excess of 20 pounds recorded during the event, five of which came from the top-5 finishers.

Here's a rundown of how the rest of the top 5 picked apart the Tennessee River impoundment.

2nd: Bryan Thrift

> Day 1: 5, 20-13
> Day 2: 5, 18-11
> Day 3: 5, 17-04
> Day 4: 5, 22-00
> Total = 20, 78-12

Bryan Thrift did not have lofty aspirations for the season opener. He’s already locked up a berth in this year’s Forrest Wood Cup thanks to his Lake Norman FLW Tour Invitational win last fall, so the Lake Guntersville tournament was all about getting off to a good start.

“My expectations were to figure out how to get a check,” he said. “With the Cup already made, my main goal was to get back to making a living fishing.”

He spent his whole practice session trying to find the best stretches of grass that were still holding fish. Day 1 and 2 “were terrible,” he said, but he started to get something going on the final day when he caught a half dozen keepers.

“I figured grass was the best way to win,” he said. “Usually you can find a wad of them and jack them, but that wasn’t the case this year.”

He targeted a flat in 3 to 6 feet of water that was covered with eelgrass and also had a patch of milfoil in it. Within the milfoil was a hole and he estimated 80 percent of the fish he weighed in came from that specific spot.

“These were staging fish starting to set up on some of their pre-spawn places,” he added. “Most of them were scattered, but that was the only place that I caught more than two off of.”

The morning of day 1 is when Thrift realized slowing down would be a key component to any success he had.

“I was worried about catching a limit and catching four by 9 a.m. calmed me down,” he said. “It opened my eyes to having to slow down and seeing that the fish weren’t everywhere. You just had to fish for them.”

His key presentations were ripping a lipless crankbait through the grass and also cranking the edges with a square-bill.

> Lipless crankbait gear: 7’2” Fitzgerald Rods Bryan Thrift Signature Series frog rod, unnamed casting reel, 20-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, Damiki Tremor 80 (softshell)

> Crankbait gear: 7’ medium-action Fitzgerald Rods Bryan Thrift Signature Series crankbait/topwater rod, same reel, same line (15-pound), unnamed square-bill crankbait (undisclosed color)

> He also mixed in a 1/2-oz. Damiki Mamba jig.

> Main factor in his success – “Sticking around that one area and catching what I could.”

> Performance edge – “That P-Line is some strong stuff. Snatching and snapping on those baits all day, I never re-tied and never worried about it breaking.”

3rd: Alex Davis

> Day 1: 5, 17-07
> Day 2: 5, 16-13
> Day 3: 5, 20-02
> Day 4: 5, 18-04
> Total = 20, 72-10

It would’ve been fairly easy for Alex Davis to get spun out last week with all of the history he has at Guntersville. When he’s not competing in tournaments, he’s typically on the lake each day as a guide. Despite all of his past experience, he was able to stay focused on the here and now and adjust to the conditions that were some of the toughest he’s had to face.

“It was hard to ignore some of the history, especially the shallow stuff,” he said. “I’ve caught them good up there for many years and it was hard to ignore when I hear that Thrift says he caught ‘em up there or when I see Shin (Fukae) up there. Had it not been for my history on the deeper river stuff I wouldn’t have finished where I did.”

That’s where his experience played a big role. On a lake where there are seemingly no secrets, Davis was able to hit small, nuanced spots on the main river and not once did he encounter another competitor.

“You can’t find all the places I fished this week in 3 days,” he said “It’s just not possible. They are places you don’t find by a map; you find them fishing.”

He figured 17 or 18 pounds per day would keep him in the hunt and he was right. Executing that each day was the true challenge, especially in light of the changing weather each day.

He concentrated on the lower end of the lake to start practice, targeting rip-rap and steeper banks – “stupid places,” he called them because the fish were unlikely to replenish on those stretches.

He moved to deeper water on day 2 amid windy conditions and caught 18 keepers in two hours.

“I knew people wouldn’t be out there and basically I wouldn’t get caught doing it,” he added. "I knew then that I didn’t have to keep practicing spots I already knew.”

He went upriver on the final day to check the viability of Mud Creek, which can sometimes be ultra-productive. This time it wasn’t, so his mind was made up.

“It wasn’t the best practice I’ve had, but considering how tough it was I thought I had a good practice,” he said. “I was very confident. I never thought I wouldn’t catch a limit.”

He generally fished deeper water (7 to 12 feet) than most of the other top finishers since that’s where he had the most success in practice. Grass was the key element to all of the spots he fished.

“I’m not sure I figured out the where and when, though,” he said. “I was fishing virtually from below Alred to past Goose Pond. Instead of trying figure out the where and when, I made a lap around the lake and gave up on the trying to hit a place at a certain time.”

He had success with a variety of hard baits along with a paddletail swimbait.

“Every day was different and I just kept rotating through them,” he said.

> Lipless crankbait gear: 7’2” medium-heavy Shimano Zodias prototype fiberglass casting rod, Shimano Metanium MGL casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 15-pound unnamed fluorocarbon, Jackall TN 60 and TN 70 (spawn tiger and super shad).

> Swimbait gear: 7’4” heavy-action Jackall Poison Adrena casting rod, same reel, same line, 3/8-oz. D&L Tackle swimbait head, 4.8” Jackall Rhythm Wave (prism shad).

> The swimbait, on average, produced bigger fish than any other lures, Davis said. “If I had four fish and I have five hours left to catch one, I’d throw that,” he said. “The more weight I had, the more risk I took with it.”

> Jerkbait gear: 6’10” medium-light Shimano Zodias casting rod, same reel, same line (12-pound), Jackall Squad Minnow 128 (super shad).

> The jerkbait was effective along grass edges and helped him reach fish that were in the 8-foot range or deeper.

> Crankbait gear: 7’ medium-action Shimano Zodias fiberglass casting rod, same reel, 10-pound unnamed monofilament line, Jackall Jaco 58 and Jackall Muscle Deep 7 (red crawdad).

> Main factor in his success – “My history on this lake.”

> Performance edge – “The Metanium reel and the Zodias rods. From guiding to tournaments, having that equipment has helped my fishing out tremendously.”

4th: Scott Suggs

> Day 1: 5, 17-10
> Day 2: 5, 16-03
> Day 3: 5, 17-14
> Day 4: 5, 16-14
> Total = 20, 68-09

For the first day and part of the second day of practice, Scott Suggs had figured out a vibrating jig pattern in one creek and a jerkbait bite in another creek. It wasn’t until Monday afternoon that he started slinging a lipless crankbait around the inside edges of eelgrass flats.

“I’ve always thrown a 'Trap this time of year and I couldn’t do that, but I had quite a few bites on day 2 and I got locked in on what I wanted to do,” he said. “In the last hour, I caught 18 pounds on the 'Trap.”

He continued to throw a lipless bait on the final day, taking time to change colors and sizes and experiment with different sounds to fine-tune his program.

As the event progressed, he had to adjust to how the bass were positioning in relation to the sun and wind.

“On day 2, I went in there and I knew the front was coming,” he said. “The fish weren’t biting where they bit the day before. I went to the outside edge and got on them there.

“The last 90 minutes to 2 hours of practice keyed me in on where they were at and where they’d go from where they had been.”

Inside edges close to a channel or ditch swing just inside that first bar off the main channel is where he found the majority of fish to be staged.

“I had about a 3-mile stretch of the river, a total of nine places on both side,” he said. “Once I got bit, I tried to spend my whole tournament in that area.”

By day 2 of the tournament, he had figured out the retrieve he needed to employ to trigger bites. With the water in the low 50s, the fish were mostly lethargic and not giving chase to baits. Suggs said it was key to crawl it along and leave it in the strike zone as long as possible.

“By day 2, I was throwing it out and counting it down to five and reeling it just fast enough to feel it vibrate,” he said. “When it hit that first piece of grass, I’d twitch it up and that’s when the reaction bite would happen. I had to crawl it.

“At home, I do the same thing. I call it ‘force feeding.’ You put it in their face and make something happen with the bait to get a reaction.”

All 20 of the fish he weighed in were caught on a rattlebait and pulled from flats covered with eelgrass.

“I was in the middle of the lake and those fish are in and out all day long,” he said. “It changes so much all day long. One minute it’s dirty, then it’s clean when they’re running water. If you hit it on the right timing you can do well.”

He said the hydrilla and milfoil were not the big players that they are at other times of the year on the Tennessee River.

“Everywhere I’d find hydrilla it’d be stringy and dying and the milfoil was too shallow and thick,” he added. “The elgrass would be 2 or 3 feet tall and had more defined edges. That’s where the bites came.”

> Lipless crankbait gear: 7’3” medium-heavy Abu Garcia Veracity casting rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 12- and 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon line, 1/2-oz. Berkley Warpig (red craw), 3/4-oz. Booyah One Knocker (orange craw).

> Suggs used 12-pound line for the Warpig and 15-pound for the One Knocker.

> Main factor in his success – “Understanding that migration (pattern) with the front coming in. Fishing grass as much as I have in different places and knowing what bass do when there’s a major front come in was key.

> Performance edge – “When you’re fishing those bars, even though I was trying to follow those edges, my Lowrance system was great. I was able to follow that line. Also, my Power-Poles were critical. Out of the 20 I weighed in, 14 of them came when I had my poles down. Both were major players.”

5th: Shinichi Fukae

> Day 1: 5, 18-04
> Day 2: 5, 16-06
> Day 3: 5, 16-11
> Day 4: 5, 16-15
> Total = 20, 68-04

Shin Fukae is thankful that he spent some time at Lake Guntersville prior to it going off limits last month. In fact, he spent New Year’s Day exploring the lake. He discovered plentiful grass and was able to identify some deeper areas with eelgrass that he came back to during the tournament.

“Didn’t fish much, but I found a good grass area,” he said.

His best spot held a healthy population of fish and he camped on them all four days, making hundreds of casts with a lipless crankbait. He fished it much the same way he did when he was a kid learning to fish for bass at Lake Biwa in Japan.

“I just threw that as much as I could,” he said. “I casted to the same spot over and over again. I tried different angles and retrieves. Some people would’ve only made a couple casts, but I knew the fish were there.”

He started on the same spot all four days and would stay there for up to two hours. He’d usually leave with three or four keepers, then pick off single fish at other spots.

> Lipless crankbait gear: 7’3” medium-heavy Shimano Expride crankbait rod, Shimano Metanium casting reel (7.4:1 ratio), 14-pound YGK fluorocarbon line, 1/2- and 5/8-oz. SPRO Aruku Shad (mudbug red and Delta craw).

> Fukae said the YGK line will be available in the U.S. beginning this summer.

> He swapped out the stock Gamakatsu treble hooks on the Aruku for the new Gamakatsu G-Finesse hooks.

> Main factor in his success – “I found some key areas using my Lowrance and had to Power-Pole down to stay in those areas. I figured out the preferable grass type with the Shimano rods and caught all my fish on the SPRO Aruku Shad with the G-Finesse trebles on it. That combination worked perfect for me.”

> Performance edge – “My main sponsor, Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits, has allowed me to do what I love to do. They are an outstanding company and people not only for pro anglers like me, but also for any level of fishermen for supplying the best plastics in the world. I’m a full-time pro and couldn’t get the job done without their support and products as well as all of my sponsors for this year.”

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