Ken Cook hasn't met an eastern tidal river he doesn't like. The first BASS event he won was a Super Bass on Florida's St. Johns River in March 1983, and he won the 1991 Bassmaster Classic on the Chesapeake Bay.
But by far his most consistent finishes have been on the James River: 3rd at the 1988 Classic, 22nd at the 1989 Classic, 14th at the 1990 Classic and 8th at the October 1995 Bassmaster Top 100.
Because of that track record, he's an ideal person to talk about how to fish tidal rivers, which aren't easy to master.
Location
The most important factor in doing well on tidal water is "location, location, location," he says. "That's the key to those systems, in my experience, unless you live there and know every location that might hold a bass.
"The key is finding a concentration of fish in an area, or maybe two areas, that's adequate to fish for 3-4 days of competition, and fish those areas regardless of the tide. I can't recall a major event on the James or most of the eastern tidal rivers that was won by running a pattern. There might be an exception, but Guido (Hibdon) won the Classic (on the James), Hank (Parker) won it there, I almost won it there and I won on the Chesapeake, and all of those events were won on an area or two that had an adequate fish population to support the win."
Scouting
So how do you approach it if you've never been there before? "Just go look for fish," Cook says. "The first time I ever went to tidal water was at the Super Bass on the St. Johns. I'd never seen tidal water before -- we don't have a lot of that in Oklahoma.
"I looked for an area that suited my style of fishing and which looked fishy to me. Good-looking places usually are good places, and (in shallow tidal rivers) you can usually see good bass habitat because it's so shallow.
"But not all good-looking places are good, and that's where practice comes in," he notes. "You have to sort through a lot of good-looking places to find fish. Like at the New Orleans Delta -- it's not about who's the best fisherman necessarily, but who finds best spot. It's not that someone is the best fisherman on that day. But he found the best fish, and managed them well so he can catch them (over 3-4 days)."
Even if you find a good spot, you have to try to get a read on how many other anglers know about it. "You don't want to share a spot with 3-4 other guys," Cook says. "My theory on finding enough fish to win is this: You don't always have to find the biggest fish population. If you find an area that has 100 catchable bass, if you're sharing it with 9 other boats, that's 10 bass per boat. That might be okay for one day. But I like to find an area with 50 bass and with no one else there."
He notes that figuring out whether other people have found the same fish "is a crapshoot sometimes. You don't know, so it might take 2-3 spots."
Lures
Cook recommends "pretty standard stuff" on tidal waters. "Secret lures aren't necessarily the thing. It's putting right lure in the right places.
"But if you find a good place and fish it throughout the tidal changes, you'll require different lures as the tide progresses," he says. "You need reaction baits and slow baits. (At the FLW Championship) it probably won't be a one-bait win, though there might be a key bait used on the primary tidal situation."
Tidal fish are notorious for turning on only at certain times. "They'll eat sometime during the day, and it will be a small window, usually on the low outdoing tide. That means if you don't have an ideal tide, you have to make more precise presentations and make the bait easy for the fish to bite."
Sometimes reaction baits work, like buzzbaits in higher-tide conditions. But during other tides, target-oriented baits are key -- "like the new Berkley Gulp Worm," Cook says. "That's what I'd be fishing, a slow bait that will catch fish when they're not active."
He notes that James River fish are "shallow-water fish oriented to targets, so you need target-fishing baits.
"If someone can figure out what the key bait is for a spot and then kind of dance around (the area) until the tide is really right, he might catch most of his fish in an hour of any given day and spend the rest of the time hoping to get a bonus bite. The key is being confident that you're in the right spot."
Patterning
"I grew up fishing targets and got an understanding of how fish relate to targets," Cook says. "That's what you do in tidal water -- you just fish targets. It's not rocket science. The difference is that bass in tidal water move from one side of a target to the other as the water changes direction, and they also move in and out from the shoreline.
"You have to figure that out, and if you're somewhere with a lot of fish, you can figure that out."
Notable: James River
> In his Classic win, Cook "found an area that had a lot of fish. I could catch them there on high tide especially. Other than that it was hunt and peck. The key was catching them on a spinnerbait and making them react when the tide got high and the fish were out roaming in the grass. But it wouldn't have happened if there hadn't been enough fish there." As a result, he thinks the FLW Championship winner will be someone who has both confidence and fish in his area.
> On running the tide (fishing multiple spots on the optimal tide): "You need those places 20-30 miles apart to take advantage of running the tide. (Finding a few such spots) is hard to do in a week. It's more of a lifetime achievement."
> "Throwing in the bracket format makes it a little different, but you still have to catch fish every day."
