April 30, 2010 – bassmaster.com
FLORENCE, Ala. — Kevin Short was sick of hearing about swimbaits, and Thursday he did his best to change the conversation.
Kicking it “old school,” Short, of Mayflower, Ark., tied on two comfort choices — a jig and a crankbait — and toted 20 pounds, 3 ounces, of Pickwick Lake bass to the scales at the Alabama Charge, enough to hold off Cliff Pace of Petal, Miss., by 10 ounces.
Short was mired in 74th place in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the year standings heading into this week — indicative of his lack of affinity for the swimbait — and needed a shot in the arm here. The first leg of the Elite Series has been dominated by swimbaits as Skeet Reese and Byron Velvick won with the frustrating technique in the previous two events.
But Short knew he was getting back to his strengths with the schedule focusing on Tennessee River impoundments that fish more traditionally. And Short cashed in, reversing his sliding trend after a rough stretch to begin the season.
“I’ve been so discombobulated lately and I knew I just needed to get my brain in the right place to start catching fish,” said Short, who scored his first Elite Series victory last year on the Mississippi River. “I needed to get back on track and I needed to stick to what I know best. So far, it’s working”
Short started attacking shallow early, keying in on largemouths. As the day progressed, Short moved to deeper water, following where he felt the fish were going. By 10 a.m., he boated three decent bass, which gave him the opportunity to relax and expand on his areas.
With a bevy of 2- and 3-pounders saturated in his area, Short figured out a way to only target the bigger bass. While he has limited boat traffic in his area, he said none of the other competitors have figured out how to catch the largemouth like he has.
“I just feel comfortable fishing like this,” said Short. “I’m just happy to get away from that darn swimbait.”
There are two polarizing decisions that anglers have to make this week. One, they risk losing valuable time by locking through to Lake Wilson — the move can pay off in spades — or play it safe in Pickwick. Secondly, once a location is established, anglers have to quickly decide to target largemouth or smallmouth as both species are in play this week.
While Short is married to the largemouth bite, Pace is working the smallies.
Plying through a ton of bites, Pace found the right five smallmouths to total 19-9. He was working tight, small areas that were home to roaming smallmouth. He stayed on Pickwick, like Short, and targeted shallow water.
He will duplicate his pattern Friday but with weather approaching — rain is in store for later in the day — Pace wouldn’t rule out entirely switching things up.
“Smallmouth generally like to roam and cruise around within their areas,” said Pace, who qualified for the Bassmaster Elite Series Postseason in 2009. “So I was playing to their habits in those pockets. I wasn’t sure I would stick to this pattern all day when I first got on the water, but I got a couple of good ones early and that really helped.”
Behind Pace in third was blazing hot Skeet Reese of Auburn, Calif., with 18-15. In his first ever visit to Pickwick, Reese stumbled in practice and was simply looking at not bombing this week in order to keep momentum in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year race.
Instead, he finds himself in contention and is threatening to run away with the TTBAOY trophy.
“I had zero confidence this week,” said Reese, the 2007 Angler of the Year and 2009 Bassmaster Classic champion. “That weight is certainly not where I expected to be. Coming in this week, I would have been happy with a top 20.” Edwin Evers, who was tied for fourth in the AOY race heading into this week, was also tied for fourth in the event. Greg Hackney, of Gonzales, La., matched Evers’ with 18-9. Hackney, in second to Reese in the AOY, continues to pile up solid tournaments and has prevented Reese from taking a near-insurmountable lead.
In sixth was Aaron Martens of Leeds, Ala., with 18-3. Five-time AOY Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Mich., was 24th with 15-2.
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/elite/news/story?id=5149624April 29, 2010 – bassfan.com
Pickwick Lake is a great place to cast a line these days. Everyone from first-time anglers who’ve never felt the tug of a bass to grizzled veterans who’ve caught more fish than Van Camp’s has beans can have a blast hooking and releasing the Alabama reservoir’s smallmouths, largemouths and spots.
If you’re a tournament angler, though, the place presents a challenging dilemma – how to catch five that’ll weigh more than the quintet that everybody else is going to catch. It’s literally no problem to boat 50 bass a day that weigh in the neighborhood of 2 pounds, but bigger ones are harder to come by.
Half of the 2010 Bassmaster Elite Series season will be in the books when the scales close on Sunday and the second half will consist of four events contested over a 7-week period. For those who’ve gotten off to a rocky start this year, now would be a good time to lay a foundation of momentum for that hectic stretch.
BASS hasn’t brought its premier circuit to Pickwick since 1998, when current Elite angler Mark Menendez won the Alabama Top 100. It was an entirely different lake then – devoid of the abundant vegetation that’s given rise to all the chunky, healthy 2-pounders that the field toyed with during practice.
There isn’t a lot of grass right now, either – perhaps due to an especially cold winter that saw an abnormal amount of water go through the channel. Nonetheless, the fish numbers are still prolific.
The last tour-level event the lake hosted was an FLW derby in early March of 2006. Elite pro Tommy Biffle notched a Top-10 finish in that one and Ish Monroe was 13th, but it was a tough couple of days for some anglers who are back this week: Brent Chapman was 41st, Matt Herren 75th, Alton Jones 77th, Dean Rojas 102nd, John Murray 116th, Fred Roumbanis 117th, Dave Wolak 118th, Takahiro Omori 121st, Mark Davis 125th, Kelly Jordon 128th, Steve Kennedy 148th, Todd Faircloth 160th and Bobby Lane 163rd.
In October 2002, Boyd Duckett, who was not yet a tour pro, held off Randy Howell to capture the Pickwick Bassmaster Southern Open.
Top 10 to Watch
1. Kevin VanDam – Three 2010 regular-season tournaments are complete and KVD has yet to finish higher than 22nd place. His frenetic style dictates that he’ll catch more fish this week than just about anybody and the best of those could carry him to his first Sunday appearance of the campaign.
2. Skeet Reese – Add his three 2010 finishes together (2nd, 5th and 1st) and the sum total is 8. With a string of numbers that low, it’s difficult to imagine him finishing outside the Top 10. Could more swimbait heroics be forthcoming? One possible mental wrinkle: He reports on his blog that thieves broke into his boat on Saturday and stole his rods and reels. He got some replacements from teammates and sponsors, but it still must be unsettling.
3. Kelly Jordon – He has an uncanny knack for catching a larger-than-average fish or two in cookie-cutter tournaments, and that’ll play huge this week. He loves this time of year and excels in grass.
4. Dave Wolak – He’s somewhat quietly putting together an outstanding season with three finishes of 20th or better thus far, all of which trump any he posted during the ’09 regular season. Very strong in skinny water.
5. Alton Jones – He’s yet to make a big splash this year, but this could be the place for it. Has few peers when it comes to fishing plastics around visible cover.
6. Mike Iaconelli – His 52nd-place finish at Smith Mountain 2 weeks ago was a disappointment and it’s been 2 years since he finished outside the Top 10 in three straight events. Often comes up with ways to put a few extra ounces in the boat when limits of 2 1/2-pounders are routine.
7. Tommy Biffle – The majority of the fish are in close proximity to the bank, and nobody’s been better at fishing near dry ground over the last few years.
8. Greg Hackney – His finishes to this point would be good enough for the lead in the Angler of the Year (AOY) race in most seasons, but he’s a distant second to the sizzling Reese. He’s riding a strong wave of momentum and a bunch of fish in knee-deep water always makes him salivate.
9. Matt Herren – He’s as likely as anyone to come up with a specific pattern that’ll produce a 4-pound average over 4 days. He lives about an hour away and has a great deal of experience at this venue, and that could be important.
10. Fred Roumbanis – Like Jordon, he’s frequently able to get the giant bite that’s so significant in an event such as this. Had a horrible start to the campaign in his native California, but might’ve started to straighten things out by making a check at Smith Mountain.
http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3595April 29, 2010 – bassmaster.com
FLORENCE, Ala. — When the Elite Series anglers take off onto Pickwick Lake Thursday for the Alabama Charge, catching over 100 fish a day won’t be impossible. Catching fish over 4 pounds, however, nearly has been.
Alabama Charge Video
Elite anglers find plentiful bass on Pickwick, but size will prove challenging.
“There’s probably more fish in this lake than any other I’ve every fished,” said Mark Tucker. “This has the perfect habitat for them, both moving water and backwaters, without the pressure like Kentucky Lake.”
The biggest challenge for Tucker in the tournament will be not getting lulled into complacency by the number of fish.
“Not losing a fish will be important here,” Tucker said. “You are getting so many bites, the minute you get sloppy, you could lose a 3- to 5-pounder and that will kill you.”
With a 12-inch minimum length limit on spotted and largemouth bass and a 14-inch limit on smallmouth, catching a five-fish limit will not be a problem for the 93 anglers competing this week. Unfortunately, many of the pros plan on wading through numbers of fish and hoping for a big bite to come along.
Gary Klein has found several schools of fish, but has to hope that he has those spots to himself and a big fish comes along eventually.
“As an anglers, you only have a couple of options: try to wade through them, or make a boat or bait change, something you figure out over the course of the day,” Klein said. “The weather will also be a factor. We had two hard days of practice and we’re supposed to have wind tomorrow. They bite good when it’s overcast, cloudy and windy.”
Forecasts for Florence call for sunny skies for the first day of competition, but scattered thunderstorms will likely move through north Alabama for the anglers fishing over the weekend.
As for the lake itself, the anglers can go all the way up to the Tennessee line on Pickwick or lock down into Wilson. Historically, smallmouth have dominated on Pickwick and while they still represent great fishing, the recent emergence of grass has made largemouth even more dominant.
Muscle Shoals resident Timmy Horton has extensive experience on this section of the Tennessee River and doesn’t think grass is as big a factor this time of year because it hasn’t had enough time to develop yet.
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/elite/news/story?id=5145580April 18, 2010 – bassfan.com
The leaderboard at the Smith Mountain Bassmaster Elite Series in Virginia now looks a lot like the circuit’s Angler of the Year (AOY) race – there’s Skeet Reese, and then there’s everybody else.
The No. 1 angler in the BassFan World Rankings is threatening to put together one of the most dominant seasons ever. He caught a 21-13 bag today – best of the day by nearly 5 1/2 pounds – that gave him a 3-day total of 58-03. He has a 6-05 lead and has all but assured himself of a third straight Top-5 finish to begin the campaign.
Two-day leader Jason Williamson sacked a respectable 15-03 for a 51-14 2nd-place total, but he now finds himself trailing by nearly the weight of the biggest fish caught in the tournament. He likely needs a final-day stumble by Reese to have a shot at his second career victory.
Bobby Lane weighed his lightest bag of the event (13-02), but moved up two places to 3rd with 48-02. On the flip side, he was less than 2 pounds out of the lead when the day started, but now trails by more than 10.
Matt Reed caught 13-13 today and climbed two spots to 4th with 47-11. Dean Rojas rounded out the Top 5 as he gained five places with a 15-07 sack for a 47-00 total.
Here are the Top 12 who’ll fish the final day (red numbers in parentheses indicate deficit margin from leader):
1. Skeet Reese: 58-03
2. Jason Williamson: 51-14 (6-05)
3. Bobby Lane: 48-02 (10-01)
4. Matt Reed: 47-11 (10-08)
5. Dean Rojas: 47-00 (11-03)
6. Edwin Evers: 46-15 (11-04)
7. Terry Scroggins: 46-07 (11-12)
8. Greg Hackney: 46-01 (12-02)
9. Aaron Martens: 45-05 (12-14)
10. Gerald Swindle: 45-02 (13-01)
11. Marty Robinson: 44-15 (13-04)
12. Ish Monroe: 44-13 (13-06)
Sight-fishing was still a big factor today despite winds that blew to 30 mph and a depleted number of spawners, but it wasn’t how Reese compiled his massive sack. He mentioned on stage that he ended up culling all of the bed-fish he caught this morning, and they were replaced by bigger specimens enticed by a swimbait.
There were only two changes in the Top 12 today – Greg Hackney climbed from 18th to 8th with a 16-07 bag (second-best of the day) and Ish Monroe improved from 20th to 12th with 15-04. Two-circuit pros Monroe and 6th-place Edwin Evers will have an abbreviated practice for the Fort Loudoun-Tellico FLW Tour, which gets under way Wednesday.
April 17, 2010 – basszone.com
HUDDLESTON, Va. — Entering Saturday’s third round of the Evan Williams Bourbon Blue Ridge Brawl, Greg Hackney said his goal was simply to fish his way into final round. Then he would worry about Sunday on Sunday.
Consider the first goal attained.
Hackney, of Gonzales, La., caught the day’s second-biggest stringer, 16 pounds, 7 ounces, to move into eighth place with a three-day total of 46-1.
“Going in, I felt like I probably needed 17 or 18 [pounds] to make the top 12,” he said. “But it looks like a bunch of guys fell off a little bit today.”
Hackney opened the tournament with a 15-13 stringer on Day One and followed it with a 13-13 on Friday.
But after two days of sight fishing for spawning bass on beds, Hackney said he was ready to go fishing.
“I’d rather fish,” he said. “I’d been looking at them for two days, and I was sick of that. Plus, I didn’t have any to go to this morning. So this morning, I just picked an area where I seen a bunch of floaters, and then the conditions got right. I caught about 15 keepers, maybe.”
Hackney added that he prefers blind fishing to looking for bass on the beds, if only for the surprise factor.
“The deal is, when you’re fishing, you don’t know how big the next one is going to be,” he said. “When I’m throwing at a 3-pounder, when I catch that fish, it’s a 3-pounder. When I’m fishing and I get a bite, it may be a 6-pounder.
“It keeps the anticipation a little higher for me when I’m fishing instead of sight fishing. I’m locked into fishing now. I’ve had it with sight fishing.”
Hackney has made the top 12 in two of three Bassmaster Elite Series events this season, finishing third in the season-opening Duel in the Delta near Stockton, Calif. He also finished 16th in the Golden State Shootout at Lakeport, Calif., and entered this weekend’s event second in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings, trailing leader Skeet Reese by 37 points.
“This is probably the best start to a season for me since 2006,” he said. “But fishing is a lot like a roller coaster. As fishermen, sometimes we know too much.”
April 15, 2010 – bassmaster.com
HUDDLESTON, Va. — The sight bite was right for Jason Williamson Thursday on picturesque Smith Mountain Lake at the Evan Williams Bourbon Blue Ridge Brawl.
Williamson of Wagener, S.C., persevered through a frustrating morning, eventually regrouping at his primary area and picking off enough spawning bass to accumulate 22 pounds, 9 ounces, good enough for a scant 1-plus-pound lead over Bobby Lane of Lakeland, Fla.
The morning aggravation for Williamson was caused by fellow Elite competitors. His primary area was stacked with boats, which isn’t unusual, but what was bugging Williamson was the way the area was being fished.
Anglers were on top of the beds and missing the larger bass. But Williamson parlayed the misjudgment of other anglers into a distinct advantage, amassing all his weight by 11 a.m. after the other anglers vacated the area.
“I couldn’t have asked for it to go any better than it did today,” said Williamson. “It started off slow but I was able to remain patient and that was the key.”
While sight fishing is the dominant pattern on Smith Mountain this week, Williamson said he was executing a bit differently. He is working deeper water, four to five feet, and felt that was necessary to locate the bigger bass.
He mixed in typical springtime lures — a Zoom lizard and trick worm — and spent no more than 30 minutes on each bass. Williamson was one of a contingent of anglers who strictly sight fished.
The prevailing thought has been that as the week progresses, the bite could dry up, and mixing in cruising bass would thus be critical. But Williamson is confident that the sight bite will remain productive throughout the four-day event.
He didn’t, however, rule out mixing things up if the conditions drastically changed and that included throwing a swimbait, which was the lure that lifted him to his first Elite Series victory on big-bass factory Lake Amistad.
“Everything is a timing deal right now,” said Williamson, who broke into the Elite Series in 2007. “The less time you spend with the bedding bass, the more opportunities you have to explore. There are plenty of fish out there.”
Sharing the area with Williamson, and fishing it correctly, was Lane, who totaled 21 pounds, 7 ounces. An accomplished sight fisherman, Lane boated all his bass by 10 a.m. Part of that limit was a 6-pounder, which was caught blindcasting a worm.
“I have been carrying around this lucky marble that my daughter gave me ever since Clear Lake (the last Elite event),” said Lane, who like Williamson scored an Elite victory in 2009. “It worked at Clear Lake and man, it worked today. I would rather be lucky than good any day.”
But make no mistake; Lane is locked onto the bedding bass this week. He wasn’t as optimistic as Williamson about the shared area for the rest of the week and therefore he would consider moving on if the area went sour.
While Williamson was looking deeper, Lane was working the extreme shallows — one to two foot of water depth — for bedding bass. Lane, who finished 25th on Smith Mountain last year, used his ’09 experience to his advantage Thursday, working two areas that he found then.
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/elite/news/story?page=b_ES_2010_Brawl_d1_gamerApril 15, 2010 – bassmaster.com
HUDDLESTON, Va. — The bass are on the beds at Smith Mountain Lake, but at Thursday morning’s launch for Day One of the Evan Williams Bourbon Blue Ridge Brawl, seeing the fish doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll wind up in the livewell.
Early week practice sessions allowed anglers to find bass on the beds and in various stages of the spawn, but finding enough large bass to win the $100,000 top prize that will be handed out Sunday will be the key.
“It’s a tough fishery. There’s a lot of fish to be caught in this place, but they’re tough to catch,” said Skeet Reese of Auburn, Calif., the leader in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings. “A lot of little males and the females are few and far between. My experience on this lake is even the ones you see, they’re hard to catch. I’ve been sight-fishing for 20 years, and these are some finicky ones to catch. There’s going to be some guys who pull their hair out today and tomorrow.”
Gary Klein of Weatherford, Texas, also said he wasn’t seeing many trophy bass.
“I’m seeing quite a few fish up shallow, but most of the fish I’m seeing are just small fish,” said Klein, who is currently 11th in the AOY standings. “But things are changing. It’s going to get better. It’s just going to be a day-to-day deal. If I can catch 15 [-pound stringer] today, I’ll feel pretty comfortable.
“I’m not going to change what I’m doing. I’m seeing enough fish to keep me interested. If I stumble across a good one, I’ll have a good day.”
Several anglers said temperatures that dipped into the low 50s during the final day of practice on Wednesday may have pushed some of the bass off the beds. But with a forecast calling for the high to be in the low 80s on Thursday, most said they expect them back.
Last year at Smith Mountain Lake, while almost the entire field was sight-fishing for largemouths on the beds in shallow pockets, Kevin VanDam won by going after spawning smallmouths on or near main-lake points.
Shaw Grigsby of Gainesville, Fla., said there’s nothing guaranteeing the same tactic won’t work again this year.
“It wasn’t won [on the beds] last year and they were spawning really well,” Grigsby said. “Kevin won it going down the bank throwing a crankbait. Skeet did real well, and he was throwing a crankbait. With the smalls, you’ve got to find the big ones, and there’s not that many of them.”
“VanDam threw a lot of different things last year,” said Terry Scroggins of San Mateo, Fla. “He mixed it up quite a bit. This year, I think you’re going to see everyone even more concentrated on sight-fishing than anything else.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/elite/news/story?page=b_ES_2010_Brawl_d1_launchApril 12, 2010 – bassmaster.com
HUDDLESTON, Va. — In postcard-pretty southern Virginia, Smith Mountain Lake promises to fish as good as it looks during the April 15-18 Evan Williams Bourbon Blue Ridge Brawl.
The lake’s beauty, however, has nothing to do with the amount of looking Bassmaster Elite Series pros will be doing. Most pros will be busy watching for bass on their way to, or already on, spawning beds.
Smith Mountain Lake out of Huddleston, Va., will be the 2010 Elite Series’ third stop. There the pros will compete for a $100,000 first-place prize. They also will be after points to qualify for the Bassmaster Elite Series Postseason in July, when the $200,000 Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year contest will play out in Alabama. Points also count towards elusive berths in the 2011 Bassmaster Classic.
Without warming temperatures, not much sight fishing will happen in mid-April in Virginia. But if the spawn is on, the 2010 Brawl would start looking more like last year’s version. Then, most pros cast to largemouths they could see on beds in backwaters. But the winner — five-time AOY Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Mich. — finessed smallmouth spawners on main-lake points. He posted 61 pounds, 13 ounces, over four days.
This year’s Blue Ridge Brawl lands a week earlier on the calendar. That timing, combined with the unusually cold winter, might nix a sight fishing tournament, VanDam said. And that, he pointed out, could be all for the good.
“A lot of fish in spawning mode don’t want to feed, don’t want to bite at all,” he said. “We saw a lot of that last year during the event. It was hard to get the fish to commit to a bait. So this year could be better if they’re pre-spawn, if they’re in a feeding pattern.”
VanDam said that even if the weather cooperated and triggered a spawn, he would not try to replicate his winning Smith Mountain Lake smallmouth pattern.
“Last year it was perfect timing for those smallmouth for me. For that to happen again, you’d have to be pretty lucky. Even if it were the same week, things change a lot year to year,” said VanDam, who earned his 15th BASS victory at the 2009 Brawl. He has since earned two more: No. 16 at the Postseason event when he took his fifth AOY crown; and No. 17 as 2010 Classic champ.
He is focused on another high finish at Smith Mountain Lake to help make up for his very un-VanDamlike finishes, a 29th and a 59th, at this season’s first two events in California. The slow start has him in 42nd place in the AOY points standings.
Greg Hackney of Gonzales, La., is looking for a finish in Virginia that will help him into the postseason. He’s currently in second place in the AOY standings.
“I started the year off in the right direction,” said Hackney, a three-time BASS winner. “But it’s still a long ways until the end; there are six events left.”
He’s headed to a lake on which he’s excelled. At the 2007 and 2009 Elite events there, Hackney finished 14th and fourth, respectively.
“If it stays warm like it is now, it will be a full-blown sight fishing tournament,” he said. “The whole lake should have fish spawning from one end to the other. But we’re subject to have a cold front — that happened last time we were there. It warmed up in practice, and the fish came out, a lot of big ones. Then the cold front went through and shut them down.”
http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/tournaments/elite/news/story?page=b_ES_2010_Brawl_preview1