Connell came into REDCREST planning to fish the bank , but ended up winning in cleaner water offshore .
PHOTO BY GARRICK DIXON
Decision # 1
Practice Pays Off
Connell left the ramp for the single day of practice with the intent of spending most of it focused on his Lowrance graphs . With water temperatures throughout the Chattahoochee River hovering around the unseasonably cold mid-50-degree mark – and largemouth still holding away from the bank – Connell figured ( correctly ) that his small window of practice time would be best spent graphing brushpiles on the lower end of the lake .
“ I idled for 90 to 95 percent of the day ,” Connell said . “ I focused on brushpiles in 7 to 10 feet of water – I caught one or two on a spinnerbait just to see if I could make them bite , but I spent almost the entire day running around marking brushpiles and looking at water colors . I ’ ve fished a few tournaments on Eufaula . I ’ m hardly what you ’ d call a ‘ local ’ there , but I have a little familiarity with what ’ s going down when , and in what spots .”
Connell admits , though , that the brusphile patrol wasn ’ t his most desired pattern . He came into RED- CREST hoping to capitalize on a lifetime of fishing shallow , stained water on the Coosa River , and made the crucial decision to idle his way through practice based strictly on what Lake Eufaula was telling him .
“ I was a little bit in limbo ; I ’ m a shallow , dirty-water fisherman . That ’ s where I ‘ live ’,” he said . “ But I didn ’ t want to fish shallow in practice because I knew the fish just weren ’ t going to be there yet . I knew I was way ahead of the fish , and that we weren ’ t at that point when it warms up and they just magically appear on the bank and it ’ s a lot easier . It just didn ’ t make any sense to practice shallow .”
Connell put the boat on the trailer after practice with roughly 50 brushpiles marked for Day 1 .
Decision # 2
Working it all Out
Connell started the first of the week ’ s two qualifying rounds fishing offshore in roughly 10 feet of water , sticking with the spinnerbait that stimulated the limited bites he ’ d had in practice . It seemed like the right decision when he landed a 4-pound , 3-ounce fish just 11 minutes into the competition and added a 2-13 shortly thereafter .
But those fish weren ’ t telling the whole truth : While Day 1 leader Bryan Thrift was piling up 45 pounds on his
own series of brushpiles , Connell ’ s brush bite ground to a halt and he went without a scorable fish for nearly six hours before landing three fish for 8-5 in a six-minute period at the end of the day .
“ It got really tough ,” Connell admitted . “ I ended up swimming a jig and catching three in a row right at the end of the day . That gave me 15 pounds and put me in 12th place . I figured I ’ d need maybe 7 or 8 pounds the next day to make the cut , so I felt like I could go shallow and grind it out .”
Decision # 3
Getting ‘ Shallow ’ out of his System
Qualifying Day 2 could best be described as the day that Connell “ got shallow out of his system .”
With a gradual warming trend pushing daytime highs toward the mid-70s and shallow-water killers like Andy Morgan , Takahiro Omori and Brent Chapman keeping themselves in the hunt , Connell committed to the bank , hoping to see the first significant waves of prespawners . Those fish never materialized , though , and Connell spent a fruitless day swimming and flipping a jig for 7-10 , dropping from 12th to just inside the cut at 19th .
38 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | APRIL-MAY 2021