toP fIve
1. JameS WatSoN
NIXa, mo.
Total Weight: 36-10 (15 fish)
Winnings: $95,400
*Includes $17,000 Ranger Cup
2. JaSoN Lambert
PIcKWIcK dam, teNN.
Total Weight: 36-07 (15 fish)
Winnings: $23,720
3. tracY adamS
WILKeSboro, N.c.
Total Weight: 35-10 (15 fish)
Winnings: $19,600
4. derrIcK bLaKe
rocKWood, teNN.
Total Weight: 33-14 (15 fish)
Winnings: $15,680
5. WeSLeY Strader
SPrING cItY, teNN.
Total Weight: 32-15 (15 fish)
Winnings: $11,760
For that reason, winter drawdowns are
Watson’s starting point for finding fall bass.
Many reservoirs across the country begin to
draw down water in late August and
September in preparation for reaching winter
pool levels. Watson says that once that
process starts, bass know where to go to find
their next meal.
“I call it the ‘vacuum effect,’” Watson says.
“When the lake starts getting sucked down, it
pulls everything out. Bait, especially those
big gizzard shad, can’t hide up there around
cover anymore. They get pulled out where
bass are waiting on them.”
As the water falls, the lake bottom along
the shoreline and other shallow areas is
exposed, revealing ambush points where
bass can take advantage of the vacuum effect.
To the untrained eye, the new exposed shore-
line might just look like a random, jumbled
landscape of rock and mud. But to Watson,
scanning such banks is like reading a book
where every paragraph points him in the
right direction to where bass will be.
Watson doesn’t just see random rock. He
sees flat rock, boulders, pea gravel and slate
rock. Watson doesn’t just see mud run
amuck. He sees sand, clay, soft silt and hard-
pan. Watson doesn’t just see bank. He sees
varying degrees of slope.
When read correctly, the best places,
according to Watson, are seams in the substrate
of the shore that run down into the water.
“Junctions, transitions, seams and veins,”
Watson reveals. “Junctions of rock and mud,
rock veins that run through mud flats or
sandbars, big isolated boulders up on bare
clay bank, transitions of one type of rock to
another – basically any kind of seam of con-
trasting earth is fair game.
“Typically, I like flatter stuff,” he adds.
“But I’ll try all angles of slope because slant
of the bank usually plays a big role in the pat-
terning process. If I can identify seams and
transitions and a particular degree of slope,
I’m well on my way to being dialed in.”
better with Weather
In the fall, lake drawdowns generally coin-
cide with cooling water and turnover. But
Watson says that water temperature is not so
much a part of his fall fishing strategy as are
the cold fronts that cause the cooldown.
december 2016 I fLWfISHING.com
reading the rock
Watson weighed in a mixed bag of bass species, but largemouths anchored his win.
Conditions
Weather: warm and sunny with gusty winds on day one; cool, cloudy
and rainy on day two; cool with partly cloudy skies on day three
air temperature: high in the upper 80s on day one; upper 50s on
days two and three
Water temperature: mid- to low 70s
moon Phase: waning gibbous
Predominant Lake features: mud flats, r