“I want the fronts that bring in those windy, cloudy, colder
conditions,” Watson says. “The late-summer doldrums seem
to put a lake in a slick, stagnant funk, making you wonder
where all the fish went. But once the water starts dropping
and you get those first several fronts that shake up the lake a
little bit, now you have a whole new playing field in front of
you.”
Watson’s wheelhouse forms when all of these fall-based
elements come together. Put him on a lowered reservoir with
plenty of rock bank while the leaves are changing and he feels
right at home, which is exactly what happened when he
arrived at Norris Lake in October.
“I had never been on Norris before,” Watson says. “But the
minute I put my boat in for practice, I felt right at home. The
water was down. The composition and slope of the bank
looked exactly like Table Rock.”
Watson initially tried several techniques, but when he gur-
gled a buzzbait over a shallow mud-to-rock seam and imme-
diately got “pummeled” he knew exactly what to do.
“I started riding the lake just visually scanning the banks
for those seams of hard rock to soft ground,” Watson says. “I
found a few isolated boulders that spilled out into the water.
I found a couple of man-made rock fences that ran off into the
water. I marked several big rock veins that traversed through
mud flats out into the water. Norris had a lot of that kind of
stuff.”
The bonus for Watson was seeing big gizzard shad hover-
ing around the shallow, isolated rock.
“I was giddy,” Watson says.
In addition, weather helped to further Watson’s game plan
when a cold front blew through during the tournament. Day
one was warm and balmy with south winds. Day two fea-
tured dark clouds, misty rain, gusty west winds and a tem-
perature drop of some 30 degrees. The final day brought
slow-clearing clouds and more cold wind.
Watson had perfect conditions for chucking a buzzbait
and a River2Sea Whopper Plopper (see below) up in inches of
water where the gizzard shad were mottling the surface
around the shallow rock targets.
“The bass sit in the rock junctions and seams and ambush
those shad as the vacuum effect pulls them out off the mud
flats,” Watson says. “A buzzbait and a Whopper Plopper are
the perfect tools for skimming those shallow areas, and it
helps tremendously to have a little ripple from the wind.”
commitment was Key
One thing Watson did not mention much during the event
was the commitment he had to the topwater lures during the
day, sticking with them through thick and thin.
“I did catch a few weigh fish by flipping docks with a 1/2-
ounce War Eagle Heavy Finesse Jig,” Watson says, “but that
was if I just happened across a dock while gunning down the
bank. Mostly I stayed committed to the buzzbait and Plopper.
Even when I went awhile without a bite, I stayed with them
all day.”
On days one and two Watson made fishing look easy,
weighing in limits of 13-10 and 13-4. But on the last day he
brought in just 9-12, leaving the door open for runner-up
Jason Lambert of Pickwick Dam, Tenn.
“That last-day slip-up was really about not having enough
new water to run each day,” Watson reveals. “That’s a big
part of the fall program; you have to fish new water a major-
ity of the time because the fish are not replenishing. I had
enough water for two days, but on the final day I started
repeating some water and fishing water I think other com-
petitors may have been running.”
Despite running short on prime real estate, Watson was
rewarded with two final-hour keepers that each helped him
cull by an ounce or two, allowing him to hold off Lambert by
just 3 ounces.
“Usually, if you stay committed to those baits, you get a
kicker in the last hour,” Watson says. “That didn’t happen this
time, but the last two fish I caught did help me. And without
them, I would not have won.”
WATSON’S WINNING LURES
112
James Watson’s performance at the Walmart
FLW Tour Invitational on Norris Lake was mostly a
topwater show involving a black River2Sea
Whopper Plopper 130, a War Eagle Buzz Toad
teamed with a black Luck E Strike Frantic Frog trail-
er and a River2Sea Bubble Walker walking bait.
Most of his winning fish came on the
Whopper Plopper and the Buzz Toad, which were
both fished on 50-pound-test Maxima braid on a
7-foot, 10-inch Waft heavy-action rod with a 7:1
Bass Pro Shops Johnny Morris CarbonLite
Baitcast Reel.
Watson says the long, heavy-action rod works
for him on the buzzers because he “pull sets”
into his fish.
“Instead of jerking when I get a bite on those
topwaters, I just keep reeling until I can feel the
fish pulling, and then I just sort of lean into it
and start cranking the reel, letting the rod do the
hooksetting,” Watson details.
fLWfISHING.com I december 2016