Schmitt was initially drawn to the area in practice because of the large number of bass that were spawning in the shallow, matted grass tucked in behind the bulkhead. The area was actually a big draw for a lot of anglers during practice because the rocks cut off the main river flow, providing an obvious estuary for spawning.
However, when pros returned to the area on the first day of the tournament, they got an unwelcome surprise. Heavy rains on the official off day had the river flowing high enough to breach the bulkhead. As a result, cold, muddy water was pouring right through the onceprotected spawning grounds. Many pros came in for a few casts, but then bolted upon seeing the water color. In fact, Schmitt was one of the anglers initially spooked away by the mud.
“ I pulled in there the first morning, caught a couple of keepers, saw the mud and kept on moving down to Pool 9,” he recalls.
Schmitt retreated to Pool 9 for a couple hours to finish his limit, but in the back of his mind a few thoughts started brewing about his first stop behind that U-shaped levee.
“ I kept thinking about how many fish were in there spawning before the mud came in,” Schmitt says.“ There was no way they were going to leave that general area behind that levee because they had nowhere to go. They still had to be in there.”
Schmitt also liked how the muddy water had intimidated so many other anglers.
“ The main thing I was worried about was how many boats were going to fish in there,” he says.“ Well, the mud took care of that problem.”
Finally, Schmitt kept thinking about how high flood tides on the Potomac River would ward off boats, but the fish were still there and could be caught when the tide turned and the water started dropping.
Playing his hunches, Schmitt decided to backtrack to Pool 8, return to the area he started in and attempt to reconnect with the fish that had presumably been blown out by the mud.
And with that, he made the winning move of the tournament.
“ I went back and sort of started over, trying to figure out where those fish might have moved to,” Schmitt says.“ I knew they were not going to leave that area and swim across that muddy, cold river to the other side. The photo by andy hagedon
CONDITIONS
Weather | rising water throughout; partly cloudy on day one, cold and cloudy on day two, cold and steady rain on day three, post-frontal, cloudy and cool on day four air temperature | low 50s to low 60s Water temperature | mid- to upper 60s and dropping moon Phase | third quarter to waning crescent Predominant river features | wing dams, various grasses, flooded trees, bushes, oxbow lakes, flats off the main river channel and lock-and-dam structures
Schmitt used a swim jig to do most of his damage at La Crosse.
water color in there had changed, but it was not totally unfishable.”
Instead of plying the bedding area just behind the rocks, he dropped down below it and sampled some of the water in the lower end of the protected area.
“ The water was deeper down there, maybe 3 to 4 feet, and the grass was more sparse,” he says.“ I was thinking about how much it reminded me of some of my favorite staging areas on the Potomac when a good one nearly ripped the rod out of my hands. When I got the fish in, I could tell immediately it was a prespawn bass – it was so fat with no scars or marks.”
In an ironic twist of fate, Schmitt had returned to the area in hopes of finding where postspawn fish were retreating due to the mud, but instead he found a new crop of prespawn fish waiting for the river to stabilize before committing to the beds in the matted grass. The more he fished the area, the more he defined the staging grass in which the bass were set up. the lures
Once dialed in, Schmitt would go on to sack up four limits of 14-12, 16-4, 15- 12 and 14-10 to win by a landslide. He caught most of his weigh fish on the same lure he uses to win so much money on the Potomac River: a 3 / 8-ounce black and blue swim jig with a swimming trailer fished on 15-pound-test P-Line fluorocarbon on a 7-foot Fitzgerald Stunner HD rod and an Ardent Apex Grand 7.3:1 reel. He also used a sexy shad-colored Riot Baits Recon vibrating jig.
Schmitt’ s unique retrieve technique was critical to his success. He would cast the swim jig, then reel the jig steadily with his rod tip down until it hit a clump of grass. Then he would twitch the rod hard two or three times to make the jig snap out of the grass for a reaction bite. In some ways, it almost looked like a jerkbait retrieve.
the Pattern
The fish often bit in flurries and he would catch four to eight at a time
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