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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