ON TOUR
COSTA FLW SERIES
COSTA FLW SERIES | SANTEE COOPER
MANNING, S.C.
By Rob Newell
photoS by Matt paCe
WINNING ANGLER
ronnie mccoy
lamar, S.C.
Winning Weight:
73-08 (15 fish)
details:
april 5-7, 2018
presented by bass pro
Shops
I
hosted by Clarendon
County Chamber of
Commerce
Southeastern divison
n multiple-day tourna-
ments, one pattern is
good, but two patterns
are even better. The two-
pattern plan works especial-
ly well when the first one is
giving way to the second as
the tournament goes on,
which is exactly what Ronnie
McCoy found happening at
Santee Cooper during the
Costa FLW Series
Southeastern Division finale
at Santee Cooper.
As lake temperatures
peaked in the 65- to 68-
degree range, McCoy found
the last of the bass spawn
finishing up and postspawn
bass beginning to target
spawning shad. He made a
seamless transition from
the former on day one to
the latter on days two and
three to get the win.
90
McCoy’s plan going into
the event was to fish the
shad spawn up in an area
of the lakes known as “the
swamp” in the morning
when the light was low and
then run down to Potato
Creek after the sun got up
and sight-fish. As it turned
out, he only utilized sight-
fishing the first day, catch-
ing a 9-9 and a 7-pounder
off the same bed to weigh
in 26 pounds and start the
event in third place.
After day one, McCoy felt
the sight-fishing window
closing due to fishing pres-
sure, so he turned his atten-
tion to the swamp, where
shad were spawning on pri-
mary cypress tree points
sticking out into the river.
“The biggest key was
identifying exactly which
trees the shad were using
to spawn,” he says. “There
are a lot of trees on those
points, but only four or five
of them had shad actually
spawning on them. Casting
to an active tree would
result in an immediate bass
bite or shad following my
spinnerbait back in.”
Once he identified the
active trees, McCoy made
repeated casts and would
often catch multiple fish.
“It might have looked like
I was fishing all the trees on
a point, but I was really pol-
ing down on specific trees
and saturating them with
repeated casts,” he adds.
McCoy worked that pro-
gram for 21-6 on day two and
26-2 on day three to pull off a
perfect one-two punch for his
first Costa FLW Series win.
When sight-fishing on day one, Ronnie McCoy used a Zoom Road Kill Craw
in green pumpkin. For the shad spawn he used a 1/2-ounce homemade dou-
ble-willow spinnerbait with white blades and a Black Flagg Slikk Shadd 4 3/4-
inch swimbait as the trailer. He followed up the spinnerbait with a 1/2-ounce
Z-Man/Evergreen ChatterBait Jack Hammer with the Slikk Shad as a trailer.
WINNING CO-ANGLER
spencer mcneill
ladson, S.C.
Winning Weight:
42-00 (11 fish)
Winning program:
Spencer McNeill
dominated the co-angler
division on days one
and two with weights of
20-13 and 19-4. He
didn’t even need the
lone keeper he caught
on day three, and
earned the win by a
margin of 11-9.
McNeill caught most
of his fish on a wacky-
rigged watermelon
Zoom Trick Worm.
flWfIshIng.com I may-june 2018