Presentation Keys
Smith fished a variety of dock designs, from simple T-shapes,
to complex, multi-level structures with boat slips. Depth ranges
varied, but Smith was able to dial in some limitations.
“I would never fish the end of a dock that was more than
12 feet deep on the end,” he says. “That was mainly because
I’m not patient enough to let my Senko fall that far, but also,
I just found that I got more bites in shallower areas.
“I’d fish from 10 to 12 feet on the end and then hit every
piling all the way up to 6 inches of water. I really couldn’t pat-
tern where they were going to be. I caught good fish off the
ends, in the middle and up shallow.”
Whenever space permitted, Smith got under or behind
docks to maximize his presentations and time. Combing one
side and then the other worked on lower structures, but if he
could fit under a dock, it was game on.
“It was about casting angles,” he says. “You can get different
angles from underneath, and I needed to fish every piling.
Some pilings weren’t accessible from the outside, and being
very thorough and efficient on every dock was very key for me.”
Keys to victory
Early in the tournament, Smith described his technique as
“fishing slow, as fast as I can.” Essentially, it was power finesse
fishing. Smith was showing the fish a finesse look, but he was
doing so in rapid fashion. No long soaks; rather, it was in-and-
out-and-on-to-the-next-one fishing. Speed was the key, but
with a caveat.
“You had to be really accurate with that Senko; you had to
touch the piling,” Smith says. “If you didn’t touch the piling, you
wouldn’t get bit. I think a lot of the fish were suspended. Even
if it was 6 feet deep, some of them would bite it 5 feet down.
“A lot of times when it’s tough, I’ve literally seen them sit and
stare at the piling. When they do that, your bait has to fall on their
head, or else they don’t care about anything that’s behind them.”
november-december 2017 I flWfIshIng.com
CO-ANglER CHAmPION
name: Jeff Hardin
hometown: Chico, Calif.
Winning Weight: 40-06 (15 fish)
Winning Program: Hardin fished
a 6-inch Roboworm (margarita
mutilator) on a drop-shot
with an 8- to 12-inch-long,
8- or 10-pound-test fluoro-
carbon leader most of the
time, but he also caught
one keeper on a 1/2-ounce
football jig with a Strike King
Rodent trailer.
COmBAT DOCK FISHINg
The upside of fishing docks is that each usually provides
multiple targets. The downside: It’s never easy to fight fish
out from under the structure. Smith was able to yank his
smaller bass out with minimal struggle, but the quality fish
that delivered the win required more effort and tackle selec-
tion strategy.
“Sometimes, it was luck; the way they’d swim,” Smith says.
“But I was using a heavier rod than I normally use for a nail-
weighted worm. I was using a Dobyns 734 [7-3 heavy] with
15-pound-test fluorocarbon. The 15-pound test was really
important. If I got one that wrapped me up, I knew it was not
going to break me off very easily. I knew I at least had a shot
at getting that fish in.
“I could control my fish better than with a spinning rod,”
he says about his decision to use a baitcaster. “It was all a
numbers game, and I had to be as efficient as possible.”
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