6
MICHAEL NEAL | 46 LBS , 11 OZ
By Sean Ostruszka
66
photo by chRIS bURGaN
A
nglers got four days of official
practice for this year’s Forrest
Wood Cup, but for all intents
and purposes, Michael Neal only need-
ed the first hour of it.
“I probably could’ve stopped practic-
ing by 8 a.m. Sunday, and it wouldn’t
have affected how I finished,” Neal says.
“I did the same thing I did in 2014 – fish
cane piles. And I already had all the
waypoints from back then. I just re-
checked those. I’d say 80 percent of the
spots I fished this year I found in 2014.”
Neal estimates he rotated through
40 places each day, making two passes
through each spot. His method relied
on efficiency: Neal would pull up, make
no more than 10 casts and then move
on to the next spot.
“I wasn’t fishing more than 10 miles
from takeoff, but I burned more than
30 gallons of gas every day,” says Neal.
Neal’s main weapon was an alewife-
colored Big Bite Baits Jerk Minnow on a
5/0 round-bend hook, with a 14- to 18-
inch-long leader tied to a swivel, which
reduced line twist and added weight for
casting. He worked the Jerk Minnow as
fast as he could, often making it jump out
of the water like a surface lure. He also
caught a keeper each day on an American
shad-colored ima Little Stick 135.
FLWFISHING.COM I OCTOBER 2017