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WESLEY STRADER | 34 LBS , 2 OZ
By Jody White
72
photo by joDy whIte
W
esley Strader is a regular at
the Forrest Wood Cup, but
prior to 2017 he hadn’t
notched a top-10 Cup finish since
2005. At Murray, he was able to put his
versatility to good use, fishing for her-
ring eaters in the main lake as well as
targeting shallow bass in a creek far
upstream.
Strader started his tournament fish-
ing cane piles on the lower end and
came up empty. After running up the
creek, father up than any other top-10
pros, he boxed nearly 14 pounds by
throwing a spinnerbait and a crankbait
in laydowns. On day two, he worked his
way into cut range with fish he plucked
from cane piles and schoolers that
were breaking over a tapering grassy
point in the lake’s lower section.
The key point for Strader had sub-
merged grass that topped out about
12 feet below the surface. Bass came
up schooling on herring there on days
two and three. In the last round they
wouldn’t bite Strader’s topwater, but he
crushed them for an hour or so on day
two with a bone-colored prototype
pencil popper from PH Custom Lures
called the Pencil P.
In the creek, Strader says patience
was key, and that it sometimes took 20
FLWFISHING.COM I OCTOBER 2017