WALDORF
14
Tactics
MATT AREY
SHELBY, N.C.
25 LBS
by Kyle Wood
Like many of the top finishers, Matt Arey cashed in on the
booming offshore bite in order to claim his fourth top-20 fin-
ish in the Forrest Wood Cup.
“I figured out the offshore bite before the cutoff and knew
that was what I wanted to focus on for the tournament,” Arey
says. “Main-lake points and secondary points leading into
pockets with some brush or cane piles on them were the
most productive for me. Timing was a big deal, and that usu-
ally meant getting to a spot awhile after it had been fished,
or before someone got to it. You knew if a spot hadn’t been
hit because you’d get bit almost immediately.”
Baits
Tactics
EDEN PRAIRIE, MINN.
25 LBS, 8 OZ
by Colin Moore
Austin Felix, who was on the University of Minnesota
team that won the 2014 YETI FLW College Fishing National
Championship, did much better on Lake Murray in his return
trip than his inaugural visit when he only caught five keepers
in two days and wound up 36th.
Felix put together a solid three-pronged strategy that was
less dependent on the ubiquitous herring bite in the main
lake that others were tapping.
Each morning, for the first half-hour or so, Felix fished
shallow points in about 2 feet of water with a walking bait to
pick off random bass before the sun came up and moved
them offshore. Starting about 8 o’clock, he would switch to a
schooling pattern on three or four points he located in prac-
tice. He rotated among them for a few hours, then went back
to the bank with a buzzbait and targeted bass set up under
docks or in laydowns.
“I had to let my points rest. I’d catch one or two and then
leave. The bait would gradually set up around the points
again, and the fish would be in the brush nearby,” says Felix.
“Once I came back and moved up the point, the bait would
sort of scatter and get the bass going again.”
13
AUSTIN FELIX
The Quaker State pro rotated through a plethora of top-
water baits and a soft-plastic jerkbait to keep things fresh
and catch his limits.
“When it was slick calm, I feel like I got more bites with a
silent walking bait,” Arey adds. “But when there was more of a
chop I’d use one with rattles or a pencil popper. One of the
biggest keys was having a fast reel, though. I was working those
baits so fast I needed to be able to keep up with the fish when
they ate it or burn back when they started busting nearby.”
He used a 7-foot, 3-inch Okuma TCS frog/swimbait rod or
a 7-foot, medium-heavy Okuma Helios rod, each with a high-
speed Okuma Helios reel.
Baits
Felix alternated between a 6th Sense Dogma walking bait
and a pearl Zoom Fluke first thing, before adding an Ever
Green Shower Blows pencil popper in blueback herring to
his arsenal. His Bass Alarm buzzbait wore a white Zoom
Horny Toad trailer.
OCTOBER 2017 I FLWFISHING.COM
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