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( continued from next page) row. The area was a 30- to 40-yardlong gravel bar where fish schooled all day. Instead of running around checking multiple spots, Neal simply Power-Poled down and waited for the fish to school around him. As crazy as sitting in one spot for four days sounds, the result was a runnerup finish for Neal.
Become the Shad
Many times Neal would stand idle without fishing and wait for fish to surface before even making a cast. He said the key to catching the schooling fish was to land the topwater right on the very spot where a fish was chasing a shad to the surface. Chris Johnston, who finished eighth chasing schoolers, said the same thing about his schooling pattern.
“ It’ s like a schooling fish gets dialed in on one shad, and only wants to chase that shad until it gets it,” Johnston says.“ And the only chance you have to catch that fish is to land right on top of the fish while it’ s in hot pursuit, causing the fish to mistake your lure for the shad it was chasing. It’ s like you have to become that very shad the bass is chasing.”
Feather Weather
Speaking of Neal and Johnston, both said putting a feather on the tail hook of their topwater walking baits was extremely critical. Both gave examples of fish that would just strike at the feather, providing them each a few extra fish per day. Neal said adding a feather was the difference in his catches on day one( 10-2) and day two( 15-12).
“ I was not using a feather on my topwaters the first day,” Neal says.“ While waiting to blast off on day two, I sat down and put feathered hooks on my topwaters, and it seemed to make a big difference right off the bat the second day.”
Bottom Was a Bust
One of the big surprises from Wheeler was the complete lack of a deep ledge bite. Two pros who put in an extensive amount of time looking for ledge fish were offshore ace Mark Rose and TBF champion Joseph Webster. Webster alone put in some 45 days of pre-practice, scouring Wheeler’ s deeper haunts. During the event, neither could connect with a solid ledge bite. In fact, Webster had to resort to schooling fish, and Rose went shallow with a buzzbait to score top 10s. Webster did catch some deep cranking fish on the first day, but his deep bite fizzled after that. Rose plucked a few keepers from deeper brush piles but could never dial in a solid ledge program, either. Similarly, many competitors mentioned not being able to get bit on the bottom because so many of Wheeler’ s fish were suspended.
Spoon Boon
When BFL All-American champion Jeremy Lawyer of Sarcoxie, Mo., revealed that several of his better bass during the event came on a 1 / 2-ounce hammered jigging spoon – helping him finish in fifth place – it raised some eyebrows.
Lawyer targeted schooling fish on the surface with a topwater popper, but when the fish went down, he wanted to trigger a reaction bite off the bottom – and that’ s where the spoon came into play. Lawyer would cast the spoon out, let it sink to the bottom and then rip it up, let it fall back and rip it again. His spoon trick worked in triggering some reaction bites from bigger fish under the school.
Pop Secret
Few fishing techniques surprise me anymore, but when I saw local favorite Brandon Perkins, Webster and Neal each thrashing the water with a saltwater-style popping cork teamed with some kind of little floating fly behind it, I had to dig out my binocs for a closer look.
When I asked about the popping cork at weigh-in I just got big grins. Fair enough. I know when pros want a little more time for an unconventional technique to shine. To my knowledge, their popping cork rigs did not pay off with many fish during the event. Apparently it had worked pretty well at some point during pre-tournament practice rounds.
And so it went. As noted, when compared to the volume of historical information on other tournament lakes in summer, the book on Wheeler Lake in August is pretty paltry. But the anglers who fish in the Forrest Wood Cup are good enough to write their own scripts, and make history in the process.
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