Michael Neal was like a sharpshooter, holding back his topwater while waiting to fire at any schooling fish that busted the surface. photo by Rob NEWELL
Michael“ Real Deal” Neal relied exclusively on schooling fish to bank his second top-10 finish in the Forrest Wood Cup.
While some pros that were chasing schoolers hopped from point to point, Neal milked one spot that he found in pre-practice the entire time.
“ I honestly thought this tournament was going to be won offshore, and to my knowledge nobody caught them out there. In pre-practice, I looked deep –‘ electronics deep’ and‘ cranking deep’ [ where it’ s too shallow for electronics ] – and never did find them,” says Neal.“ On the lower end, there’ s really not more than six or eight good-looking places on a contour map to have offshore fish, and I was looking at one of them and saw them come up schooling on it.”
The spot was just a shallow pea gravel point that tapered off to about 25 feet deep before dropping down out of fishing range. Nearly every point on the lower end of the lake had schooling fish on it, but Neal’ s spot had more and bigger fish on it than anywhere else and held them from pre-practice through the last cast of the tournament.
While others made repeated casts to schooling fish, Neal took a different approach, electing to wait them out with topwater in hand, ready to throw to any busting fish within reach. In pursuit of stealth, Neal used his Power- Poles the majority of the time, only occasionally kicking on his trolling motor to make a move and running only his HydroWave and livewell.
Neal says that back home on Chickamauga, schooling fish can usually be tempted to take a walking topwater when they aren’ t actively breaking, but after trying that and about everything else, he reverted to the waiting game during the tournament. The one exception was his use of a Carolina rig to try and artificially induce schooling action.
“ It would fire them up,” says Neal of the rig.“ They sat in about three places, and they would start in one place and move over to where I was sitting. You could take that Carolina rig and get a bite, and the rest of the fish would start moving. So if you could catch one and get it in quickly and take it off, about the time you would pick up your topwater rod a fish would bust.”
If he could hit that busting bass with a topwater, Neal could very likely put a keeper in the boat. Naturally he lost some and missed some, but the fish were there for yet another tremendous finish from the“ Real Deal.”
NEAL’ S KEYS TO SUCCESS
Neal’ s approach certainly was unique, but the real key was adding a feathered treble to his topwater after day one. The first day, Neal weighed 10 pounds, 2 ounces for 18th. On day two, he weighed 15-12 and rocketed up to second place. On days three and four, he boxed 12-0 and 12-12, respectively.
Early August found Wheeler Lake brimming with tiny shad, which left many pros struggling for bites. On Neal’ s spot, small shad swimming together in clouds the size of a boat were sometimes visible. With so much small bait in the water, it was hard for a lure to compete. Some pros pulled out crappie jigs and popping corks, but Neal opted to add a feather to a mostly clear topwater.
“ I started using a feather on my hook the second day, and it made a difference in the number of bites I got in those schools,” Neal says.“ I don’ t know what it is about that feather, but it works on schooling fish.”
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