on tour
onEIda LakE
brEWErTon, n.y. – aug 18-20
WInnInG anGLer
PRESENTED
BY
corY JoHnSton
cavan, ontarIo
Stat Line: Johnston earned his second Northern division win in two years
and clinched his third Northern division angler of the year title at oneida.
tactics and target areas
106
Anglers arrived at Oneida for the final stop of the Costa
FLW Series Northern Division to find some truly unusual
conditions, with the usually cooperative smallmouths a lit-
tle battered by fishing pressure and sullen because of a
recent heat wave. The mixed-up bass made for a mixed-up
top 10, and pros caught fish shallow and deep, and on top-
water, umbrella rigs and dragging. A few even mixed in
some largemouths. When it all settled, Cory Johnston’s shal-
low-centric plan triumphed easily by more than 4 pounds.
After catching a few good ones shallow on the first of six
practice days, Johnston pretty well stayed dialed in on his
eventual game plan the whole time.
“There was a section of the lake that I didn’t even go and
fish, just because when you look at it on the GPS it doesn’t
have the stuff I was looking for,” says Johnston. “I put my
by Jody White
trolling motor on 100 and just went looking [in practice].
There were days when I went offshore, but as soon as I got
off the deeper pattern and went back to what I was doing I
knew I was on the right program because I started catching
and seeing fish again.”
He fished predominantly along the south and west sec-
tions of the lake, targeting shallow variations for his bass.
Anything from a rock pile, patch of sand, dock or grass
clump was fair game, and the experienced Canadian pro
sight-fished for the majority of his weight on each of the
first two days. Big winds complicated matters and forced
him to adapt on the final day.
“I wanted to fish shallow like I’d been doing the first
two days,” says Johnston, “but the wind was up, and I
couldn’t do it. The waves had a lot of my stuff up shallow
real dirty. So I went to some of my secondary stuff that was
fLWfISHInG.com I october-november 2016