LAST CAST
by Rob Newell
A CUPFUL OF TAKEAWAYS
I
always find the Forrest Wood Cup to be an intriguing
event, mostly because it’s usually held in August on a
Southeastern impoundment. Yes, I know, there are other
times and other places that would make for better fishing,
but that’s what makes the Cup so unique: It’s held on an
ultra-challenging venue for that time of year.
There is a ton of tournament history on Okeechobee in
January, on Rayburn in February, on Santee in April and
Kentucky Lake in June. But have
you ever tried to find any run-
downs on Wheeler Lake in August?
Exactly.
Where do the fish go? What do
they do? How do you catch a bass
in the “dog days” of summer?
When 50 of the best anglers in
the world show up and pour years
of fishing expertise into cracking
the Wheeler Lake code in the sear-
ing heat of August, some interest-
ing fishing information is going to
surface in the results. Here are some
of the takeaways I garnered from
the 2016 Forrest Wood Cup on
Wheeler:
heavily as well. In the end, topwaters of some type played
a key role in the catches of nine of the top-10 finishers.
Stay in School
I’ve heard of waiting on schooling fish to bite, but
Michael Neal took it to an extreme at Wheeler Lake, sit-
ting on one tiny schooling spot for nearly four days in
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Topwaters Were Tops
120
Two primary patterns pro-
duced success during the Forrest
Wood Cup: running far back into
creeks to find resident bass savor-
ing the cooler currents and shade,
and chasing schooling fish on the
main lake. In either case, topwa-
ters dominated the event. Not
only did John Cox win the cham-
pionship on a topwater frog and a
buzzbait, other creek-running top-
10 finishers such as Jacob Wheeler,
Todd Auten and Bryan Thrift
scored key fish on buzzbaits and
poppers, too. Those targeting
schooling fish relied on topwaters
FLWFISHING.COM I OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2016