Jacob Wheeler ran into skinny creeks and employed the same tactics that have worked for him in previous Cups, including fishing topwater and flipping.
Photo by garrick dixon
For creek rat Jacob Wheeler, there really was no other program to distract him from the shallow game at the Cup.
“ My thing in August is I never bet on the deep bite. That’ s a losing game most of the time because the [ deep ] fish are scattered out,” Wheeler says.“ The only time I like to fish deep is May and June, when they’ re coming to you.
“ In August there are really not many fish coming to you, so you have to fish the resident fish. It’ s the time of year that fish are starting to move shallow and transition back into their autumn patterns.”
Wheeler says there was no bream spawn up shallow, and there really wasn’ t a consistent pattern in terms of depth, water clarity, current or cover. So instead, his strategy was to force his Ranger into the skinniest, most tucked-away places he could find to gain access to unpressured fish. During practice he covered water quickly with an Accent Game Changer Buzzbait and a Terminator Popping Frog to determine which creeks had promising concentrations of fish.
“ Truthfully, some creeks have them and some creeks don’ t,” he says.“ In each creek I fished [ in the tournament ], there wasn’ t always a resemblance of the last creek.”
In the tournament, Wheeler slowed down considerably and methodically picked apart his targets – mostly undercut banks, shade lines created by overhanging trees, lily pads and laydowns.
To improve his stealth, Wheeler set his Minn Kota on 20 to 30 percent, so he could slowly creep along without stopping and starting the prop, and so he could easily and quietly stop himself with his Power-Poles without dragging the poles across the bottom.
About 90 percent of Wheeler’ s bites came on wood cover, but his bait selection expanded during the tournament. He caught one key fish each with a black SPRO Bronzeye Frog fished around pads and a soft-plastic creature bait, and two keepers on a walking bait. The Terminator frog and Accent buzzbait with a toad trailer combined for seven keepers, while the other nine came by flipping wood with an E. R. Lures jig in magic craw swirl with a Minnesota flash-colored Gene Larew Punch Out Craw.
“ I was really taking my time,” he says.“ I worked from outside in, flipping the outside, flipping midway up and then to the heart [ of the laydowns ],” Wheeler says.“ That jig is not an original Arkie style. It’ s a modified Arkie, so it goes through wood 90 percent better than the original Arkie head.”
WHEELER’ S KEYS TO SUCCESS
Wheeler’ s key to success was setting up his Ranger and Evinrude to run into and out of shallow creeks quickly and safely.
First, he removed more than 150 pounds worth of gear from his Ranger to make the boat easier to get on plane. He then outfitted his Evinrude G2 with a four-blade prop that provided the bite or“ traction” needed to get up quickly and still have steering control at a high trim setting. He also relied on a fastworking Bob’ s Machine Shop hydraulic jack plate.
To get on pad, he raised the jack plate 8 inches, trimmed the motor all the way down and hammered the throttle. Once up, he quickly lowered the jack plate to make sure the motor’ s cooling intake was drawing in water – running it too high for too long can cause the engine to overheat – and trimmed up the motor to skirt across skinny water.
“ A lot of guys thought I was crazy, but I figured out the system in practice,” Wheeler says.“ I tested it out on some mud flats to see how shallow I could be and still get the boat up. I could get up in 1.8 feet.
“ Time is money in bass fishing, especially in the Forrest Wood Cup, where the bite is so tough. I needed every minute of fishing time I could get. I idled those places in practice. I knew where everything was – the holes and the logs. I could get up on pad in shallow water, and I knew where the creek channels were.”
OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2016 I FLWFISHING. COM 67