T
The only way Cobb could make it hap-
pen in his best areas was to slowly
and thoroughly pick apart each target.
here was no doubt in Brandon Cobb’s
mind that backwater creeks would be
“the deal” at Wheeler Lake. He was right,
though not in the way he expected.
Cobb dedicated his entire pre-prac-
tice to looking at creeks, trying to find
places like the creeks he exploits back
home in South Carolina in the summer.
He did the same the first day of official
practice, but other than one particularly
small creek that wasn’t even on the map,
most of his creeks didn’t produce much.
“You could call it a creek, but really
it was a ditch,” says Cobb about his
unmapped spot. “It was about two car
lengths wide and 75 yards long. It had
one laydown, one bush and one brush
pile. The rest was slick bank and only 1
1/2 feet deep. It was a nothing creek,
but I got four bites in there.”
The next two practice days he dedi-
cated to finding schooling fish, figuring
he’d make the cut with them and then
save the one creek for the final two
days. After realizing many other pros
were trying the schooling deal on day
one of the tournament, Cobb scrapped
everything and went to his tiny creek.
As nondescript as the creek was,
Cobb would catch limits from it each of
the next three days. Why they were in
there to begin with is something Cobb
figured out as he fished it.
“I’m pretty sure there was a natural
spring in there,” he says. The spring
provided fresh, oxygenated water and
helped trigger the food chain and
attract bass – even smallmouths.
For three days, Cobb cycled through
the only three pieces of cover in the creek
arm, going round and round flipping a
Zoom Baby Brush Hog with a 3/8-ounce
tungsten weight or a 1/2-ounce
Greenfish Tackle Skipping Jig in green
pumpkin with a Zoom Super Chunk
trailer in green pumpkin.
“That was really the only thing I had
going, so I stayed in there and milked
it,” says Cobb. “By day three, though, I
could tell I was taking more fish out
than were replenishing.”
After an early limit on Saturday,
Cobb made a 66-mile run up the Elk
River to the only other creek where
he’d found success in practice. In an
hour he culled out all his fish by flip-
ping to isolated pieces of cover.
Figuring he needed a big limit to con-
tend, he made the long run again on
Sunday, and again found plenty of fish
by flipping. Only this time, the size
wasn’t there.
COBB’S KEYS TO SUCCESS
Cobb loves fishing fast and covering water. However, with only one tiny pri-
mary creek, and said creek having only three targets, Cobb was forced to slow
down. Turns out, he feels that is the only reason he succeeded.
“I usually flip to a piece of cover, hop it once or twice, reel back, and flip
somewhere else. It’s fast,” says Cobb. “But with no other cover, I just kept flip-
ping to the same stuff. I’d sometimes make 20 to 30 flips to that brush pile
before getting bit. There was even one time I flipped the bush for 15 minutes
before getting bit.”
The only time Cobb touched his trolling motor was to reposition himself in
order to again put his Power-Poles down. He also adjusted how he worked his
lure.
“Instead of hopping it and reeling it in, I’d slowly drag it out like you would
a worm,” he explains. “It was the only way I could get bit. It also was the only
way I could get bit on my other spot [up the Elk]. So if I hadn’t learned I needed
to slow down initially, I might’ve not caught fish anywhere else.”
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