All captions: Steve Wright
Kreiger went old school, catching a lot of his fish on a Long A Bomber, one that heâs caught so many bass on that the finish has worn down to a bone color. âWaking a Long A Bomber is a good technique when the water is still cool, about 60 degrees,â he said. âBut it warmed into the 70s as the week went on.â So Kreiger switched to a Zoom Super Hog on a 1/8th-ounce weight and concentrated on bedding bass.
Palaniuk kept it simple, fishing a 1/2-ounce Terminator jig with a Berkley Chigger Craw trailer, both in green pumpkin. He was flipping bushes in Bull Shoals. Like Mike McClelland, he found far more success on there, where he had 31-7 over two days, than at Norfork, where he totaled 20-6. âI felt like a lot of the fish I caught were spawning, and they werenât replenishing fast enough, so I just ran new water every day,â Palaniuk said.
On Norfork, Snowden used a Zoom Magnum Finesse work on a 1/4-ounce shaky head jig, an albino colored Zoom Fluke and a natural green crawfish Storm Wiggle Wart. At Bull Shoals, most of his weight came on a green pumpkin Zoom Z Hog while flipping bushes, but he also caught fish on a Zoom tube and a Zara Spook.
McClelland admittedly ânever got dialed inâ at Norfork, but he sacked âem in two days on Bull Shoals. He had 21-15 in two days at Norfork and 31-2 in two days at Bull Shoals, fishing way up the White River in Missouri. âI didnât make a cast in Arkansas. I guess I was trying to get as close to Table Rock as possible,â McClelland joked, referring to the White River lake above Bull Shoals where he has won in the past. A Big Bite Baits Dean Rojas Fighting Frog was his flipping bait of choice on Bull Shoals. He used both green pumpkin and tilapia colors with the tails dipped in chartreuse Spike It. When it was slick calm the first day at Norfork, he caught fish on a Big Bite 6-inch finesse worm rigged wacky style.
Avena caught fish on a little bit of everything over the four days. At Bull Shoals, he drop-shotted a variety of soft plastics, including a Berkley Bottom Hopper, on spawning beds and he cast a swimbait. On Norfork, Avena caught fish on a Zorro Head Knocker buzzbait, a Berkley Bull Shad square-billed crankbait and a jerkbait. âIâm always trying to put the puzzle together as the day goes on,â said the Elite Series rookie. âI donât consider myself good at any particular thing. Iâm just a good, well-rounded angler.”
Kennedy fished the two lakes differently. On Norfork, everything he weighed came on a 5/8ths-ounce D&L Advantage jig in green pumpkin or white with a soft plastic chunk trailer. On Bull Shoals, he had a 50-bass, 20-keepers day Saturday, flipping a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver on a 1/4-ounce weight and making long casts with watermelon or green pumpkin 5-inch Senkos, particularly to âpoint bushes.â Said Kennedy, âWe donât get up to the Great Lakes until after the spawn, but I donât think Iâve ever seen so many spawning smallmouth bass.â
Powroznik used two the same two baits on both lakes â a watermelon seed V&M Trickster worm and a white V&M J-Bug. For bass on spawning beds, he used the J-Bug with a 3/16ths-ounce Elite Tungsten weight. He rigged the Trickster both wacky style and on a 1/16ths-ounce shaky head. In the deeper areas, Powroznik put some lead wire raps on the wacky rig hook. âDepending upon the weather, I was fishing some deeper bluff banks or around shallow bushes,â he said.
Lowen thought he caught his fish shallower than most of the other anglers, âwith his trolling motor digging the mud.â He used the same two baits on both lakes ¬â a 4-inch black and blue Tightlines UV Bill Lowen tube Texas-rigged on a 3/16ths-ounce Reins Tungsten weight and a Lure Parts Online Brush Puppy 3/8ths-ounce jig with a soft plastic chunk trailer. âI concentrated on flooded brush at Bull Shoals and wood at Norfork,â Lowen said.
Like Tharp, Herren threw his signature jig on both lakes, in his case a Santone M Series 3/8ths-ounce jig in a river bream color pattern paired with a root beer colored Reaction Innovations Twerk trailer. Herren also caught some bass on both lakes with a Reaction Innovations 4.5-inch Pocket Rocket soft plastic stick bait in a âdirty wizardâ color. âOn a full moon the crawfish spawn too,â Herren said. âIt was just a flat-out, free-for-all, eat-a-jig week.â
For Zaldain, the two lakes fished completely different. On Bull Shoals he targeted spawning bass in shallow buckbrush with a 6-inch hand-poured worm that was half purple and half brown, imitating a bluegill. He fished it on a drop shot rig with a short leader, so the bait, which floats, would stay right in front of the fish, 4 to 6 inches off the bottom. At Norfork, especially on the first day, not as much the final day, Zaldain discovered the bass would chase a lure, so he used a Megabass Magdraft 6-inch swimbait in a whiteback shad pattern. âThe beauty of that swimbait is the magnet that holds that treble hook in place underneath it,â Zaldain said âThe hookup ratio is awesome.â
Reese vaulted from 27th place to third place on Day 3 at Bull Shoals when he caught the big bag of the tournament of 19-2. He caught 20 to 30 keepers Saturday, and all of them came while flipping a green pumpkin Berkley Havoc Pit Boss on a 1/4-ounce tungsten sinker and a 5/0 Trokar hook. At Norfork, Reese used a Lucky Craft LC 3.5 square-billed crankbait in copper green shad and a shad-colored Berkley Hollow Belly 5-inch swimbait with a 5/0 Trokar 1/4-ounce weighted swimbait hook.
He was essentially a one-lure angler, varying only the weight of his 4×4 Randall Tharp Signature Series jig between a half-ounce and 5/8ths. Tharp used a golden craw color pattern in the jig and trailed it with a green pumpkin Zoom Big Salty Chunk. The heavier jig was important the last two days, after Tharp realized the fish wanted something with a faster fall-rate. âI caught everything in 5 feet or less,â he said. âGenerally the bigger ones were dirt shallow.â