Swindle Solves His Clarks Hill Mystery

APPLING, Ga. (May 8, 2006) – When the 2006 CITGO Bassmaster Elite Series schedule was released at the end of last year, Gerald Swindle took out a red pen. He promptly circled Clarks Hill Reservoir and the first weekend in May as one of the biggest of his season.

Why? You might ask. Quite simply, Swindle owed this place one. Coming off his career-changing 2004 season, where he won his first CITGO Bassmaster Angler of the Year in dramatic fashion – Swindle’s early 2005 successes positioned him to capture a second-straight title. But Clarks Hill lied ahead.

It was mid-March of 2005 and the clear, yet chilled, waters of this huge impoundment seemed to envelop the Alabama resident, relegating him to 125th overall. The finish tossed Swindle’s back-to-back AOY hopes out the window, as well as sending his confidence into a Tour-long tailspin.

 

Enter the 2006 CITGO Bassmaster Elites Series, where Swindle sat in the AOY top 10, poised for another title run. Full of confidence after strong early season finishes, Clarks Hill once again reared it’s head Swindle’s way.

But the month of May also marks the first strong topwater bite of the season, which meant Lucky Craft would come to the party as well. Swindle, armed with some of Lucky Craft’s finest large lure offerings – like the Gunfish 115 – gained momentum as the tournament progressed, staring back at Clarks Hill by catching limits every day and upping his weights during each successive weigh-in. When the dust settled, Swindle had grabbed the 14th position. But more importantly, he cleared a mental hurdle that had bothered him for more then a year.

“This was a big one for me personally,” said Swindle, who currently sits sixth, a mere 75 points out of the AOY points lead. “The thing about this lake is that it plays really well to my strengths. It rewards an aggressive style, which is what I like to do the best. I like this lake; it just caught me off guard last year. I still don’t really know what happened.”

Swindle was dialed in this time, chasing schooling fish all over the place, capturing 10 pounds, 11 ounces on Thursday, 12 pounds, 13 ounces on Friday and barely missing the final cut to 12 anglers with 16 pounds and 8 ounces on Saturday. He was aggressive, played to his instincts and overcame any lingering doubts.

“I really concentrated on it because I felt like I could really catch them here,” Swindle explained. “I did miss some bigger bites on Thursday and Friday, but I didn’t second guess myself and change everything. I kept grinding it out, and the breaks started to happen. I almost made the top 12 this time – what a huge difference.”

The real difference for Swindle might have been his ammo, which included Lucky Craft’s latest crankbait creation.

“I was throwing the Gunfish 115 (in Laser Clear Ghost), but really caught several of my key fish every morning on the new Flat CB Mini DR in Chartreuse Shad,” said Swindle, who depended on the Flat CB Mini DR for the first time in professional tournament competition. “I went back and forth between those two lures and it really paid off. Early in the morning during lowlight, the key was to throw the Mini because I could place the right color in the right spots.

“It was a weird topwater bite,” Swindle added. “You could catch them schooling, but they weren’t traveling in huge packs, either. You had to be right on the fish when they broke or you weren’t going to be able to catch them. If you had to troll up to them, you weren’t going to catch them. They weren’t really eating the lures either; they would bite all around it, but would never truly commit.”

 

Kelly Jordon got into the Lucky Craft act as well, throwing his favorite large water lures en route to the 25th spot with an overall weight of 36 pounds and 14 ounces. Despite slightly struggling during Saturday’s competition, Jordon’s 11 pound, 7 ounce effort on day one and 16 pound, 12 ounce day-two weight pushed the Mineola, Texas resident to another strong finish.

“I actually had a lot more bites the longer the tournament went on,” said Jordon, who now sits seventh in this year’s chase for Angler of the Year. “But like a lot of the other guys out there, I missed and lost them as well.

“I ran around a lot too,” Jordon continued. “I thought the sun coming out would have had them biting a little better in the afternoon, but it just didn’t happen – at least where I was. I ended up struggling, only catching four keepers (on Saturday). I lost two really nice fish, and had a couple others really look at the lure, but not bite it. I would have had 14 to 18 pounds with them, but that’s the breaks of this game.”

Jordon loved throwing his Lucky Craft wares though.

 

 

“It’s a lot of fun catching them on topwater because they just smoke that Gunfish when they get out there,” Jordon said. “What worked for me was Pearl Ayu, but they also liked some of the other colors out there, too.”

Skeet Reese continues to keep a consistent foot on the AOY pedal. The Northern California resident and long-time Lucky Craft pro garnered the 46th position after totaling 30 pounds and 6 ounces in his three days of competition.

Like many of the other anglers, Reese jumped from spot to spot in hopes of seeing a group of schooling fish chasing spawning areas of blueback herring. Despite having an excellent game plan and the right Lucky Craft lures at his disposal, honing in on keeper bass was still a difficult proposition.

“I really felt like I was onto some good patterns on Thursday,” said Reese, who claims 14th in this year’s AOY standings. “But those areas went away just as soon as they developed. It seemed like I pulled up my trolling motor about 1,000 times, as I tried to find the different areas that were working.

“I thought the weather was going to be more conducive to a consistent topwater bite,” Reese continued. “And I stuck with the topwater bite most of the tournament, even though I did catch a couple on beds.”

Reese threw a lot of Lucky Craft this week as well.

 

“I threw the Sammy a lot, making super-long casts,” Reese commented. “I had the right lures and had a big one really grab it, but I couldn’t get any pressure on the fish with the glass rod and light line I was using (on Friday). That hurt. I also lost one on a bed that was about seven pounds as well. It was a frustrating week and I had my opportunities, so I’m pretty disappointed.

“I started out big at the beginning of practice,” Reese continued. “But I downsized as the tournament progressed, getting into the Gunfish 95 and the Sammy 100. Those two lures caught all of my topwater fish. This tournament was really a mixed bag with large and smaller lures working in different situations. Pretty much anything you wanted to try, would work to differing degrees of success. I think most of the bigger weights came from four or five different key areas.”

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Joe Thomas captured the 98th position, reeling in an overall weight of 11 pounds. He talked about his tournament.

“I threw the Gunfish 115 a lot this weekend and that’s what a majority of my keeper fish came on,” Thomas said. “ I know a lot of the big stringers were caught on that lure this weekend. Everything is about timing on this lake and you just had to be there when they came up. It would usually happen within the length of a cast; a big one would blow up and if you had the lure in your hand – you would have caught him.

“It may have been just the matter of the way I was rotating my points,” Thomas added. “Some guys caught the breaks out there this week, where they would have nothing going, pull up into a school and catch 15 pounds. It was definitely the classic post-spawn herring catch out on points. A lot of Lucky Craft topwater lures were used, and the Gunfish was as good of a lure as you could have thrown this week.”

 

 

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