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Swindle & Omori Make Guntersville Headlines
Lucky Craft Plays Roll in Final Day of Competitiona |
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Each day presented a different weather pattern, ranging from chilly mornings and severe afternoon thunderstorms to the hot and humid days that closed out the tournament. It changed how the fish reacted to certain lures and presentations, and it gave the Lucky Craft LVR D7 a chance to shine. |
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>>>Gerald Swindle |
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“I caught them on a lipless crankbait today,” said Swindle, on his Sunday strategy that yielded 15 pounds and 15 ounces. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think I even threw one (lipless crankbait) until Sunday. In some of the places I fished (on Lake Guntersville), I kept missing them on the spinnerbait, but I knew the fish were there. “I then brought out the (Lucky Craft) LVR D7 on 20-pound chlorofluorocarbon, which is a lot heavier line than you would normally use,” Swindle said. “After a couple of tries without success, I threw into this one area and caught a five pounder. I had found my lure. I caught a three pounder and a four pounder back to back.” Using a lipless crankbait on Lake Guntersville is a common occurrence, but having success with it when water temperatures creep as high as 74 degrees is a bit unusual.
“You usually use the lure when the water temperatures are from 47 to 60 degrees,” Swindle explained. “When it gets hotter, you have a tendency to move away from it. But I exhausted every lure I had, trying to make them bite, but that LVR D7 in Ghost Brown is really transparent and I think they liked that color. They bit it so hard I had to take pliers and dig it out of their throats. It was startling. If I would have figured that pattern out at 7:30 this morning (on Sunday), there’s no telling what I could have caught. When I figured it out, it lasted only 35 to 40 minutes.” “The weather was really unpredictable for this tournament,” Swindle continued. “The guys that moved around a lot were the one’s that did the best. Right now, I have a lot of confidence out on the water and I know I can catch them every day.” With the changing conditions, Swindle used a lot of different tactics to get to the final day. Swindle garnered 16 pounds, 6 ounces on day one and 17 pounds, 11 ounces on day two en route to his first top-12 finish of the year. “I slow rolled a spinnerbait for a lot of the tournament,” Swindle said. “I would make extremely long casts, and then retrieve it really slow. I would also let the boat drift and not let it stay in one place. It gave the fish a lot of different (lure) presentations without making a drastic change.
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Takahito Omori |
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“I would fish deep in one area and then shallow in another,” Omori remarked. “I really had to change what I was doing from time to time because of the weather conditions. I’m pretty happy with how I reacted to each situation. “I threw a crankbait and it seemed to work pretty well,” Omori said. “But when the skies were clear and there was a lot of sun, I ended up doing a lot sight fishing. When it was cloudy and raining in the morning, I caught a lot of my fish on the crankbait and a spinnerbait. You had to have a lot of patience to make these different lures work.” Omori opened the tournament extremely well, bagging 19 pounds and 1 ounce of bass on day one – placing the Texas pro in third. Omori followed that up with a 15 pound, 2 ounce effort on day two and an 18 pound, 14 ounce catch on day three.
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>>>Kelly Jordon |
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Jordon started out on fire, catching a 7 pound, 1 ounce monster that was Thursday’s big bass of the day. His day one bag was 20 pounds and 1 ounce, placing him third. But a frustrating second day of competition sent Jordon to the drawing board for Saturday. “I wanted to mix things up (on Saturday) to see if I could make the top-12 cut,” said Jordon, who reeled in 16 pounds, 2 ounces on Saturday. “I gave it a pretty good run today, but it just wasn’t good enough. My catch on Friday is what really hurt me in this tournament. “Because of the horrible weather, it didn’t turn out to be the sight fishing tournament I wanted it to be,” Jordon added. “I still caught most of them sight fishing, but it was much more difficult than expected. If the weather would have been a little different, I’m positive it would have been a new ballgame for me. I found a lot of big ones in practice and they all went away when those heavy thunderstorms came through on the first day of the tournament.”
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>>>Skeet Reese |
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Skeet Reese has found his groove. Reese grabbed 41 pounds and 5 ounces of bass over his three days of competition, placing him in 34th.
Reese battled the elements like everyone else and said, “It was really different every day out there. It would change from morning to afternoon just about every day. We started out the tournament with nice, cool mornings and a lot of sun. But they would end with a thunderstorm or two. On Saturday, it was just the opposite as we launched with nasty weather, but it cleared off and became bright and sunny. It made this week a real challenge.” Reese started out with 13 pounds, 4 ounces on Thursday, following that up with a 16 pound, 15 ounce effort on Friday. Saturday’s bite turned out to be a bit trickier.
“I just couldn’t get the topwater bite to work the way I wanted it to,” Reese said. “Once it didn’t work, I started jumping around the lake and looking for spawning beds, which seemed to work the best. There were a lot more fish up on the banks at the beginning of the week than there was in the end. A lot of the guys were running the same pockets and thinning out those areas, so I targeted waters a lot of the other guys weren’t looking at. That paid off to some extent. “If I could have caught 17 or 18 pounds a day, I would have been in the hunt for the top-12 cut,” continued Reese, who caught 11 pounds, 2 ounces on day three. “I wasn’t able to do that (on Saturday). But overall, I had a great tournament. Usually, Lake Guntersville leaves me scratching my head about what to do. So for me to be as consistent as I was this weekend, it was a great tournament. It’s a great lake and I love it because it’s so diversified. It’s an angler’s paradise because you can catch fish with about any technique out there.” |
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>>> Joe Thomas |
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Joe Thomas had one of his best overall performances of the season, capturing the 40th position with a three-day total of 38 pounds and 3 ounces. He was consistent as well, grabbing 14 pounds, 12 ounces on day one and 13 pounds, 2 ounces on day two, making his first top-50 cut of the season.
“I caught a lot of my fish shallow,” Thomas recalled. “And I was only catching five to six good keepers a day. The wind shifted on Saturday morning and really muddied up the areas I was keying on, so it became a struggle. When it was windy, I would swim baits along the bottom of beds in about three foot of water in and around milfoil. “This was a good tournament for me because I maximized what I had to work with,” Thomas added. “I feel good about things when I come away from a tournament like this. I did lose a couple of fish today, and lost a key fish on the first day of the tournament, but I caught everything else.” “I feel like I’ve turned the corner after a rough start to the season,” Thomas said. “Most of the time, 90 percent of all the struggles are mental. I hope things are looking up for the rest of the season.”
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>>> Marty Stone |
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“I’m not sure why things aren’t clicking right now,” Stone said. “Late in the day (on Friday), I found this area that had three fish. I knew that if I could have caught two of them, I would have made the cut because they were pretty good fish. Unfortunately, I was unable to catch any of them. “Now last year, if I would have needed two of those fish – I would have caught all three,” Stone said. “It’s just a matter of confidence right now. I know I’m in the right places and have found the right fish, but I just can’t seem to get them in the boat. But for now, I’m looking forward to finding that one fish that will turn my season around. Two years ago, I caught a seven pounder on the Harris Chain of Lakes (in Florida) that changed everything. That fish helped me win the tournament and allowed me to have two very successful seasons in a row. I need to find another fish like that.”
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DON’T LOOK NOW…but four Lucky Craft Pro Staff members sit within the top 13 for CITGO Bassmaster Angler of the Year honors.
Even though it’s early and only four Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments into the 2006 season, Takahiro Omori is in the fifth spot with 990 points. Gerald Swindle is right behind in sixth with 973 points, while Kelly Jordon is seventh with 951 points. And in 13th, well within striking distance of the leaders, is Skeet Reese with 906 points. “I’m really happy with how I’ve fished so far this season,” said Omori, the 2004 CITGO Bassmaster Classic champion. “We’ve been on a lot of lakes I’ve really enjoyed fishing on, so it’s helped me get to this point. I’m also looking forward to the rest of the season. “There’s still a long way to go though,” Omori added. “We have a lot of lakes on the schedule that I’ve never been to before, but it should be exciting.”
Alabama’s Gerald Swindle has taken a much different approach to the AOY race, even though he’s a mere 17 points behind Omori. “I really don’t approach each tournament with points in mind,” said Swindle, who won the Bassmaster Angler of the Year title in 2004. “My number one goal coming into the season was to win one of these events. That’s how I’m still approaching it. “What’s exciting for me is that I really haven’t fished the way I’ve wanted to,” Swindle continued. “As we move into the summer months, I think we’ll be getting to some lakes that will allow me to be more aggressive – fishing topwater baits and covering a lot of territory.”
Kelly Jordon is ecstatic with his position. The Texas resident is coming off a very frustrating 2005, where he failed to make the Classic. This year’s start is much more to his liking. “This has been a much better year,” said Jordon, who barely missed the Classic last year. “I’m pleased with how I’ve started out here and I’ve really enjoyed the fisheries we’ve been to. Now, I just need to keep this up as we head to some more difficult places and lakes that I’ve not seen a whole lot of.”
Skeet Reese feels the same way, after posting his third-straight, top-50 finish. But for the California angler, the AOY race is first and foremost in his mind. “I’m pretty happy with how my season has gone so far,” Reese said. “One of my main goals is to make every cut and have a chance to make it to Sunday. I have done that in every tournament, except at Lake Amistad – where I made a mistake. This is what I have to continue to do for me to compete for Angler of the Year in September.” |
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Copyright 2005 LUCKY CRAFT, INC. |