“I wasn’t expecting to catch 15 pounds on the first day, but after being in such good position after day one, no one wants to fall that far back,” Reese said. “That’s pretty disappointing, but overall, I guess the tournament wasn’t too bad. I made the top 50.”

Reese admitted Old Hickory was one of the toughest fisheries he’s been on in a long time. He thought he’d need a top-three or top-four finish to position himself for Angler of the Year, and in order to do that, he thought he’d need to fish outside ledges.

“I thought this tournament would be won on deeper ledges on the main river channel,” Reese explained. “If you simply wanted to cash a check, I thought banks would work out okay, but to win, I really did think you’d have to fish ledges. It wound up being just the opposite, and that has me all screwed up. The guys fishing ledges actually ended up being the ones just trying to make a check.”

Reese threw a crankbait all week and went through his whole tackle box to find the one that would be key.

“I threw the whole gauntlet,” Reese said. “I tried the SKT, the Lucky Craft CB 350, some D-12s, D-20s, RC baits and more. I was mostly throwing the Chartreuse Shad color. I went through so many cranks, but there really wasn’t one particular bait that was great for me with these fish. I think I caught the five I weighed in the first day on four different baits.”

Moving forward, Reese knows Lake Erie is going to bring about a completely different style of fishing. It might still be offshore, but anglers will be catching smallmouths in New York.

“A dropshot is going to be my main bait,” Reese said. “I’ll only need one rod in the boat on Lake Erie. I’ll be looking at my graph in about 30 feet of water.”

“I started looking for deep fish when I realized my game plan wasn’t going to work out,” Swindle said. “I was throwing the Lucky Craft Flat CB D-20 in Table Rock Shad, as well as a Picasso 3/4-ounce football jig in Peanut Butter and Jelly with a Green Pumpkin chunk. I was catching a lot in practice, but I didn’t find anything outstanding. I did have one area where I caught 13 pounds in practice, so I thought I could go back there and catch some keepers in the tournament.”

On day one, however, Swindle couldn’t get a bite in his main area or any of the other deep areas he had found. He stayed committed to the deep areas, trying to grind it out, and came in with a 6-pound, 7-ounce bag.

Swindle knew he had to go shallow on day two. He was able to catch one keeper fish on the Lucky Craft RC 1.5, one on a D-20 and two casting a jig. Finishing 52nd with a two-day total of 16 pounds, 3 ounces, Swindle didn’t have much to say about his tournament but admitted this season as a whole has caused him to do some serious soul-searching.

“This season has been mentally draining,” Swindle explained. “Each day seems to be a struggle – like I get some momentum, and then I blow out a tire. I started this season under pressure. I put a lot of pressure on myself as Tony [Swindle’s brother] was dying. I really wanted to win for him. I put so much weight on my shoulders, and it brought me down. After I lost him, it’s like I couldn’t get over it, and I started to tailspin. It all sounds weird, I know, but every day has been a challenge.”

Swindle admitted he has started to let go of some of the pressure and is dealing with the loss of his brother better as time goes by. Swindle hopes to do well at the next tournament on Lake Erie, a lake where he learned a lot last year.

“I hope I can carry what I learned last year into this year’s tournament,” Swindle said. “I surely saw some mistakes that I had made last year when I spent a week out there this year. I’m not going in over-confident. I think it’s going to be a deep tournament – 40 to 45 feet deep. The bigger fish are at those depths.”

Lucky Craft’s Casey Ashley wasn’t able to figure anything out in practice. No matter what he did, whether it was flipping, cranking or fishing a bank, Ashley would catch 13-inchers – fish just slightly too short to keep.

“Every now and then, I’d catch a keeper, but I’d catch one on wood, one on grass and another back in a pocket,” Ashley said. “I couldn’t get dialed into any sort of pattern at all.”

On day one, Ashley fished some of the areas he had in practice, but without much of a plan. He was only able to bring in two keepers weighing 3 pounds, 7 ounces. The South Carolina native made up his mind and on day two, he ran 45 miles to completely new water.

“I ran way up the river before I ever started fishing,” Ashley said. “I went to the back of a creek first thing in the morning and caught one about four pounds. Then I caught eight more keepers in a row. I had the limit I weighed in by 9 a.m.”

Ashley weighed in 10 pounds, 5 ounces on day two, a much better bag than the day before. He knows a better weight on Thursday would have put him in much better position.

A total of 13 pounds, 12 ounces put Ashley in 71st for the tournament. He now plans to put this tournament behind him and move on to Lake Erie.

“Last year, I never went more than three miles past the boat ramp,” Ashley admitted. “I knew there was big water out there, and I was a little scared of it. That was from lack of experience. This year, I’m going in with more experience, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to catch them.”

Kelly Jordon thought practice went well, but wasn’t fooled. He knew it was going to be a tough tournament on Old Hickory. Knowing others were catching shallow fish, Jordon still decided to fish deep. After finding a few schools, he thought he could find a few big ones and in a tournament of this nature, a few big ones are worth a lot.

“I really thought I could catch some decent fish in the areas I found, but I was only able to bring in a 7-pound limit on day one,” Jordon said. “I was fishing from 8 feet deep to about 20 feet, and that’s how it should be won this time of year. I went all in with the deep bite, fully committed. I was never able to connect with the big fish. What do you do?”

Jordon brought in 7 pounds, 3 ounces on day one throwing the Flat CB D-20 in Splatterback. Most of his crankbait fish came on the D-20 while fishing deeper ledges.

“The D-20 gets deeper than any other crankbait, and it gets down to those deeper depths quickly,” Jordon said. “The Splatterback color works well when the water clarity is good. It imitates a shad even better than chartreuse when it’s sunny and not too dirty.”

Knowing he had ground to make up on day two, Jordon went out to his crankbait spots. He started throwing a 10-inch worm and was catching fish, but they were all less than 14 inches. The lack of keeper bites left Jordon scratching his head. Only able to bring in 2 pounds, 13 ounces on day two, Jordon finished his tournament in 84th.

While fishing his 200th BASS tournament, Lucky Craft’s Takahiro Omori practiced both in shallow and deep water, thinking, much like his teammates, it was the time of year to focus on fishing deep.

“I spent 50 percent of my time shallow and the other half in deep water,” Omori said. “I was throwing the Lucky Craft Flat CB D-20 and flipping shallow with the RC 1.5 in Copper Green Shad.”

In practice, the deep bite was decent for Omori as he caught a couple fish weighing 3 pounds or more. However, when day one rolled around and Omori was committed to fishing deep, he only had three keepers in the first three hours. He had to resort to junk fishing and was only able to bring in a 3-pound bag on day one.

Omori found out the leaders were fishing shallow, but the damage was already done. With another 2 pounds, 15 ounces on day two, Omori finished 100th with a two-day total of 5 pounds, 15 ounces.

“This year has been really hard for me with all the offshore fishing,” Omori admitted. “Then, in this tournament, I actually had the chance to fish shallow and didn’t do it. I was catching 30 or so fish a day, but they were all too short.”

On another note, Omori was proud to be fishing his 200th BASS tournament. With his first tournament in 1992 on Sam Rayburn in Texas, he has been fishing in the USA for 16 years. He finished close to last in that first tournament, but says he was just happy to be there. And he still feels that way all these years later.

“I don’t look back much, and I still feel the same way I did back then,” Omori said. “I always feel like I’m fishing my very first tournament, and I think I could go 200 more. I just keep looking forward. I never get tired of doing this. I get frustrated and mad sometimes, but that just makes me more and more motivated to do better.

“I’ve had a lot of good tournaments and a lot of bad ones, too, but my attitude is still the same,” Omori continued. “I try to do my very best, improve every day and get better and better with time. No reason to look back. I have so much to look forward to.”

Finishing tied for fifth was Bass Pro Shops angler Rick Clunn. With weights in the double-digits for the first three days of the tournament, Clunn was giving the leader a run for his money.

“I was fishing a bait I love to fish more than any other, and that’s the Lucky Craft RC 3.5 [in Copper Green Shad],” Clunn said. “I had a great bite going on with that bait. I knew it was a bait the locals wouldn’t be throwing this time of year, and I knew I could attract the bigger fish with it. I caught two big ones the first day and three the second day. It’s a remarkable bait when it comes to shallow ledges, which I like to call micro-ledges [tiny ledges in creeks].”

Clunn continued to talk about the RC Series, explaining a new series of rattling RC baits.

“We’ve had the RC 3.5 out for quite a while, but I’m making one now with rattles in it,” Clunn said. “I don’t like rattles as a rule, but there are situations where a rattle can be important. The bigger fish here wanted a rattling sound more than a quiet bait. It really did make a difference in catching those bigger fish.”

Clunn was fishing the RC 3.5 in 1 to 6 feet of water near micro-ledges, making long casts and using a fast retrieve. He would put his rod tip on the top of the water and burn the bait quickly back to the boat.