Smith Mountain Lake!
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| Sight fishing dominated Smith Mountain for most anglers |
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Gameplan worked out well
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Skeet dominated the Elite Series tournament on Smith Mountain Lake, working through his gameplan with a swimbait despite most of the field targeting bedding fish during the tournament on the clear-water lake. Skeet won by almost 15 pounds and capitalized on windy conditions the final two days with the Jerry Rago swimbait. It’s a new bait that was used by Bryon Velvick to win the Clear Lake tournament last month in California when Skeet finished fourth, on the same bait, and he believed it would work on Smith Mountain, as well. |
“It was my gameplan and I knew going into it that it probably would work because the lake was set up for it,” he said. “Conditions being right were a factor, but I definitely went into the tournament knowing that bite was there and if I was right, I knew I could capitalize on it better than sight-fishing.
“It was a pattern I could have run all over the lake. I fished one big general area but I assume there were many more places throughout the lake if there were enough hours in the day when you could catch more of them.”
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“I saw the weather was warm and knew they had some temperatures in the 80s so there probably were fish moving up. I thought at first it might be a pre-spawn deal but they had such a warming trend that the fish pulled up to the beds. I felt like there would be plenty on beds and spent time looking for them. But I also spent the first couple of hours every morning throwing the swimbait and got some bites from males and good bites from females.”
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Once the tournament started, Skeet alternated between sight-fishing and running points throwing the swimbait. He was covering water and getting a good bite early, scattered but enough to know the swimbait was working.
“I was just covering the bases and mixing it up,” he said. “Smith Mountain is a hard lake to have consistent big females every day. They seem to pull up fast and get out quick.”
Skeet has a commanding lead in the Elite Series points chase but isn’t counting on anything too soon.
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“Wanting to do something and getting it done is two different stories. Next week we’re going to Pickwick, a lake I’ve never seen before and I don’t know what to expect there. A top 10 finish would be great but a top 20 would be super strong. It’s hard to tell what’s going to be happening. Then we go to Guntersville a week later and will have to figure out what the fish are doing. There probably will be a bunch on the bank and some out deeper … I don’t know if there will be enough out to fish out, or to stay shallow for three days. We’ll find out when we get there.” |
Swindle maximizes his chances
Sometimes in tournaments you have to take what’s available, and Gerald did just that after three hard days of practice despite not getting on any monsters.
“I did the best I could do with what I had. I fished a winning tournament with what I found but I never found any big ones. I ended up sight-fishing although I tried jerkbaits, topwaters, frogs and swimbaits in practice.”
“When none of those worked then I just put down my trolling motor and looked at them. I told Britt Myers the first morning that I didn’t have any specific fish I wanted to run to. All I had was 2.75 to 3-pounders and I caught every one of them. I didn’t have a chance to do any better. I lost one fish in four days and it might have helped me only a couple of ounces.”
Swindle used a swimbait, too, but it never played a factor.
“On the second day I threw the big swimbait in the afternoon after getting my limit and looked like a big goof-eye, but I didn’t sit in the dugout scared. I knew about what I could catch and I caught it. Then I went looking for something bigger but they never bit the swimbait for me.”
“I caught almost every one of them with a Zoom Super Hog with 17-pound Vicious fluorocarbon and a Quantum flipping stick, and I drop-shotted a Zoom watermelon Finesse Worm on 8-pound Vicious fluorocarbon. I figured if I could get them in five minutes on light line or it would take longer on heavy line, I’d go light. My whole gameplan was to be time-efficient and do as much as I could. I was making long casts with that 8-pound line and it was pretty exciting.”
“I had one big fish all week, a 5-pounder that I caught on the 8-pound line. It was wild. I was screaming like Iaconelli but I got it. The key to sight-fishing is to just fish for the ones you know you can catch. Some guys spend a lot of time on one fish but I wanted to try to maximize my chances and catch as many as I could with what I knew was there for me.”
“Nothing else really worked for me. I tried a Lucky Craft Slender Pointer 112 jerkbait and a Gunfish 115, but couldn’t get it going. For what I had, I was pretty pleased with the way I fished. Now I’m ready for Pickwick Lake and it’s flat-out loaded with fish. I think Pickwick is maybe the most underrated lake in Alabama. It should be a good tournament.
Jordon frustrated with outcome
Kelly had a solid finish and was in the right areas, but felt out of whack all week with the way his performance turned out. “It wasn’t bad but I was pretty disappointed. Everyone was sight fishing unless you were throwing the right swimbait and I didn’t have the right one. I had about two-thirds of the pie but the critical third was missing … having that (Jerry) Rago swimbait. I had a box of baits like it I should have thrown, an Osprey, that might have worked but I never pulled them out.” “I just tried to cover as much of the lake as possible for sight-fishing. The first day I caught a 3-pounder on a swimbait and that was it. I thought I might catch some on Day 3 with it but they were a little deeper, maybe 4-6 feet deep. They were on the shallow bars in practice in 3 feet. One time I saw Skeet on one point and he saw me on the other, and we both knew we were throwing swimbaits.” “I threw a jerkbait some but would mess up and catch stripers on it, too, because they were up shallow chasing shad. I tried some topwater and never had anything on that. I just sight-fished and threw a Berkley Hollow Belly swimbait. |
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| The gizzard shad were spawning and there were shad everywhere. Stripers and carp were everywhere, even on the banks.” |
“It just didn’t go right for me. I found some big ones in practice. I ran to that area fairly early and there were about 10 carp up there eating eggs and doing donuts. I was boat 79 and first pocket I pulled into, Terry Scroggins, Bobby Lane and Jason Quinn were in there. They were picking it apart.”
“I felt like I was out of step in the rotation, going right instead of left. It was very frustrating. I kind of rallied a little bit on the third day but you have to bust them that first day.”Omori never got on anything
Takahiro stuck with sight-fishing throughout the tournament when his attempts to figure out a different bite didn’t pan out.
“It went alright. I was mainly sight-fishing. What I found in practice was averaging about 3 pounds and before the tournament I thought I might finish about 40th and that’s how it finished up."
“I thought I could catch fish in other ways (other than sight-fishing). In my practice I never found those (big) fish and just stuck with sight fishing. During practice I was throwing a Pointer 78 in Ghost Minnow but it wasn’t the right thing."
“I was expecting to catch between 12 and 14 pounds a day. It just is what it is. I just tried to come out with whatever I could and did the best with what I had.”
Couldn’t put it together
Despite being able to catch bedding fish, it’s not Casey’s favorite technique and he, too, felt disjointed all week by not being able to get on a big bite.
“All I did the whole time was sight-fishing and it didn’t work out. I’d find a good one and it wouldn’t bite, or I’d catch the male and the female would leave. It seemed like there was always something going on like that."
“I didn’t catch much but I caught them on so many different things. I was throwing anything and everything I thought they might bite. I hate sight fishing with a passion. I can do it, but I can’t stand it. I’d rather be fishing."
“Pickwick probably will be a wave of spawners and some post-spawn fishing going on. I’m sure it will be a shallow-water deal and maybe some topwater. I don’t know much about the lake at all and never have fished on it. I think there will be a lot of 13-14 pound bags but you’ll need to be looking for a 16-17 pound bag.”
