Skeet fished on Wilson and Pickwick lakes, hitting a few spots on the latter before locking upriver into the smaller and less-pressured Wilson Lake. It’s only 14 miles long and has some points, flats and small pockets. Maybe a dozen tournament competitors fished on Wilson.

“I caught fish before locking up to Wilson and after locking back into Pickwick,” he said. “I had a few areas where I could throw a swimbait or Football Jig, which was pretty much what I stuck with. The second day I struggled a little and only had about 9 pounds after locking back from Wilson, but caught some in the last 30 minutes of the day to improve my limit.

Kevin Short of Arkansas brought in a 23-pound bag on the final day to win the tournament.

“The good thing is Twinkletoes just smashed them and flat-out caught them,” Skeet said. “Kevin beat us fair and square and won by 5 pounds. If it was closer I’d have had a harder time dealing with it.”

“Pickwick was pretty good and everyone caught a ton of fish. I got into some good areas in practice and caught them on a Sammy and Pop-R, but that got messed up when the lake dropped more than a foot and a half.”

“The bank grass had just started growing and there was about a foot of water, and the fish were in it. They were still spawning and there were a lot of bream bedding. You could catch 100 a day, easily, by swimming a jig, throwing topwaters, cranking, with a spinnerbait … whatever you wanted to throw.”

“By the time the tournament rolled around the grass was high and dry. So I went to flipping docks and it was the dumbest dock bite I’ve ever seen. They were on every post. I was throwing a hand-tied jig, and I guess everyone else who was fishing docks caught them pretty good, too.”

“There was a lot going on at Pickwick and I had a real good practice. I found a lot of fish on the bed and also around the bushes, grass, laydowns and just about everywhere.”
“Practice went pretty well but the falling water changed everything. When that happened I started targeting dropoffs and riprap with some current with an RC 3.5 in Copper Green Shad.”

“I don’t have a whole lot to update because it wasn’t too good. Practice was typical Pickwick, about 75 bites a day but nothing big. I was looking for them 5-8 feet deep on shallow rockpiles. I also ran some banks with a Zoom Green Pumpkin Lizard on 15-pound Vicious fluorocarbon, and they were on any and every piece of wood on the bank.

“I started out throwing an LVR-7 Lipless Crankbait in the morning but never found a shad spawn anywhere. I also threw an RC 2.5 Crankbait in Splatterback around shallow bars, and then went Lizard fishing. I never got a bite on a jig or swimbait, either.

“Actually, though, I caught my better fish on the big G-Splash Topwater. Things were changing a little and I started fishing flat water, the shallow areas, with that topwater. Then they dropped the water down on us, but I still was able to do well with the G-Splash. I was making long casts with 14-pound Vicious monofilament in shallow water and picking apart whatever cover I saw with the Lizard.

“Unfortunately, I just never caught a big one or got on anything stronger.”

The thing was I found stuff out and a bunch in, and I opted for shallow. Those got too shallow and some guys caught them on some of my stuff. Maybe they had to fish slower to get them to bite. I was cranking and didn’t slow down because I thought I would find something.

Second day just went down the bank picking it apart. I learned a lot and think I could have caught them better the next day.