Grabs 7th on Home Water
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| Two tournaments remain to secure Classic spots |
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A couple of weeks before the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament on Clarks Hill, Casey Ashley said he was looking forward to getting on the lake that perplexed and frustrated so many anglers in the field. Ashley is from South Carolina, so he’s no stranger to the lakes with blueback herring. The pelagic bait fish roam around from points to offshore with no clear rhyme or reason, other than during spawning time, and that can drive anglers batty. The tournament was on the tail end of the spawn, too, so that didn’t help the field. |
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Casey battled through it well, though, posting his best finish of the season. He’s in 47th place in the Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year standings. Two tournaments remain for him to try to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic next February. Casey used a Lucky Craft Gunfish and also a Cotton Cordell Pencil Popper. He had specific areas to target during the week where he’d located groups of fish. He also targeted some areas with bream beds where bass were chasing the bream. |
Coming off a frustrating and disappointing runner-up finish at the Bassmaster Southern Open after leading for two days, Gerald gutted out a solid finish at Clarks Hill by reaching the Day 3 cut. “Man, I just hung in there because I wasn’t on nothing. I never found anything in practice, at all, and when the tournament rolled around I had one little area that I decided to stay in,” he said. “I stayed there the entire time and actually thought I might make the (final day) cut if things continued like they were. |
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“But on the third day the fish literally disappeared. I caught four keepers, threw off one slick and that was it. I was worn out after four straight weeks of tournament fishing and was dang glad to get a check when I got out of there.”
Swindle threw a Carolina-rig all week, working a Zoom Green Pumpkin Trick Worm on a 12-pound Vicious Fluorocarbon leader and a Trocar 3/0 wide gap light wire hook. He weighted it with a ½-ounce The main line was 15-pound Vicious Fluorocarbon. He also caught one keeper on a Sammy 100 and one on a Sammy 65.
“You know it’s tough when you see me throwing a Carolina-rig all day,” Swindle said. “I was rigging at daylight. I actually had to go buy the stuff to build it with, the beads, swivels and egg sinkers.”
This season’s magic run ended for Skeet after five straight Top 5 finishes with a disappointing tournament at Clarks Hill.
“There definitely were some schools of fish and the deal was catching them in the first couple of hours wadded up on spots, but I never found that,” he said. “I think I probably did the first day but I didn’t run some stuff that I found the first day of practice because I didn’t think it was significant. That was a mistake.
I knew guys were catching some on a Carolina-rig and I threw one the first day, with 20-pound main line and a 15-pound short leader, but never had a bite. I was fishing a lot faster trying to find stuff, just chunking and winding. I also threw a swimbait, Sammy and a jig. I didn’t get my first fish until 10 o’clock and by then the bite was done.”
Reese downsized his Carolina rig after Day 1 to a 12-pound main line and 10-pound leader with a 5-inch watermelon red finesse worm. He caught them better on the second day and had about 10 pounds, but only three keepers the first day left him out of the cut.
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“I needed two more peckerheads the first day to make the cut and keep my points going,” he said. “That would have left me in control instead of sitting there Saturday watching. I don’t like sitting around not having things in my control. Just fishing on Day 3 would probably have bumped me up in the standings, added a few more points and instead I was sitting around.” He still leads the points standings by a sizeable margin, 1,642 points to second-place Edwin Evers’ 1,464. But Reese didn’t want his points margin to diminish at all, and couldn’t remember the last time he failed to make a cut. |
“I don’t know how long it’s been,” he said, “but I know I don’t like it and don’t want to do it again.”
Now he’s looking forward to Kentucky Lake in two weeks.
“The water’s back down around normal pool and I think the fish will start getting back to normal,” he said. “I’ve heard of some tournaments that took 30 and 25 pounds to win, so they’re catching decent stringers. I’m sure there will be guys fishing the ledges, as usual, and in some shallow areas, too.”
Jordon struggled like many of the anglers with fish moving around and acting weird when they would school on the surface chasing bait. “I threw a Fluke, Carolina-rig and a Gunfish and actually caught some on the Gunfish, but also missed some on it,” he said. “They were just going crazy, missing it and slashing at it. The second day I think I had seven or eight good fish come up but they wouldn’t bite it.” |
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A lot of the anglers found that getting anything early was a key.
“They were very tough days,” Jordon said. “If you didn’t have something by 9 or 10 o’clock it was a grind, even if you knew where they were,” he said. “A lot of guys had trouble catching them. It was just a tough tournament and hard to get a bite.”
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Dead last isn’t where Takahiro Omori ever wants to find himself in a tournament, but Clarks Hill proved to be one of the most challenging and frustrating events in his career. “There’s not much to say about it,” he said. “I’ve never done well there or on the herring lakes. They just kill me. Everyone around me was catching fish except for me. It sucked. “I’ve spent probably 60 days or more on those kind of lakes in the last few years trying to learn about them but the results just don’t go my way.” |
Takahiro said he threw a Flash Minnow 110 and a Gunfish 115 trying to entice schooling fish. If anything broke on the surface he’d fire out the Gunfish, and then spent the rest of the time trying to get strikes with the jerkbait.
“I’ve put it behind me and am getting ready for Kentucky Lake,” he said. “It’s going to be offshore fishing with deep cranking and Carolina-rigging. I’m not worried about the points (standings) anymore. I’m just going for it in the next two tournaments. I have nothing to lose.”
