FLW Event on Lake Ouachita

I had fished the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Ouachita back in the summer of 2007, but I still didn’t know quite what to expect when we returned this year. I expected that my past experiences would inform my game plan, but I also knew that conditions wouldn’t be quite the same as they were during that hot August event just three years ago.

Mother Nature threw us a curveball heading into the tournament – right before practice the lake jumped up about three and a half feet which put the water in the bushes and gave it some color. There was a lot of newly flooded cover and I’m a sucker for that, but I also suspected that things would change again by the time the tournament ended….and they did. I wanted to chase that shallow bite but with the water falling again it was a guessing game as to how long the fish would be there.

There didn’t seem to be many fish deep so I stayed shallow and by the end of the practice period I felt that as long as the water didn’t drop too much, the lowered level would actually help me. The fish wouldn’t all move out deep – instead they’d travel right to me. I was betting on the come.

One other pattern that’s no secret this time of year at Ouachita is the bluegill spawn. It’s a key deal. The bass hang around those bedding spots and if you get into the right bunch of them it can be a winning pattern. I had some of that going on so by the end of my three days of practice I felt that I had my bases pretty well covered.

I was banking on an early morning topwater bite but on the first day of competition we had a two hour fog delay, which pretty much took that out of play for everybody. I still spent about two and a half hours chasing it but with only two bites it just wasn’t going to happen. Then I went flipping bushes and that wasn’t going on either. Both the numbers and the average size were way down. With Plan A and Plan B pretty much done, I went to Plan C, my bluegill bedding areas. I went into what I felt were some of the better ones and started to explore and what I saw just about drove me insane. There were lots of really good bass around, but it was hard to get them to bite. I messed around with them the rest of the day but only managed to catch eight pounds.

On the second day I changed up my areas, still chasing the bass around the bluegill beds. We didn’t have a fog delay, but I still couldn’t get any meaningful topwater bite going. With that gone by the wayside, I moved out a little bit deeper and the bite was better. I improved upon my Day One catch by just under two pounds and moved up several places, although still not enough to make it inside the money cut. I knew that I’d have to step up my game even more on the third day. It was going to take a big effort to get a check, but I knew that I was around the right fish to get it done.

With respect to my tactics, once the topwater deal fizzled, I spent most of my time fishing an El Grande tube and a Lunker Lure jig and by the end of the second day I’d started to get dialed in on the particular sizes and colors that worked the best. I also caught a few out deeper, cranking a DT16 and throwing a Carolina rig, but I was banking on the jig to get the job done and on Day Three it lived up to my expectations. I finally found some quality fish in the right mood and finally got a 5 ½ pounder to eat my bait. With that I culled up to 12-07, well within the money cut. I’d had a dead fish penalty on the second day and while it didn’t cost me a lot of money it did cost me quite a few places, since the weights were so tight, but on the whole I feel that I fished a good, clean tournament. My weight went up every day, which is a sign that I fished intelligently.

My only disappointment coming out of Arkansas is that I’m pretty sure I can’t make up enough points in our final Tour event to make the Cup. While that might be bad news, it also presents an opportunity to swing for the fences at Guntersville, to really gamble for a win in a big fish event. I’m ready to take some chances.

We left Ouachita for Alabama to get some pre-practice in before the lake went off-limits and I am just amazed at the quality of the fishery. If it’s not the best lake in the country right now, there can’t be many that are better. You can catch them in all sorts of different ways, and catch big fish doing all of them, but I’m 99 percent sure that I’m going to stay deep on main river channel structure. I’ll definitely have a big jig and a big crankbait tied on, but I’ve also got a couple of tricks up my sleeve, including some swimbaits.

It’s going to take mid- to upper-twenty pound limits every day to be in contention. Typically, I’ve been more successful in the “grind ‘em out” tournaments, fishing with a finesse jig, but I’ve done OK in some slugfests, too, and this is one I feel good about. I know what lives there and I like the way it’s setting up. I don’t necessarily have as much experience on the lake as many of the other competitors, but that can be a positive, too. The lake has more community holes than any place I’ve ever seen but I’m hoping my lack of familiarity will lead me to something off the beaten path, the type of spot or pattern that can produce a tour-level win.

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