Cliff Pace (2nd, 70-4)I fished the main river where there was a lot of current. My area ranged from 5 to 10 feet deep with a lot of underwater current breaks — rock, snags, humps, whatever. The fish were tucked in behind the breaks.
A lot of the guys were catching tons of bass. I wasn't. I was picking them off one at a time. I'd find a spot, take a fish from it and then come back in an hour or two and do the same thing again. That worked for me all four days.
The key was to drag a 1/2-ounce V&M football jig — green pumpkin — with a plastic trailer as slow as possible over, through and behind the current breaks. It was a matter of having the patience to stick it out. If you pulled it up off the bottom, the current would wash it away.
I tossed my jig with a 7 foot, 3 inch CastAway Grass Master Braid Heavy XP rod and an Abu Garcia Revo reel (6.4:1 gear ratio) spooled with 15-pound-test Hi-Seas Fluorocarbon line.
My line gets a lot of the credit for my performance. Hi-Seas makes a tough, abrasion-resistant product. I needed that in all the heavy stuff I was fishing. I never broke off or lost a fish that mattered all four days.
-Courtesy of bassmaster.com
-Photo by James Overstreet
