Rising to the occasion
Will the sight bite last?
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – While many of the top 10 pros fishing the finals of the Wal-Mart FLW Tour event on Loudoun-Tellico lakes readied their drop-shots and soft plastics for sight-fishing this morning, Mark Davis of Mount Ida, Ark., was tweaking a topwater and a hard swim bait to the tune of a different beat.
Davis, who qualified third going into the finals, has a plan which he hopes will come together some time about Sunday morning when winds and thundershowers are supposed to reach the East Tennessee area.
“Those sight-fishing guys will probably be able to do their thing again today,” Davis said as he looked up into the clear pre-dawn skies. “But tomorrow…it could be a little different; I’m banking on this nice weather ending tomorrow.”
Davis’ strategy going into this event was to stay away from sight fish and develop a true pre-spawn pattern that he can utilize up and down the lake.
“I’ve caught a few sight fish this week, but mainly I’m fishing topwaters and a King Shad swim bait over 8 to 15 feet of water for fish that are just about to spawn,” Davis said. “If the weather turns nasty tomorrow, it could help me.”
In the next boat over, Thanh Le of Las Vegas, Nev., who qualified in the fifth position, was planning on sight-fishing as he readied a soft plastic bream imitation swimbait for battle.
“These fish don’t like it when a blue gill starts pecking around their beds,” he said. 
“When this bait comes swimming into their beds, they attack it.”
Another boat down from Davis and Le was Kellogg’s pro Dave Lefebre, who had a whole pile of rods on his deck.
Lefebre found a cache of spawning smallmouths late yesterday afternoon, but surprisingly he is not going to them first thing this morning.
“If I run right up there and those fish are not there, it will mess with my head,” he said. “So I’m going to poke around down here first and see if I can catch a few fish before I count on those spawners. Plus, if I get a couple of bonus big bites down here this morning, that’s more of those smallmouths I can save for tomorrow.”
Current leader Derek Jones of Chicago, Ill., who has caught two whopping bags of smallmouth over the last two days believes his fish will hold up for at least another day.
“I’m pretty sure there are still some there,” he said. “My co-angler lost a couple of big smallmouths in my area yesterday so know those are still there. Plus, there were a couple I couldn’t get to bite yesterday that should still be around today. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited.”
Will the sight bite last for the two final days or will the pre-spawn patterns go the distance?
Come find out today as the top 10 pros and co-anglers will weigh-in their catches at the Knoxville Convention Center located at 701 Henley St. in downtown Knoxville.
The FLW Family Fun Zone begins at noon with the weigh-in beginning at 4 p.m. Both are free and open to the public.
For those who can’t catch the weigh-in action in person, FLWOutdoors.com offers FLW Live, an online application that brings fans real-time weigh-in results, streaming video and audio. Start time is 4 p.m. Eastern.
Thursday’s conditions
Sunrise: 7:24 a.m.
Temperature at takeoff: 57 degrees
Expected high temperature: 78 degrees
Water temperature: 65-70 degrees
Forecasted winds: SW 5 to 10 mph
Day’s outlook: cloudy and warm