Top 5 Patterns from Grand Lake Day 2
Prespawn patterns are starting to pick up
Adjusting with the fish’s prespawn movement enabled Curt Warren to tally 33 pounds, 5 ounces over two days and move into the lead at the Costa FLW Series Southwestern Division event on Grand Lake. The tournament is presented by Ranger and hosted by the City of Grove.
Fishing particular types of unnamed habitat in about 10 feet or less was essential for his success
Click here to read about Warren’s leading pattern. Here are the details of the rest of the top five.
2. Sheldon Collings – Grove, Okla. – 31-8 (10)
The Grand Lake bass made him play the waiting game, but local pro Sheldon Collings outlasted them and made a big move from 14th into second. Anchored by a 7-1 that earned the day’s Big Bass honors, his limit today weighed 18-5.
“I didn’t have a fish until 11 a.m.,” Collings says. “I fished all the stuff I’d been fishing the last couple of weeks, and it just didn’t work out. I totally switched what areas I was fishing, and one of the first fish I caught was that 7-pounder.
“I said, ‘This is what we’re doing the rest of the day,’ and we ended up catching fish after fish after fish. I can have a really big bag tomorrow.”
Collings says he experienced a magical window from 12:30 to 1:15 when he caught the majority of his fish. The flurry eased the tension of a barren morning.
“Yesterday, all the fish I caught were in the first 45 minutes, so this morning I was stressing big time,” Collings says. “I was like, ‘Oh man, they’re not going to bite today,’ and then, sure enough, we ended up catching them.”
Collings, who caught his fish cranking, says the significant difference in his day came through adjusting his focus to a deeper area. A channel swing close to a flat provided depth security for prespawn staging fish.
3. Colby Miller – Elmer, La. – 30-0 (8)
Holding steady in the third-place spot he established yesterday, Colby Miller fell two fish short of his limit, but his 13-6 bag proved he’s around the right quality.
The Louisiana pro says he caught a 5-pounder at 9 o’clock, but then suffered through a three-hour dry spell before adding a 3-pounder. Another dry spell stretched him to about 2 p.m. when he added his final keeper.
“I think we needed a little more sunlight today,” Miller says. “We had the wind I wanted, but we needed more sunlight for the fish to really eat.”
Miller caught all of his fish on a spinnerbait. Essential to his success was fishing deeper, wind-blown pockets.
“The wind was blowing the bait into these pockets, and the fish are in there eating the shad,” he says.
4. Christopher M. Jones – Bokoshe, Okla. – 29-9 (10)
A key decision led Oklahoma pro Christopher Jones to a 17-pound, 8-ounce limit that bumped him up from 21st to fourth with 29-9.
“I ran about 20 miles to fish one dock and caught a 6-pounder,” Jones says. “That kind of makes your day when you do something like that.
“I have to credit both big ones I had today to my net man. Both of them were behind the dock cables, and I was lucky that they were hooked good enough for him to be able to net them.”
Jones made his run to the isolated dock around noon. Otherwise, he has been experiencing an unproductive period from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.
“I left my area where I had been catching them because that was kind of a lull time,” Jones says. “I thought, ‘I’m going to go swing and see if I can catch a big one,’ and that’s when I caught that big one.”
Jones caught his fish mostly on reaction baits, but he used flipping baits when he needed to reach a particular target area.
5. Jeff Sprague – Point, Texas – 29-1
Sacking up the tournament’s heaviest limit thus far – 22 pounds, 2 ounces – helped Jeff Sprague make the biggest comeback on Friday. After catching only two keepers for 6-15 and 61st place on day one, the Point, Texas, pro roared into fifth today with a total weight of 29-1.
“I lost two fish this morning that were studs,” Sprague says. “At that point, I thought my day was over; I thought I’d had my bites for the day. But I made some adjustments that panned out.”
Sprague wouldn’t reveal the key details of his location and tactics, but he says he caught his fish on reaction baits in a specific prespawn staging scenario. Also, covering water and not parking on unproductive spots was key.
“I spent too much time in dead water yesterday, but today I just moved around until I bumped into some fish that were eating,” he says. “I figured out where the fish were getting ready to go, and when I did that I caught what I had in an hour and a half in a couple of different areas.”