JEFFERSON COUNTY, Tenn. – There are two major tournaments happening on Douglas Lake at the moment, and Keith Poche and Dylan Nutt are leading them. Stop 4 Presented by Phoenix Boats of the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Presented by MillerTech has shown off the extremes of Douglas – on the one hand, a lot of bass are being caught in the actual lake, in offshore schools with summertime tactics (Nutt’s game). On the other hand, a lot of bass are being caught at the far upper reaches, where the Nolichucky and the French Broad feed into the lake, with some pros (like Poche) able to go farther than others.
In the official lead via tiebreaker, Poche tallied 17 pounds, 3 ounces on Day 2 for a 30-10 two-day total. Also with 30-10, Nutt has been a little steadier overall with 14 and change on Day 1, which he followed up with 16-4 on Day 2. Behind the leaders, Bobby Lane has 29-11, Carter Nutt has 29-8 and Aaron Yavorsky fell from the lead to fifth with 29-1.
Rule 19 reads that “Ties for first place on Day 3 will be broken by a one-hour fish-off.” It’s hard to bet on a tie after three days of fishing, but this week, there’s more potential for after-hours MLFNOW! than we’ve seen in a while.
Poche is off the grid as usual
Naturally, Poche is going as far as he can go, and, in his tricked-out GatorTrax, he’s able to get farther up the French Broad than anyone else. The one-of-a-kind pro is going more than a mile over the first line of visible, breaking shoals – truly impassable for a normal bass boat. He nabbed a 6-pounder up there for Berkley Big Bass on Day 2 and had a legitimately great day of fishing even before that big bite. To hear him tell it, though, he might have to fish the same lake as everyone else tomorrow.
“It’s good – it’s real good – but too bad it’s over with,” he said. “I’m not going to be able to get there tomorrow. The water is dropping. I had to make hay today. I stroked them. I didn’t leave any stone unturned. I caught bunch of fish to catch as much as I could.”
Per Poche, the rain from practice gave him just enough water to work with.
“The rain we had last week picked that river up,” he said. “The first day of the tournament, I was really able to run up there. Even today was a bit of a chore. I had to troll; it takes a while to navigate because it’s so shallow and treacherous. Coming back down, it was bad.
“You’ve got the shoals, and I’ll jump them, I’ll hit them and coast over,” he said. “But once you get over a couple, there’s no water, so I can’t get up on pad to get over the next one. For something like that, 6 inches of water is a lot, and it is not there.”
Fishing a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Stank Bug and a Berkley PowerBait MaxScent The General on a shaky head, Poche has been targeting current breaks and jog jams. Catching mostly largemouth, he ought to be able to translate his success down the river a little, to where the crowd is. He’d sure like to be fishing alone, though, where he’s the only one educating the bass.
“I may have to decide in the morning,” said the veteran pro. “It’s almost a recipe for disaster waiting to happen. It’s not looking good. I don’t have to go up there. I can get it done. I just need to get the right bites.”
Nutt in pursuit of another Tennessee win
Last year, in addition to several local wins, Dylan Nutt also won two Toyota Series events on various TVA reservoirs. This winter, the phenom won another event, the Bassmaster Classic, on Fort Loudon, and he’s now extremely in the hunt to win this week in East Tennessee. His college career at the University of North Alabama loaded him up with ledge fishing skills, and today, he looked like a next-gen Randy Haynes or Kevin VanDam – making all the right moves and putting miles on a crankbait.
Day 1 was frustrating for Dylan – he blitzed out to the early unofficial lead and then stalled. That was not the case today.
“It went better than I planned, 100%,” he said. “I didn’t know where I was going to catch any fish, because yesterday I pretty much caught them all off the place I started and I kind of burned it down. I turned my LiveScope on this morning and I had a small limit for about 9 pounds. I turned it off and went and scanned some places where I saw a couple fish and there were a bunch of them.”
A little seat time, a crankbait and a jig moved Dylan up leaderboard rapidly.
“I pulled up on one place, my first cast in there was a double on a crankbait,” he said. “Then, I caught one every cast, and then every now and then it would be every other cast, for an hour. I left there with 15 pounds.
“I scanned out deep the rest of the day. I ended up finding another school that was really good. I caught them almost every cast there as well – but I didn’t find that until today.”
Then, to top it off, he finished off with some more bass-catching action.
“There was a big school in one area in practice and they were all gone,’ he said. “I went and scanned for about 30 minutes in that area. When I finally found them, I started smashing them off it – there were like 100 fish down there.”
Tomorrow, the shallow crew figures to do well, but Dylan isn’t boxing himself in either way.
“There’s no telling,” he said. “I didn’t think I had this in me, so we’ll see.”
Lane and others are in the hunt
While Poche and Nutt are appreciably ahead of the pack, things are very tight at Douglas. Even down in sixth, Ott DeFoe is less than 2 pounds off the lead, and an 18-pound bag for anyone in the Top 10 could totally change the event. While Carter Nutt, Yavorsky and Will Harkins are down the lake and fishing deeper, Lane, DeFoe, Brent Chapman and Drew Boggs are fishing up the lake, where they’ll maybe be joined by Poche. Regardless of the location on the map, it’s pretty incredible how many fish Douglas is kicking out right now – in the dirt or in the depths.
“Today was special, same as yesterday,” Lane said. “I caught probably 50 bass yesterday and quit, and today I caught probably 60 bass and quit. It’s every single cast, and there are three days, so I didn’t want to burn them. I think one of my last casts was a 3-10, and I’m going all-in tomorrow, if I can get a limit of those, I’ve got a good shot at winning.”
Lane is throwing everything from a Berkley Cane Walker to a Berkley CullShad, and he’s having a blast doing it.
“I’m excited, I’m learning new things about the area every day and fishing hard,” he said. “They were schooling great this morning, just like they were yesterday. I am Power-Poled down, I think it’s a current seam. I literally caught them every single cast. Once you get a bite, you know where to throw. It’s something with the shad, I think they’re running up there in the mornings and those bass are schooling on them. In the mornings, it is literally lights out.”
Like many others in the Top 10, this isn’t the first time Lane has seen success on Douglas, and for him, it was almost in the same area.
Last time, in an Open, I finished eighth to Ott and I think Patrick Walters,” Lane said. “They were both running past me in the rivers – way past where I couldn’t get. I wasn’t expecting that to be a player this time, because the water is down, and because that was in the fall. But, there are plenty of fish up there, so many it’s unbelievable.”
With Poche possibly on the hunt for new water, and the offshore game definitely prone to sporadic success, Lane might be in really good shape for Sunday. But, as things stand, we’re not going to know the full story until the top 46 wrap up weigh-in on Day 3.
Top 10 pros
1. Keith Poche – 30 – 10 (10)
2. Dylan Nutt – 30 – 10 (10)
3. Bobby Lane – 29 – 11 (10)
4. Carter Nutt – 29 – 8 (10)
5. Aaron Yavorsky – 29 – 1 (10)
6. Ott DeFoe – 28 – 11 (10)
7. Will Harkins – 28 – 10 (10)
8. Brent Chapman – 28 – 9 (10)
9. Drew Boggs – 28 – 3 (10)
10. Brody Campbell – 28 – 2 (10)