I left north Alabama the Saturday before the first official practice day and rode with my travel partner to Anderson, S.C. I had been to Hartwell one time before but it was in the fall and that time the bite was pretty tough.
The first thing I noticed while crossing the lake is that it was considerably lower than my previous trip. I practiced all three days with pro Craig Dowling. Practice was relatively tough, but there were some quality bites to be had. I focused on fishing shaky heads, jerkbaits and the ever-popular Alabama rig. I knew this tournament was going to be a tough one for a co-angler since most of the pros were going to be fishing shallow near the bank. The way Hartwell set up there wasn’t much cover in the water other than docks.
I met my day-one partner, Glenn Chappelear, at the meeting in Greenville. One thing I noticed was that everyone welcomed the fishermen and the whole community seemed thrilled to have the FLW tournament in town. I spoke briefly with Glenn and he let me know he would be fishing shallow most of the day. My game plan was to throw a shaky head behind him.
On day one we had a late draw and were due in at 4:30 p.m., which meant we had a long day to catch fish. Unfortunately, I only had six bites all day, five of which came on a jerkbait and one on a Fish Head Spin. Only three of those six bites were keepers. Most of my bites were in the middle of the coves and my pro was fishing the shallow water on the bank and it was tough to fish behind someone in shallow water. I threw the shaky head quite a bit, but couldn’t get any bites on it. I still had a great day on the water with Glenn and learned a lot about blueback herring lakes and how to approach them. Looking back, I am not sure what I could’ve done differently.
I drew Pop-Tarts pro Greg Bohannan on day two. Greg hadn’t done great fishing shallow on day one so he decided he was going to fish deep the second day and try for a big bag. We hit a couple shallow spots early without success and then headed deep. Greg was fishing typical Hartwell swimming baits so I decided to throw a drop-shot behind him and managed to catch a good largemouth around 5 pounds. I managed another good spotted bass in the 3-pound range but those were the only two bites that I had.
One of the things I couldn’t figure out was how to catch fish shallow behind my pros. In hindsight I just don’t think they were around enough fish for both anglers. Like Glenn, Greg was great and he taught me the ins and outs of fishing docks that I know will be beneficial in the future. I ended up with 7-15 on day two and finished the tournament one spot out of the money.
I will be leaving in a couple days to start practice for the EverStart Series Southeast Division on Lake Seminole. I’m fishing the entire Southeast Division as a boater this year. After that, it’s straight to Kimberling City, Mo., for stop No. 2 of the FLW Tour Majors at Table Rock Lake.
Congrats to National Guard Pro Brent Ehrler on the win on the pro side; I fished with Brent at the Potomac River last year and he is a great angler and an even better person.
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