Salzman leads way into wide-open REDCREST Knockout Round
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Since the start of practice, the buzzword at Bass Pro Shops REDCREST Powered by OPTIMA Lithium has been “change.” That remained the case on the second day of qualifying, with Thursday’s sunny skies giving way to morning thunderstorms and subsequent overcast conditions.
The ever-evolving spring bite on Lay Lake shifted as a result, and so did the name atop SCORETRACKER®. Alabama pro Ryan Salzman climbed to the top spot with a two-day total of 65 pounds, 14 ounces. Fishing at the upper end of the playing field below Logan Martin Dam, Salzman boated 10 scorable bass Friday for the second day in a row, adding 30-3 to his tab for a 65-14 Qualifying Round total.
Salzman leads a tightly bunched and dangerous group of anglers at the top of the standings. Coosa River local and 2021 REDCREST champion Dustin Connell finished the round in second place with 63-4. Within 4 pounds of him are former Bass Pro Tour winners Michael Neal and Jesse Wiggins as well as Dalton Head, the Abu Garcia College Fishing representative from the University of Montevallo who happens to call Lay his home lake.
Considering the logjam at the top of the leaderboard and the fact that weights will zero when the Top 20 anglers take the water for Saturday’s Knockout Round, the race for the championship trophy and $300,000 first-place paycheck remains wide open. Just about every technique still has a chance to account for the win, too, as the suspended spotted bass pattern that dominated Day 1 appeared to cool and shallow power fishing in pockets, bedding bass and heavy current all produced big days.
The Top 10 finishers during the Knockout Round will qualify for Sunday’s Championship Round. All the action during the final two days can be streamed live on MLFNOW! from 7:15 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT each day.
Complete tournament results can be found here.
Salzman fishing his strengths
Salzman first branched out from pond fishing as a college student at North Alabama on the shores of Pickwick Lake. The only vessel he had access to was a jon boat with no electronics and a 25-horsepower outboard, so he quickly found that the easiest way to catch bass on the Tennessee River impoundment was by braving its turbulent tailraces.
He’s has been enamored with fishing heavy, manmade current ever since. Now a guide on the Tennessee River, Salzman focuses many of his outings on various tailraces.
While Salzman said the area he’s patrolling on Lay is smaller and shallower than most of the tailraces he fishes at home, that knowledge has served him well so far at REDCREST.
“The main difference is this one is shallower,” he explained. “Our (Tennessee River) dams are so massive, there’s sections that set up just like this. So, we just have more options. This dam is just a lot smaller.”
While the current tends to position fish predictably, Salzman said the front that rolled through the area Friday morning impacted his bite. He caught just three bass in his first four hours on the water. He closed strong, though, catching more than half his weight (17-9 on five fish) in the final period.
Salzman kept coy about the nuances of his approach, but he said the key to his strong afternoon was getting into the perfect spot. He shared the area with two other anglers during most of the Qualifying Round, and one beat him to his primary location Friday morning. That’s why he wasn’t afraid to keep catching fish long after he’d locked up a place in the Knockout Round – by qualifying in the top spot, he’ll be the first boat to launch Saturday.
“Yesterday, we had someone who had zero run up there in the middle of the day, and he kind of got on one of my main places and sacked it pretty good,” Salzman said. “Then he was on it all morning, and then he finally got off of it, and I was able to get on it at the end of the day, and I caught some of my bigger fish. That was really the big goal was to win the round so that I could have a good boat number.”
Fishing his first REDCREST, Salzman said he’s not nervous entering the weekend – for good reason. He has a strong track record when championships are on the line. In both his two previous appearances in championship events, the 2019 Forrest Wood Cup and 2021 Tackle Warehouse TITLE, Salzman finished among the Top 10. He thinks being able to take risks and not worry about points suits his style.
“I feel like I feel no pressure, because you don’t have to worry about just going and getting a few bites,” Salzman said. “You can just go all-in on whatever you’re doing.”
Salzman isn’t quite all-in on fishing the tailrace. He recognizes that a change in generation at Logan Martin dam could occur at any time and make the area far less productive, if not unfishable, so he has a few backup patterns in mind. But he’d much rather stick to his comfort zone in the current.
“Pending a drastic change, I will be up there,” he said. “But I did figure out some patterns down the lake that I felt good about. I didn’t know that I could catch the weight that I caught up there, but I feel like I can catch fish other places. I’d like to be up there, but you just never know. With the current, every day is different up there, and you’ve just got to keep an open mind.”
Possibilities abound for Knockout Round
Usually, by the halfway point of a tournament, it’s become evident how the event will be won — or at least what technique will account for most of the Top-10 finishes. But Friday’s results indicate that anglers can still take their pick of how to catch bass on Lay Lake. Regardless of what they choose, they might have a shot at taking home the trophy.
As mentioned above, Salzman wasn’t the only angler who made the run to the Logan Martin dam. Ron Nelson and Cliff Pace also spent most of the first two days in the area, and both finished among the top 11. Takahiro Omori was among a handful of pros — along with the likes of John Cox and Keith Poche — to find success fishing shallow pockets or creeks. Omori used just one bait, a bladed jig, to put 29-5 on SCORETRACKER® Friday.
Then there’s Wiggins, who kept his two-year hot streak rolling by boating 15 bass for 35-4 on Day 2. He caught a few fish early on a culvert pumping water into the lake but did most of his damage using a Jackall Flick Shake worm on a shaky head to catch spawning spotted bass.
“I did the ‘Scope thing all of practice, and I couldn’t ever catch any scorable (bass),” Wiggins said. “So that’s why I just kind of committed to the bank. And I’ll still keep it honest; I’ll go in a pocket and I’ll scan out in the middle and I’ll scan on some points. I see ‘em. But man, I either can’t get them to bite or they’re little, so I just almost wrote it off.”
Wiggins’ pattern is intriguing not only because he’s a master at it — he’s won numerous events on his native Smith Lake plus the 2022 Bass Pro Tour stop at Lake of the Ozarks in similar fashion — but because it seems to be unique to him. Several forward-facing sonar users, on the other hand, appear to be sharing fish; MLFNOW! viewers witnessed a few skirmishes over territory Friday.
Wiggins used Friday afternoon to explore new water, even shaking off a few biters. He “easily could have won the round,” he said. Predicting the event will boil down to a battle of “spawners versus ‘Scopers,” he hopes the fact that he has all that water to himself gives him an edge.
“I haven’t seen anybody fishing how I’m fishing,” Wiggins said. “They’re all out using ActiveTarget or using ‘Scope.”
Speaking of ‘Scopers, the main-lake, suspended-fish pattern that dominated Day 1 looked to falter a bit Friday — or did it?
On one hand, far fewer fish were caught by anglers using forward-facing sonar and a jighead minnow on Day 2 compared to Day 1. But most of the pros who put together strong opening days didn’t try to catch more Friday, using the day to practice. Plus, Emil Wagner pulled off the biggest comeback in the field by targeting roaming spotted bass. Wagner, the 2023 BFL All-American champion, started the day in 40th place after catching just four fish for 10-4 on Day 1, but he vaulted all the way to 13th on the strength of a 36-7 day, the best in the field.
Saturday should reveal how many fish the likes of Neal, Connell and Jacob Wheeler have been saving.