Heritage Cup Elimination Round 2 Gear and Patterns
SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The fishing location of Elimination Round 2 of the Bass Pro Shops Heritage Cup Presented by Berkley was kept secret from the ten anglers competing.
There were plenty of options around Syracuse, New York, but Henderson Bay on Lake Ontario was the site of the round and one angler, Brandon Palaniuk, had plenty of experience there and he was able to take win the round over second-place angler Randall Tharp.
Palaniuk Shines on Ontario
Brandon Palaniuk has fished this exact bay numerous times and this area helped him win a major event years ago, so he was beyond excited when they kept driving past other bodies of water and made their way to Lake Ontario.
“I had no idea that’s where we were going, but about halfway there, I started to see familiar things. I thought to myself, ‘I’ve made this drive before’ and started to feel like a kid in a candy store,” Palaniuk recalled and added that he has also driven over 100 miles by boat to fish this exact location.
“It is one of my favorite fisheries and we were there at the perfect time of year,” Palaniuk said. Since he was in an MLF boat without the benefit of past waypoints, he had to re-learn the area but was able to adjust and score 16 bass for 44 pounds, 6 ounces.
“I was focusing on rock veins and sand transitions between in 15 to 30 feet of water,” he said. “That is a big range, but I was looking for flats and right off of the break into deeper water.”
He relied solely on a drop-shot rig with a variety of soft plastic baits, including an X-Zone Slammer in the Bass Candy and Minnow Magic colors. He rigged it on a 1/0 drop-shot hook with a 1/4 ounce drop-shot weight.
His rod choice was a 6-10 medium-light Alpha Angler DSR that he paired with a 3000-size Daiwa Exist reel spooled with 15-pound Seaguar Smackdown Flash Green braid with a leader of 8-pound Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon.
Tharp Finishes Second
Randall Tharp was admittedly disappointed when they drove past several quality grass fisheries and headed to a predominately smallmouth bass fishery.
“Smallmouth on the Great Lakes has never been my strong suit, so when we got there, I put away my flipping sticks and laid out three spinning rods,” Tharp said. “I knew Palaniuk’s history there and that type of fishing is right in his wheelhouse. It was nice to give him a run for his money.”
Tharp finished the day with 15 bass for 37-08, including one on his very first drop of the day with a drop-shot rig that he used exclusively during the round.
“I was focusing on isolated rock, and we had a decent wind that day, so I was basically just drifting large areas,” Tharp said. “It was steady bites all day and I caught one about every half hour for the whole day.”
He fished a Green Pumpkin Z-Drop worm on a prototype #1 VMC drop-shot hook with a 3/8-ounce teardrop Ark Tungsten weight.
Tharp’s setup included a 6-10 medium-light “Meterman Special” Ark Rods Tharp Series spinning rod that he paired with a 2500-sized reel. He spooled it with 8-pound Sufix 832 braid with a leader of 6-pound Sufix Advance fluorocarbon.