VIDALIA, Louisiana – They say that first impressions are everything. Judging by the initial responses from most of the pros during the official Mercury Ride Thru in Elimination Round 2 at the 2018 Lucas Oil Challenge Cup, the morning was going to be a searching experience on Louisiana’s Black River-Cocodrie Lake Complex.

“This all looks the same to me,” eventual round winner Andy Montgomery muttered as he took his first look around the cypress-lined shoreline.

“It’s all the same, bro!” Mike Iaconelli agreed as he sped along another stretch of bank, headed to Black River.

That seems to be a common first observation on many of the Mississippi River Valley’s oxbow lakes within range of tournament headquarters in Vidalia, Louisiana/Natchez, Mississippi: long stretches of cypress and shoreline cover that looks identical.

“This is just going to be a process at the beginning of this event because you really don’t know if this oxbow is better than the oxbow – you kinda have to fish and learn it as you go,” observed Texas-based veteran Gary Klein.

And Klein was the first to find a pattern.

Throwing a white Berkley shallow crankbait along cypress knees and buggy-whips in Cocodrie, Klein put the first fish of the morning on SCORETRACKER (a 1-pound, 14-ouncer), and then ran off six of the next 16 fish to jump to 10-1 before the first hour had passed.

Christie was next to identify a pattern, racking up a quick flurry of five fish in 29 minutes fishing a bladed jig around docks and cypress points, and racing to 15-8 at the end of the first period.

It was Montgomery, though, who finally broke the code for slightly bigger fish. The South Carolina pro connected with a 3-5 late in the second period, and then added three 2-plus-pounders and another 3 that boosted his per-fish weight average to 2-2 (the best in the round).