MLF EMBEDDED: Inside Shryock’s Elimination Round Win

HOT SPRINGS, Arkansas – Viewers of the 2018 Summit Select Elimination Round 1 from Hot Springs, Arkansas, likely picked up on the fact that eventual round winner Fletcher Shryock was onto something right from the get-go.

“I’m seeing a pattern right now, for sure,“ Shryock admitted early in Period 1 as he flipped a simple, 4-inch green pumpkin tube into the shallow, flooded brush of Lake Ouachita, shortly after recording his first scorable bass of the morning.

That pattern would eventually pay off to the tune of 11 fish for 17 pounds, 10 ounces, and a victory in the round.

Flippin’ Fletcher

Shryock had actually committed mentally to flipping even before his boat was in the water. As he and boat official Shane Patrick pulled up to the ramp at Lake Ouachita, Shryock took note of the drastically elevated water level and the amount of flooded cover available, and went straight for his flippin’ sticks.

“I knew a number of techniques could work in those conditions, but I knew 100 percent that there would be a flippin’ bite,” Shryock says. “Anybody who watches MLF probably knows by now that I really like to flip, and I knew that I could put a flippin’ stick in my hand and figure it out. I found one creek on the Ride Around that had a little bit of everything – flatter stuff, steeper stuff, lots of cover, close to the main channel – and really felt like I could grind out the day on a flippin’ bite.”

Baits, gear, depth

Shryock caught all 11 of his fish on the aforementioned 4-inch tube and a green pumpkin Yamamoto PsychoDad, both on a 5/16 tungsten weight. He rigged two different rods to fish different depths: one with 40-pound Spiderwire Stealth Braid and a 20-pound fluorocarbon leader for cover 1 ½ feet and shallower, and one with fluorocarbon mainline for deeper cover.

After losing three fish on the fluoro mainline, Shryock went with the braid setup for better hooksets in the shallower cover that most of his fish came out of.

“They turned out to be positioned pretty shallow, so when I went to the braid, things started happening,” Shryock says. “Making that change was the deal for me, for hookset purposes.”

Shryock guts it out

Another key to Shryock’s success was the methodical, hyper-patient pace that he stuck to all day while he flipped. But what the MLF cameras didn’t capture was the biggest reason for that pace: “I was sicker than a dog. I mean BAD sick,” Shryock admits. “I don’t know if you can tell on camera, but the reason why I might’ve seemed so laid-back that day was because I was as sick as I’ve ever been in my life.”

Shryock had come down with the flu the morning of the Elimination Round, and spent the majority of Period 1 coaxing himself through waves of nausea and stomach issues that forced him to limit his activity to standing on the trolling motor and flipping.

Viewers watching the start of Period 2 witnessed Shryock sitting in his boat while the other seven anglers blasted off; while Shryock played it off (“We’re fishing real close, so it’s no big deal,” he told the camera), he was actually so sick at the moment that he couldn’t even think about driving a boat.

“I didn’t want to put on my PFD, I didn’t want to pull the trolling motor, I didn’t want to drive around, I didn’t want to do much of anything,” Shryock admits. “I toughed it out, but when we finally got back after the competition day, I just went to bed for like three days until my Sudden Death Round.”