CLARENDON COUNTY, S.C. — Expectations were high coming into the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit Presented by MillerTech event on Santee Cooper, with reports of multiple giant limits being caught in practice. While the loss of one day to wind and another half day due to a fog delay put a damper on what could have been, it was still a remarkable event with huge limits hitting the scales, including Florida’s Aaron Yavorsky winning with 67 pounds, 4 ounces in two days of fishing.
Here’s a closer look at how Yavorsky and the rest of the Top 10 caught ’em at Stop 2 Presented by Star brite.
1. Yavorsky cashes in on loaded staging spots
Jumping to the early lead with 35-4 on the first day, Yavorsky backed it up with another 32 pounds to take the win in convincing fashion. He made it look easy, catching his fish in Lake Moultrie around brushpiles and ditches in 15 to 20 feet of water.
“I was looking for big brushpiles at the mouth of ditches that had staging fish on them, and I had two really good spots with big schools on them and probably 10 or 12 other areas that had smaller groups of fish,” he said. “I had one pile that I caught all my first-day fish on, and it all happened right away. I had my weight in 30 to 45 minutes of fishing. Then, I just looked around for stuff for the rest of my time.”
His second day was slower, but he was able to relocate the fish toward the tail end of his ‘Scope period and catch what he needed to win. His top bait was a 7-inch 6th Sense Shindo Shad in champagne shad and threadfin shad.
“I fished them on a 1/8 down to a 3/16-ounce jighead and would throw the champagne shad when it was foggy and the threadfin shad when it was brighter out,” he said.
2. Turano scores on points
The reigning Phoenix Bass Fishing League All-American champion, Matteo Turano secured an excellent finish in his second Pro Circuit event. He sampled both lakes during practice but found it easier for his program in Moultrie.
“I knew it was harder in Moultrie, but if I got five bites in three hours, I could have close to 30 pounds,” he said. “The fog delay, even though it was so long, helped me, because I stuck to my plan even with the 35-minute run. I ended up catching seven fish in my ‘Scope period the first day.”
Turano focused on brushpiles, but specifically those on points.
“There’d be big schools on the piles, and I don’t think depth mattered because I caught them from 10 to 24 feet deep – it just had to be on a point,” he shared. “That switched a little the second day, and I caught them out of shallower ditches.”
The first day, he did his damage on a 5-inch minnow with a 1/8-ounce jighead, and the second day, it was a 6-inch Yamamoto Hinge Minnow in Tennessee shad with a 3/16-ounce head.
3. Lane successfully saves ‘Scope for afternoon
Alabama’s Cal Lane mixed it up and caught fish both shallow and offshore. He finished third and nearly cracked the 60-pound mark despite catching just four keepers on Day 1 – had he gotten one more big bite, he might have been able to make a run at Yavorsky.
Lane went against the prevailing strategy and saved his forward-facing sonar time for the end of each day. It was a calculated decision that, in his mind, set the fish up better.
“I started each morning throwing a 3/4-ounce Z-Man Evergreen ChatterBait JackHammer in both green pumpkin and white around isolated grass clumps out from spawning pockets,” he said. “I waited for my ‘Scope period for later because I felt like the fish were set up better on the structure the later in the day it was, with more sun. I was focusing on deeper flats with standing timber, rocks, and stumps on them.”
He stayed in Marion and utilized a trio of different baits with forward-facing sonar – a dice-style bait, a 5-inch True Bass Swimbaits Sock Shad in GTO shad, and a 3/4-ounce Epic Baits Tournament Grade Football Jig in magic craw.
4. O’Barr uses both lakes
Sacking up bags in the high 20s each day, Hayden O’Barr made the most of his forward-facing time, but the rookie also had a backup plan when he wasn’t able to use it.
“I started ‘Scoping, throwing a 4.5-inch Rapala CrushCity Mooch Minnow in Tennessee shad,” he said. “Once I turned it off, I was throwing a Megabass Vision 110 in mat shad and a 3/4-ounce 44 Tackle football jig in Okeechobee craw with a Strike King Rage Craw on the back.”
As for his approach, he utilized both lakes and targeted roaming fish.
“I was fishing for roaming fish on stumps in 8 to 12 feet of water that were staging and getting ready to head into the cypress trees in Marion,” he said. “After I stopped using forward-facing sonar, I picked up my trolling motor and went down to Moultie and would drag the jig and throw the jerkbait on shell bars I had found in practice with schools on them.”
5. ‘Magic piles’ carry Campbell
Bagging two 27-pound limits, Brody Campbell secured a great finish and moved into second in the 7 Brew Angler of the Year race by targeting deeper brushpiles with forward-facing sonar and then heading to the shallow docks near takeoff to end the day. Both approaches paid off, producing keeper bass each day.
“I was running a bunch of different piles in the morning with ‘Scope and had 15 or so spots, but they’d only be on one or two of them each day,” he said. “The first day, I caught a five and two sixes on three casts on one, and the second day, I found another ‘magic pile’ where I caught two big ones back-to-back.”
For the brushpile program, he caught fish on a dice-style bait, a Megabass Vision 110 jerkbait in shad patterns and a jighead minnow, all fished on various Bird Dog rods.
“I made hay with my ‘Scope time but weighed one fish each day by fishing shallow docks with a wacky-rig – just ‘old school’ fishing near the ramp,” he said.
6. Thibodaux ‘Traps up big Day 2 bag
Louisiana’s Levi Thibodaux started with a respectable 20-13 and backed it up with a hefty 33-2 limit the second day. While he certainly used forward-facing sonar, his best fish came out of shallow grass late in the second day with a lipless crankbait.
“I started each day’ Scoping, and the first day, that’s about all the time we had and how I caught my weight,” he said. “The second day, after my three hours were up and until around 3 o’clock, I only had three fish. I started running some grass in drains with a Rat-L-Trap and caught a 3-pounder, then went to the next one and caught them five casts in a row, including an 8-pounder, before I had to leave to come in.”
Thibodaux did all his fishing in Moultrie. His forward-facing sonar fish came on a 4.8-inch Big Bite Baits Spotlight Minnow affixed to a 3/16-ounce Owner Range Roller jighead. His lipless of choice was an original Bill Lewis Rat-L-Trap in the 1/2-ounce size in a red crawfish pattern.
7. Pemberton backs up practice hype
Austin Pemberton came into the event with lofty expectations after catching over 43 pounds on the first day of practice. While he didn’t quite match that number, he got off to an excellent start with 35 pounds on the shortened first day.
“I had 34 pounds in about an hour the first day, throwing back 5-pounders, and then after I turned off my ‘Scope, I culled again with a 6.90 I caught in the grass,” he said. “It was such a short day that after that, I started to mosey my way back to weigh-in to try to save some fish.”
While the second day wasn’t nearly as good for him, Pemberton had a great event, notching his second career MLF Top 10. He did it by catching fish both shallow and deep in Marion.
“I was going around looking for stumps, brushpiles and anything I could see with forward-facing sonar,” he said. “Some were bait chasers, and some were big ones that were by themselves. I caught all of my fish with a 6-inch 6th Sense Shindo Shad in green gizzard shad with forward-facing sonar, and the rest were on a 5/8-ounce 6th Sense Quake in Rayburn red in the grass.”
8. Shaw knocks out yet another Top 10
Banks Shaw has been a Top 10 machine during his young career, and he added another at Santee Cooper. Each day of the shortened event, he stuck to shallow water and mixed it up with different techniques.
“I fished boat docks and shallow grass lines both with and without forward-facing sonar,” he said. “I stayed in less than 10 feet of water in Marion, and my best baits were a Rapala PXR Mavrik 110 jerkbait in shad patterns and a wacky rig.”
The fog delay on the first day made him more conservative by Santee standards. He still managed to top 25 pounds, then backed it up with 26-15.
“I wanted to make sure I had five, so I focused on using more finesse to try to catch 4- and 5-pounders to survive, which sounds crazy considering how good Santee was fishing,” he said. “The second day, with more time, I was able to go ‘head hunting’ and take some more risks to try to catch some bigger ones with the jerkbait and a bigger worm.”
9. McKenzie tops among the locals
Growing up roughly an hour from the fishery, T.J. McKenzie felt some extra pressure at this event. Although he hasn’t fished Santee Cooper as much recently after going away for college, he was familiar with the lakes and how to run them, which he said helped.
“I knew all my family would be coming up, so I tried hard to make sure I caught them,” he said. “I grew up fishing high school tournaments there, but this was my first big national event on Santee. Besides knowing how to run the lake, I knew weather was going to be a big deal in this one because we tend to get all four seasons in a week this time of year, so I knew in practice that I couldn’t depend on a shallow bite.”
With that in mind, he opted for the most consistent bite on the lake during the spring – brushpiles.
“I spent all of my time marking quality brush and finding as much as I could run in my ‘Scope period, and then some shallow stuff that I could fish without it by blind casting,” he said. “My top bait with and without ‘Scope was a Megabass Kanata jerkbait in MB gizzard. I was looking for the biggest profile bait I could think of to get those fish to react. I had fish follow smaller jerkbaits in practice, but they seemed to be much more aggressive with a larger bait.”
The jumbo jerkbait also produced the biggest bass of the tournament, a 10-5 he caught on the first day, which was also his new personal best.
“My faith is really important to me, and I pray every morning before I make my first cast to help settle the nerves, and that kept me calm when I had that big one hooked up,” he said. “That was my first fish of the day, and later on I caught an 8 and weighed it, and I knew I already had a bigger one in the box. I weighed the 10, and I thought my scale was messed up because I’ve never caught a double digit. I had to reweigh it with a different Bubba scale, because I couldn’t believe it.”
10. Fields rallies with final-day megabag
The fog delay changed the plans of many anglers in the field, including Ethan Fields, who admitted he made a misstep the first day when he weighed just four bass for a little over 12 pounds. He righted the ship in a major way the following day, when he weighed 34-9 to vault into the Top 10 and save his tournament.
“Honestly, with the shortened day, it got into my head that I needed to stay close and try to catch a survival bag,” he said. “All those fish in Potato Creek were gone, and the second day, I went to what I found in practice in Moultrie, and it was better than I expected.”
Targeting isolated stumps and brushpiles in the 15- to 20-foot zone, Fields caught his fish while using forward-facing sonar with a 1/8-ounce jighead and 6-inch Big Bite Baits Jerk Minnow in shad patterns.
“I noticed that the fish would be scattered around the brush on the bottom, not actually setting up in the brush,” he shared. “They were cruising around, and when you could get a bait over them, you’d get five or six big ones to come up and fight over your minnow.”