Top 5 Patterns from Lake of the Ozarks – Day 2
Shuffling on the leaderboard has a tight race heading into Saturday
When the top three anglers from the day before fail to crack 11 pounds – with your leader unable to catch a limit – you know the fishing is tough.
Sure enough, with conditions changing from rain and clouds to sun and wind, the Costa FLW Series Central Division on Lake of the Ozarks, which is presented by Evinrude, has made it tough on guys. Of course, day-two leader James Watson predicted that some of the biggest bags of the event would come in today despite the conditions, and he was right.
Three of the five biggest bags were weighed in on day two, including the lone bag to crack the 20-pound mark. So, there’s still plenty of big fish willing to bite. Here’s how the pros made it happen.
2. Dale Andrews – Jay, Okla. – 32-15 (9)
Someone who had never been to the lake before, had a horrible practice and who only weighed in four fish on day one is probably not the person you’d expect to be within 2 ounces of the lead. But, catching a 20-pound, 1-ounce bag will certainly right the ship quick.
“I did the same thing today as yesterday,” says Andrews. “I’m flipping and junk fishing. Throwing a spinnerbait and vibrating jig a lot. Covering a lot of water up the river.”
Where up the river?
“I don’t even know where I’m at to be honest,” admits Andrews. “This lake, it all looks a lot alike to me, and the big white condos are everywhere.”
Well, he may not know where he’s at, but he has figured out a key deal “throwing, pitching and casting at any piece of cover that looks good that he thinks a fish would be on” with one specific lure he plans to keep under wraps for now.
One pleasant surprise for him today was that a day after only getting four keeper bites, his bites started early.
“I had two fish earlier than thought I would, probably by 9 a.m.,” says Andrews, who also commented on how incredible his co-anglers have been this week. “I really hadn’t planned on catching a fish until 10 a.m. or even 11 a.m. So that was a beautiful thing.”
3. Casey Scanlon – Lake Ozark, Mo. – 31-4 (10)
There’s always pressure on a favorite, and being that Scanlon is an FLW Tour pro who happens to guide on Lake of the Ozarks, he clearly was a favorite. Yet, things certainly haven’t come easy for him despite being in third and bringing in 17-9 today.
“Basically, I’m playing a numbers game, running a lot of high-percentage areas,” says Scanlon, who only had two fish at 11:30 a.m. today. “With fishing being tough, every once in awhile you stumble on to a spot that’s got one or two of them for you. So I just keep bouncing around between shallow and deep and making small adjustments.”
Scanlon figures he hit 30-40 spots today, fishing completely different from yesterday, when he focused mainly off the bank. Today, he did both deep and shallow, catching two off docks and three out deep, rotating between a 5/8-ounce Trophy Bass Company jig of his design, a worm and a spinnerbait.
As for tomorrow, he figures more adjusting will probably be necessary.
“Tomorrow is going to be different with the lack of cloud cover,” says Scanlon. “Though, that might allow me to get back on some of my sneaky places, cover-related stuff.”
4. Dylan Hays – El Dorado, Ark. – 29-8 (10)
Hays sure has been cutting it close so far.
“Today, I caught number five at 2:49 p.m.,” says Hays, who brought in 17-12 today. “And I caught one over 4 pounds at 3:15 p.m., and I had to leave by 3:22 p.m.
“I only caught six keepers all day, and only six keepers all day yesterday.”
While the number of keepers remained the same, one thing that didn’t was his stubbornness to try and make them eat a topwater, which he says he wasted 4 hours doing on day one. Today, he did it for an hour and then went to focusing on brush.
“I figured that was the only way I could catch a big bag,” says Hays. “So I stuck to the plan, and it worked out.”
Hays says he trying to find “sneaky” brush piles he doesn’t think everyone is hitting. Some of those are in 4 feet of water and some in 20 feet, but the 10-15 foot range seems to be his sweet spot. Regardless of location, he’s hitting them with either a ¾-ounce football jig with a Zoom Super Speed Craw or ½-ounce Texas-rigged Zoom Brush Hog.
As for tomorrow, expect more of the same.
“I don’t think [the fishing] is going to get better [with the weather], because it ain’t easy,” says Hays, “but I don’t think it will hurt it.”
5. Lance Williams – Billings, Mo. – 29-0 (10)
The last three years, Williams has been wearing out Ozark fish in the fall on a “special” crankbait, and he seems to be doing it again.
Making more than an hour run up the river, Williams is tossing his crankbait – which he isn’t sharing yet – around flat, shallow docks.
“The area I’m fishing has got current and flat docks on the main river,” says Williams, who weighed 16-1 today. “There are some specific docks I’ve found over the years; certain stretches where those fish are not going anywhere.”
Fortunately, today hardly could’ve started better, as he had a 4 ½-pouder riding in his livewell right off the bat and a limit by 10 a.m. Then around 1:30 p.m. he really got well in a hurry.
“I pulled up on one dock and caught one that culled,” says Williams. “Then made another cast and caught another that culled.
“That pretty much summed up the day. Right place, right time.”