OSAGE BEACH, Mo. – The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Plains Division opener on Lake of the Ozarks featured solid springtime, or late winter patterns, and many typical standards played well. With only three hours of forward-facing sonar allowed per day, the Top 10 still looked about normal for the big Missouri lake, as the best locals did damage as usual.
Here’s the playbook for a prespawn event on Lake of the Ozarks.
1. Newcomb mixes and matches for the win
Fishing clean water and dirty water, Andy Newcomb mixed tactics to finally win a Toyota Series event at home.
His jerkbait of choice was a Megabass Vision 110 in clown, wakasagi and a custom pattern. For his spinnerbait, he used a chartreuse and white, 5/8-ounce Zorro Bango Blade with a 4-inch X Zone Swammer as a trailer. His umbrella rig was the venerable YUM YUMbrella Flash Mob Jr., which he paired with some Keitech dummies and three 3.8-inch Bait Cave Customs Cave Swimmers on 1/16-ounce Apex Tackle Pro Series Deaver Swimbait Heads. Of course, he used Daiwa rods and reels, as well as Daiwa line.
2. Brush and docks play for Breeden
The winner of last year’s spring event on Lake of the Ozarks, Cole Breeden very nearly went back-to-back.
Perhaps the best with forward-facing sonar in the field, Breeden weighed only five fish caught on ‘Scope the first two days, though he caught his entire limit on ‘Scope on Day 3.
“I waited until 10:30 or 11 every day to use ‘Scope,” he said. “I wanted to wait until they got up a little shallower. They would get up in the piles or a little further back later in the day. The last day, with it being so cold, they moved off that shallower stuff. Once I had ‘Scope, I could see they were gone.”
Using a Berkley Stunna 112 for his jerkbait, Breeden followed it up with a 1/4-ounce Picasso Tungsten Little Spotty jig with a 2.5-inch Reins Ring Craw trailer. He fished the jerkbait on a 6-foot, 10-inch, medium-light Abu Garcia Fantasista X, paired with an Abu Garcia Zenon X reel and 10-pound Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon. He tossed the jig on a 7-foot, medium Abu Garcia Fantasista X spinning stick, with an Abu Garcia Zenon X spinning reel.
“In practice, I went and checked all the stuff I won off, the water temp was like 10 degrees warmer than last year, and they were not in the wintertime mode,” he said. “All the stuff I caught them off last year, there were zero fish. So, I ended up fishing those same areas, but I followed them back.”
By tournament time, Breeden had them patterned pretty good.
“For me, it seemed like if I could find small pockets with a flat ditch that ran up off the side of a spawning area, that seemed to be where I found the better ones at,” he said. “The first and second day, I weighed at least six or seven doing that – they would stage under docks – I had one dock the first day I weighed three out of. The second day, I found a brush pile with probably 200 or 300 crappie, and probably 30 bass. I probably weighed four or five fish from it the last two days.”
3. Jerkbait carries the weight for Jelinek
As always, Brad Jelinek put together a good finish on Lake of the Ozarks, this time with a jerkbait – his typical cold water weapon.
For Jelinek, a 6th Sense Provoke 97 DD in Milliken clown worked in stained water, and in cleaner water, he leaned on a 6th Sense Provoke 106 DD in violet panda. He used a 6-8, medium-light 6th Sense Customs jerkbait rod, and 10-pound Sunline Sniper.
“My favorite thing to do is fish a jerkbait really slow when it’s really cold and tough,” he said. “They were moving a lot more this week, and they were shallow on lead-in banks. So, if you had some gizzard shad around, it helped. I took advantage of my ‘Scope time then, but the rule made it super tough; you couldn’t adjust right there. If you were running around trying to locate them, you might only have 30 minutes once you found them.”
With his LiveScope off, Jelinek still ran with the jerkbait.
“Once the ‘Scope period went away, I chased a little bit of wind,” he said. “I didn’t like the gale force wind, I just wanted a little ripple, where the surface would break up, and I threw a jerkbait shallow and tried to get lucky and catch a big one, which is actually how I caught my big one on Day 2. I fished stretches where I had caught them in the past, where I knew there were fish around.”
4. Brand mixes in a glide
Finishing fourth, David Brand led on Day 2, but fell off on the final day.
He fished a Clutch Baby Boss, a Megabass Vision 110 in golden brownie and frozen shad, and a 1/2-ounce Motion Fishing Tungsten Tank Jig, with a discontinued Gene Larew Salt Craw trailer.
“I had two strategies,” Brand said. “I had some stuff in the back flats, that was brush – they weren’t on the brush, but they were around it. First thing in the morning, they did a lot of moseying around, swimming around. They were pretty shallow – always less than 8 feet or so.”
After ‘Scoping around brush in the morning, Brand would lead on a jerkbait the rest of the day.
“In practice, I found a bunch of channel banks – the last few deep spots on a channel bank in the creek,” he said. “I used my A-rig as a search tool with LiveScope, and when I found them, I’d come back and fish without ‘Scope with a jerkbait.”
5. Satterlee patterns the points
Chad Satterlee led the whole shooting match on Day 1, and solid limits kept him in the Top 10 the rest of the way.
“In practice, we were junk fishing around, and we got to where we started noticing, more and more, they were on secondary points,” he said. “It seemed like we narrowed down a stretch of lake where we got a little better bites in, looking at the bank, if you had a flat secondary point with a rock transition and a boat dock, it was money.”
Though he fished a ChatterBait and a jerkbait some, the best baits for Satterlee were a SPRO RkCrawler 55 and a Megabass Flap Slap.
6. Strong ‘Scope sessions buoy Marien
Wisconsin angler Harmon Marien put up a good tournament, doing his work mostly down the lake and with a variety of baits.
“I didn’t really have a specific pattern, I just had a 3- or 4-mile section by the dam – it seemed like there was a good population of fish,” he said. “Some main lake, some pockets, some secondary points. I don’t have a ton of history out there, so trying to break the whole place down was somewhat overwhelming.”
When he used forward-facing sonar, Marien relied heavily on a variety of minnows on an Owner Range Roller head for deeper fish on brush. For shallower brush, he used a Rapala Mavrik 110. He also used a 3/8-ounce Greenfish Tackle Little Rubber Jig paired with a Yamamoto Flappin’ Hog.
7. Jerkbait and umbrella rig combo plays for Harlin
Michael Harlin made the Top 25 with two bags in the low teens, but he sacked up 19-4 on Day 3 to roll into the Top 10.
For Harlin, a Megabass Vision 110 in a few colors worked, as well as an umbrella rig with Crock-O-Gator COG Swimmers and 1/8-ounce Crock-O-Gator COG Swimmer heads.
“It was a weird week, I wish we could have left the pinger on, I’ll say that,” Harlin said. “I turned my ‘Scope on first thing every morning – I was fishing for fish that were transitioning and roaming the bank. After the ‘Scope was off, I ran little cuts and turns that they were using to stage. I caught so many fish every day. The first day, my smallest was a 2-6, and I caught four of them; and the second day, my smallest was 2-9, and I caught five of them.”
8. Crankbait carries Weberg
Putting up very consistent days, Tyler Weberg caught a lot of his weight on a crankbait, but caught his Day 3 kicker on a blade.
“I fished everything from the cleanest water on the lake to the dirtiest water on the lake,” he said. “I was throwing a jerkbait in the mornings trying to fill out my limit – Day 1 and 2, I filled most of my limit using LiveScope, but they were all small. Later in the day, I picked up the RkCrawler and made some culls. All my fish came on the RkCrawler on Day 3, and then I went to dirty water and caught the 6-11 on the spinnerbait.”
His crankbait of choice was a SPRO RkCrawler 55, and he used a modified 1/2-ounce Accent Subtle Series spinnerbait, with a larger gold blade and a dyed 6th Sense Divine Swimbait trailer.
9. Jerkbait works for Boehle
Always a contender in the Ozarks, Adam Boehle did his damage with a jerkbait on prespawn areas.
For Boehle, the bait of choice was a Megabass Vision 110 in GP pro blue 2.
“That’s what you throw when you get a ninth-place finish – just a regular old bait,” Boehle said.
10. A-rig and jerkbait play for Johnson
Finishing up in 10th, with very consistent weights all three days, Jeremy Johnson stuck with the standards.
For his jerkbaits, he used a 6th Sense Provoke 106X, and a Megabass Vision 110. For his umbrella rig, he went with a YUM YUMbrella Flash Mob Jr. and 3.8-inch Bait Cave Customs Cave Swimmers on 1/8-ounce heads.
“It was pretty typical, standard stuff for this time of year,” he said. “The jerkbait was working pretty good the first two days, but the third day, my co-angler started whacking them on the A-rig, so I had to pick it up.”