Cranking king crushes at Clarks Hill

David Fritts dominates wire to wire at FLW Series Eastern Division event

APPLING, Ga. – If you have ever wondered why David Fritts has an insatiable obsession with crankbaits, look no further than the last four days of the Walmart FLW Series BP Eastern Division event on Clarks Hill.

Essentially, Fritts single-handedly shattered all expectations on Clarks Hill Lake this week.

Many predicted that the biggest stringers the FLW Series event would produce might be in the 18- to 19-pound range; Fritts’ biggest limit was 23 pounds, 9 ounces on day one.

Others said it would take 45 to 50 pounds for four days to win at Clarks Hill; Fritts won with a four-day total of 59 pounds, 10 ounces.

Indeed, Fritts’ Clarks Hill win is one of unimaginable proportions.

In fact, the Chevy pro had such a lead after day three that, in the end, he did not even need to catch a fish on day four and he still would have won the event.

“This week was my kind of deal: fall fishing with a crankbait,” Fritts said after winning $125,000 in cash Saturday. “I was in my element this week.”

Fritts discovered his surreal pattern almost immediately on the first day of practice.

“I lost the plug to my boat at Lake Champlain,” Fritts recounted. “So I drove up to a dealer in Elberton, Ga., to get a new one. On the way back, I decided to just launch right there at the Lake Russell Dam at the top of Clarks Hill.”

With the water so low, standing timber was readily visible in the upper end of the lake. One of the first casts Fritts made on day one of practice was to an isolated piece of standing timber, and he immediately caught a big bass.

“The light bulb went off right then,” Fritts said. “The fish were suspended on isolated pieces of standing timber.”

From that point on, Fritts began to scour the upper end of Clarks Hill for standing timber, specifically isolated pieces of pole timber that were completely submerged.

During the next four days, he discovered a dozen isolated trees holding schools of big bass.

“Some of the trees I fished this week were actually sticking out of the water,” Fritts said. “But a majority of them were submerged, and I found them either with my electronics or by looking down into the water.”

The tops of the trees ranged from right at the surface down to 20 feet under the surface.

His key baits were, of course, all crankbaits. He used the whole family of Rapala DT crankbaits including the DT-10, DT-14, DT-16 and the new DT-20.

And for trees that were too deep to hit with a diving plug, Fritts relied on Rapala’s Clackin’ Rap, a big lipless knocker reminiscent of the old Cordell 1-ounce Spot.

“My best spot was the top of a tree that was actually too deep to hit with the DT-20, so I used that Clackin’ Rap as a drop bait – casting it out there, letting it fall some 30 feet to the bottom and hopping it up off the bottom on that one tree.”

Fritts used his namesake equipment to get the job done, including his own signature series cranking rods from American Rodsmiths and his own cranking reels from Bass Pro Shops, which feature an extra low 4.7:1 gear ratio.

Fritts’ noted each piece of isolated timber had a different specific strike zone.

“I had to make the exact cast or I’d never get bit,” he said. “I was basically trying to hit a 2-foot-by-2-foot area of water located at the tops of each of the trees. Some were 10 feet down, some 15, some 20 and a couple as deep as 30 feet. Several times it took me over two hours to find the exact right cast, but once I dialed it in, I could catch one fish after another.”

Today, things got much tougher on Fritts as he brought in his smallest limit of the week: 6 pounds, 12 ounces.

“The water started coming up, and that really made them suspend higher on those tops,” he explained. “I had to redefine my strike zones on a lot of my places; I went to a shallower-running DT than I had been using on each tree.”

And for Fritts, that’s the root of his obsession for crankbaits: finding that single magical cast in an entire lake of limitless possibilities.

“That’s my kind of deal: finding that one perfect cast on a submerged tree that triggers a school of big fish into biting,” he added. “And once I caught that first fish on the first day of practice, I had the rest of the week to really figure everything out.”

Le second

Thanh Le of Lake Havasu City, Ariz., finished second with a four-day total of 49 pounds, 12 ounces worth $39,187.

Le brought in the biggest limit on day four: 12 pounds even.

He fished close to the takeoff at Wildwood Park, concentrating on four different main-lake points with grass that were holding fish.

The steeper points seem to be the common denominator for Le. He used three different baits to catch his fish: a Lucky Craft RC 1.5 crankbait (white with a purple back); a drop-shot Roboworm in “margarita mutilator 3” color; and a ¾-ounce Pepper football jig with a Zoom Speed Craw for a trailer.

“On days one and three, I caught the fish on the outsides of the grass points in about 10 feet of water,” Le said. “On days two and four, I caught them cranking the RC 1.5 between the bank and the inside grass line on the same points. And the key to working that crankbait was to burn it over the grass.”

Martin third

National Guard pro Scott Martin of Clewiston, Fla., finished third with a four-day total of 43 pounds, 8 ounces worth $31,351.

Martin’s main gig was to use a Spro Little John and Aruka Shad crankbaits on Berkley 100% fluorocarbon in the upper portion of the river where current was a factor.

“Most of it was basic current fishing,” Martin said. “I was targeting anything that made an eddy in the current.”

Today the current did not run, and Martin was forced to go to a Carolina-rigged Berkley finesse worm and pitching a Berkley Chigger Craw to pole timber.

Hackney fourth

Greg Hackney of Gonzales, La., finished fourth with a four-day total of 42 pounds, 1 ounce worth $23,512.

Hackney’s spooling thumb had been worn down to a bloody scab from casting and reeling a crankbait so hard for four days.

“That’s all I did was burn a crankbait and a spinnerbait,” Hackney said. “I targeted steeper banks where the bands of grass were thinner so I could cover them with a long cast.”

Hackney’s crankbait of choice was a Strike King Series One in a color called “clearwater herring.”

Bolton fifth

Terry Bolton of Jonesboro, Ark., finished fifth with a four-day total of 38 pounds, 13 ounces worth $15,674.

Bolton focused his efforts all week on long grass points in the Little River area with a Zoom Ultravibe Speedworm, a finesse worm, a Speed Trap and a Mann’s Minus One.

Rest of the best

Rounding out the top 10 pros in the FLW Series event on Clarks Hill:

6th: Jonathan Newton of Rogersville, Ala., four-day total of 37-15, $14,891

7th: Casey Ashley of Donalds, S.C., four-day total of 37-13, $14,106

8th: Jimmy McMillan of Belle Glade, Fla., four-day total of 36-4, $13,324

9th: Koby Kreiger of Okeechobee, Fla., four-day total of 35-0, $12,540

10th: Jim Dillard of Bauxite, Ark., four-day total of 34-7, $11,756

Coming up

The next event in the 2008 Walmart FLW Series is the East/West Fish-Off, which will be held on Falcon Lake in Zapata, Texas, Nov. 20-22.

The top 30 pros and 30 co-anglers from the Eastern and Western divisions will be invited to fish for coveted 2009 Forrest Wood Cup berths.