Neely Henry Baits and Patterns

As promised here are the baits I used to finish 2nd at the PAA event on Neely Henry last week.

The Pattern:

I fished backwater areas, main lake pockets, and creek arms. I specifically searched out small spawning pockets in these areas. The primary factor in whether a spawning pocket would be holding fished, was dependent on having deeper water adjacent to the pocket.

During practice, the fish were set-up on the deeper banks leading into these areas. Most often, the productive banks would be rip-rap, not all of them, but most. Colder weather and slightly falling water had positioned these fish in these areas. With the full moon set to take place on Day 2 of the tournament, the fish were staging up to move in. Other than the first day of practice, the weather was terrible, it snowed, sleeted, was cloudy, rainy

and COLD!! This kept the fish out of the pockets and on the deeper banks.

Fortunately, the last day of practice was sunny and warm, and the fish began to move, the full moon also helped bring them in to spawn. Once the tournament started, I was fortunate enough to get two bites in just a few minutes and that let me figure out how the fish had repositioned due to the warming weather. In the next hour I had my limit, and had culled twice by noon.

The baits:

In practice I used a white Zoom Super Fluke, a Dunn's premium Big Bite Baits Honey Bug, a 3/8ths ounce Lunker Lure Body Lock Jig (white) with a white Zoom swimming chunk, a Hawg Caller Proven Winner Spinnerbait in Sexy Shad, and a Lunker Lure Shakin' Shad (white).

During the tournament the fish had pulled up and I used the Honey Bug nearly exclusively for two the two days of the tournament. I fished this bait on 20lb Maxima Fluorocarbon, coupled with a 1/4 ounce weight and a 4/0 reaction innovations BMF Hook.

Here are some pictures of my baits. I fished these baits exclusively on GLoomis Rods. I pitched the Honey Bug on a 7'5" Model BCFR894, the white jig on a 7' Model 844c and the spinnerbait on a 7'1" Model 853.