Baits and Pattern used at Lake Ouachita

As you know from my last post, I sight fished my way to a 36th place finish at Lake Ouachita two weeks ago.  As promised here are the baits I used and how I used them for that tournament.

I pimarily used three baits when I was looking at a bedding fish.  I used a Lunker Lure ball-head jig, 8th ounce in Cumberland Craw color (top left of photo), a white Mizmo tube (center) and a green pumpkin candy w/ blue tail Mizmo tube (far right).  I rigged both tubes on 25lb fluorocarbon line with a 3/8th ounce Penetrater tungsten weight on a 7' 5" GLoomis rod model BFR 894.  The Lunker Lure jig was rigged on 12lb fluorocarbon line on a 7' 1" GLoomis rod model number BCR854.  As far as the "pattern"  I used at this tournament, basically, I ran new wateer each day.  I looked for spawning areas in the major tributaries, as well as spawing areas in main lake pockets.  Most of the fish were spawning in the backs of small pockets on the sides of the tributaries.  If you looked for the little quiet, slick water areas in the back of a pocket, most likely there would be a spawner, or several spawners located in these areas.  I basically ran as many of these as I could each tournament day.

I caught an equal amount of fish on ball three baits.  The white tube was used on beds that were a little deeper or difficult to see, the white tube allowed me to stay back off of the bed as far as I could and still see the fish bite.  The green pumpkin tube was used when the fish would shy away from the white tube. It seemed that some of the fish were a little bait shy and would more readily bite the natural colored tube over the white one. 

A few of the fish would circle around or spook out of the bed when the 25lb fluorocarbon line would lay on the water's surface above their bed  when I pitched into or past the bed.  These fish I could catch on the Lunker Lure jig on 12lb line.  These were the most spookiest of all the bed fish I caught.  Often the fish would not spokk from the 12lb line, when they would bolt out of the bed when the 25lb line rippled the surface above them.  This may sound odd, but it is what happened.  The lighter line coupled with the natural colored jig would often get the fish worked up pretty quick.  Although, I can say I never had to fish longer than 10 minutes on any fish during this tournament, before I was able to catch them. 

On the subject of the spooky fish, most anglers would say leave them and find another one, I would have liked to do that, but I had to scramble to find these spawners during the tournament, and felt that if they would hold still remotely, one of these three baits would catch them.  If I would of had a bunch of fish on beds that I could have just rotated through, I probably would have skipped over a few of these. 

All in all, it was a good tournament, I feel very blessed to have finished well.

God Bless,

Duke