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Hank Cherry's Winning Pattern, Baits & Gear It was fortuitous for Hank Cherry that he had a mechanical issue with his trolling motor on the official practice day for the Bassmaster Classic at Lake Guntersville. After having the problem addressed by service technicians, he put his boat back in the water, with the first order of business to test the device. He traveled just a few hundred yards from the launch to the Brown's Creek causeway and caught a 5-pounder while putting the motor through its paces. He proceeded to fish there throughout the derby, sans the company of fellow competitors, and won the 50th anniversary of the sport's most famous event with a three-day total of 65-05. A big portion of that came on day 1, when he caught a tournament-best 29-03 stringer (tied for third-heaviest in Classic history) to put nearly 8 pounds of separation between him and the rest of the 53-angler field. Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville Winning Pattern - BassFan 3/12/20 (John Johnson) | |
Todd Auten's Pattern, Baits and Gear Heading into the Classic, one of Todd Auten's dream scenarios was for him to be able to sling a vibrating jig around grass all three days. It's his favorite technique and one that he's refined through the years at and around Lake Wylie, S.C., where he resides, and also over the course of his career, which has been marked by quiet consistency. Auten got his wish at Guntersville as pre-spawners were glued to grass beds for most of the week despite the water being cooler than he'd hoped. Typically, he prefers water in the 50s for a vibrating jig to be effective, but a heavy concentration of bait where he was fishing seemed to offset the water being so cold. "I came in hoping it'd be a ChatterBait bite, but in practice the water was 45 degrees and I've never caught one in water that cold," he said. "It is Guntersville, though, and they do hit moving baits. I've caught them on (lipless crankbaits) when it's been 42 degrees, so that's why I threw that more in practice. "I'd planned to fish docks and deep stuff, and I knew there'd be a grass bite somewhere, but that's like finding a needle in a haystack I didn't find it until late on the third day of practice." Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville 2-5 Pattern - BassFan 3/11/20 (Todd Ceisner) | |
Stetson Blaylock's Pattern, Baits and Gear In practice, Stetson Blaylock put together a crankbait program and started to build confidence in it. Then on the official practice day (two days before competition began), he couldn't buy a bite on the Norman Speed N prototype. He knew he'd have to lean on backup plans and that wound up being areas in the backs of creeks where fish would school. For those spots, he leaned on a lipless crankbait. "The cold weather backed them out," he said. "On Wednesday, it was warmer and breezy and the water warmed up and they pushed back in, but I knew if I wanted a chance to win, I had to try to make the crankbait thing work." He thinks the fish he was catching in practice were on their pre-spawn migration and it took a bit for some new fish to move into those areas amidst the changing weather and water conditions. Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville 2-5 Pattern - BassFan 3/11/20 (Todd Ceisner) | |
Seth Feider's Pattern, Baits and Gear Feider's attention was also trained on grass, although in his case hydrilla was the common variable to his areas. "There was eelgrass everywhere on the bars, but the areas I keyed on were hydrilla," he said. "It didn't look good, but it was twice as tall as the eelgrass." And that offered more cover for bass looking for stopping points on their pre-spawn migration. Most of his bites came in five to six feet of water and he tried to keep the bait above the grass. He never got a bite after getting the bait hung and then ripping it free. He noticed a quick handle turn of the reel coupled with a pop of the rod triggered several bites. Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville 2-5 Pattern - BassFan 3/11/20 (Todd Ceisner) | |
Micah Frazier's Pattern, Baits and Gear Like Blaylock, Micah Frazier was zeroed in on grassy places in pre-spawn staging areas. He said most everything he found in practice held up during the tournament and if it were a four-day tournament, he thinks he could've piled up the weight. "Another day and I would've wrecked them," he said, noting the fish didn't turn on in one of his key areas until midday Sunday. "I didn't really even look at bridges or rock much because I've never been able to get that figured out." The biggest challenge he overcame was staying in contention despite his best area being unfishable on day 1. He resorted to cranking grass on a handful of spots over the first 1 1/2 days. "I had a few different areas and I thought it was a pattern, but it morphed into more of a three- or four-spot thing where it was predictable," he said. The key depth for his bait was about five feet and he got most of his bites over top of submerged eelgrass. Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville 2-5 Pattern - BassFan 3/11/20 (Todd Ceisner) | |
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