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Today’s Top 3

1. Hank Cherry wins Smith Lake Open.

He won with 38-13 basically burning swimbaits over deep water on, here’s the kicker, 5-lb line. That takes the cojones mang, and is a fo sho cool pattern. Pattern deets:

> Cherry targeted points and the middle of feeder creeks with shad and blueback herring, bass beneath them.

> Cherry used a 3 1/2-inch boot-tail swimbait (pearl) on a 1/8-ounce darter head, but it was his choice of line size that has other anglers shaking their heads.

> After making a long cast, Cherry held the rod at the 10 o’clock position and reeled fast enough with his Shimano Stradic to keep the bait in sight. The bass would rise from the depths to smash the lure and the fight was on.

> “I fished it on 5-pound-test Sunline Sniper fluorocarbon line,” Cherry said. “You sometimes have to go that light to make a long enough cast to avoid spooking the fish.”

2. What up with Cherry?!

Hank Cherry wins the Open AND gets in the Classic, so what does he do? Not smile! Here’s what I mean.

This:

This:

This:

Finally this:

What’s he going to be like if he wins the Classic – depressed?! Or maybe he had a chew in?

3. Ritter humps it for Pines EverStart win.

Well, 46-09 over 3 days is pretty sweet, and that’s what TX’s Ritter Ferguson caught to win the Lake o’ the Pines EverStart. What’d he do?

> Fishing about mid-lake, he targeted a hump near the Alley Creek area and found his bass mostly on the edges. “There were coming up onto that spot to feed,” Ferguson said. “I would cast across the spot and drag my bait over it. I was catching my fish on the dropoffs in about 6 feet.”

> Ferguson did most of his damage with a Texas-rigged Zoom Trick Worm, but he switched to a Baby Brush Hog [on the final day]. With both baits, he used tungsten bullet weights and a brass ring between hook and sinker.

> When his primary spot slowed, Ferguson would visit main lake dropoffs where bass were corralling shad schools. He dragged a Carolina-Rigged Grande Bass Rattlesnake…mostly smaller fish, but he used them to fill out his limit.

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Tip of the Day

More on Cherry’s rig/technique.

> About a decade ago the bass fishing was lousy on Lake Norman. That’s where Cherry and his bass fishing cohorts were down to desperation tactics to catch bass on their home lake. They cracked the code during the hottest part of summer in the most unlikely of places.

> The largemouth population was around the hot water discharge at the McGuire Nuclear Station and elsewhere below the Marshall Steam Plant. Small baitfish flushed from the discharge provided a constant source of food for the largemouth.

> The challenge was casting distance. Success came with the combination of using light line on spinning tackle…. Cherry and his cohorts have spent the last decade refining the technique.

> “If there’s no chop at all and the fish are feeding on top, then you can use a straight shank hook,” he said. “In the wind you can use a 1/8-ounce darter head.”

> The strike zone is the point where the bait hits up until the boat becomes visible to the bass. “The fish will stop tracking the bait when it gets too close to the boat. They can see it and will stop following it. That is why the long cast is a must.”

I’m trying this tomorrow!

FYI, according to BassGold, Norman is an Upland Reservoir. So this technique should work on any other Upland Reservoir (deep, clear, rocky) as well as Natural Lakes.

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Quote of the Day

It’s the guy who makes the right choices and the right mistakes who will win.

– A MN angler makin’ a strange kind of sense.

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Shot of the Day

Just gotta give my ol’ bud Aaron props for this. Covered many a derby when he finished #2, glad he won. Nice job, mang!

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