How Banks Shaw won the Grand Lake, OK MLF Bass Pro Tour event

Anyone surprised Banks won a BPT tournament his rookie year? Didn’t think so. How ’bout winning back to backs in OK – the Pro Circuit at Eufaula one week, then the MLF BPT the next = $225K total winnings. Not bad!

That’s a lot of $$$ but it’s only about 1/4 of his MLF winnings so far – bear in mind he’s 22 years young:

He’s a stick! Here’s how he banked another W.

Going in and practice

> “I was thinking the majority of the fish would be post-spawn. I felt like they should be in their summer haunts because it was so hot. Based off of my previous tournament at Eufaula, there should be some fish moving out.

> “Right off the bat in practice I found a pretty good group of fish offshore, kinda where the fish should be headed for summertime. I was like, Man this looks good…a fair amount of ’em, I caught some good ones.

> “If I could find a couple more groups I felt like it would definitely be the deal for me…something I could compete on for sure. I ended up finding multiple groups and I knew, Yeah I know can I can win doing this.

> “…I fully committed to the offshore ledge fishing/schools of fish deal. Just committing to it I found stuff that some other guys didn’t who mixed it up in their practice…vs me fully committing to it.

> “The deepest school I found was 25′ and the majority were in the 15-18′ depth range.

> “Once I picked up on the first couple groups, I understood what they were relating to. It seemed like if you were around a point that was kinda bare, it wasn’t that great. But if you had a point that had some pretty good hard bottom to it…mainly chunk rock is where fish would be sitting….

> “…pretty obvious secondary points on your way out of a big creek, and some points at a mouth of a big creek…. I would mainly find [fish] on down scan because they were so hard to see on side scan…most were sitting like 0.5-2′ off the bottom [and] living around rocks – they were hard to see on side scan.

> “I’d have to make passes and passes over a point where I thought they’d be and dissect it. I would see just a few fish most of the time that I knew were probably bass, then I would drop my FFS down and I could tell what really going on.

> “I went to Grand for Toyota Series championship last fall…I finished up in 8th place. I actually fished a completely different end of the lake – up the lake in the dingier water.”

Tournament

> “Day 1 basically went as planned. I had a really big school of fish found, the farthest school I had down the lake. …starting on those because I could use my 30-minute ride-around time before the period starts to make my way all the way down, then rotate my way up the lake.

> “It went completely as planned – nobody was sitting on my group of fish. I caught ’em the 1st period really good throwing a DT20…overcast and a little bit of wind.

> “Day 1 and little bit of day 2 they bit a crankbait really good for me because a lot of the schools were so fresh.

> “I treated it just like I would on the TVA. I knew what guys fishing what [areas], what was getting beat on, what I could save and what [spots to]…competed with other guys on the schools because they were going to get fished for pretty hard anyway.

> “I survived on that stuff and saved what I could for later in the tournament.

> “[After 2 good periods] I was pretty much able to go look around 3rd period. I mainly just used my FFS that 3rd period to run through all my groups of fish and check on ’em.

> “Day 2 I understood what was going on as far as which schools of fish were community holes. I had an early number so I was like, I’m gonna start here. There’s probably going to be 4 boats that hit it anyway – I know I’ll be able to survive day 2 and make the cut.

> “It went completely as planned. I caught 14 lbs right off the bat and knew I was for sure in the cut. Then I went looking for new groups of fish and I found 1 new school of fish that definitely helped me out a lot.

> “I was able to catch some on a DT20, and I mixed in a 3/4-oz football jig with a CrushCity Cleanup Craw on the back. But I didn’t fish a ton on day 2. I just tried to dial it in as much as I could…and try to add a couple more places into my rotation.

> “Day 3 I had a good idea where there’d be some bigger fish in the morning. I started on those and caught 1 almost 6 and another 5-lber on a jig right off the bat. …got in my rotation and…I was just outside the cut after period 2.

> “Then I used my FFS to just rotate through my schools and pluck a few…1 here and there, just staying inside the cut but staying around the fish. That way I could easily catch fish if I needed to….

> “The last day I knew would boil down to a really good decision in the morning. After the 1st and 2nd period I had around 26-27 lbs so I knew would be able to at least have a shot at running them down in that last period with FFS.

> “…the schools were starting to get so educated, and they were moving around because the current was shutting off. It got a lot tougher for me to catch ’em without FFS. And there were a lot of little fish moving in on those places, so I knew I was going to need FFS to…target those bigger fish….

> “I pretty much resorted to a jighead minnow.

> “One of the places I’d saved up all week I knew nobody had found. …went just as planned.

I pulled up and caught a couple 4-lbers, a 5.75 and I think 2 2-lbers and sealed the deal.

> “[About that last spot: The fish were] probably halfway back in a major creek, so they weren’t relating to any current at all. They were probably there for the summer.”

Baits

> Rapala DT20 (mostly ‘disco shad’, which he ran out of, and also ‘Caribbean shad’), 12-lb Sufix Advance Fluoro, 13 Fishing prototype reel (7:1), 7′ 9″ Mod 13 Fishing Oath Cranking Rod.

> “I was changing the retrieve up a bunch. I’d burn it through, barely wind it through and snap it around as well. Once you fired ’em up, you basically couldn’t do anything wrong.”

> 3/4-oz jig (gp/chart) with a Rapala CrushCity Cleanup Craw (gp), 20-lb Sufix Advance Fluoro, 13 Fishing prototype reel (8:1), 7′ 3″ H 13 Fishing prototype rod.

> “I was hopping the jig, just kind of snapping it around.

> 5.25 Rapala CrushCity Freeloader (gizzard shad) on a 3/16-oz VMC RedLine Tungsten Swimbait Jighead (2/0), 10-lb Sufix 832 Braid (high vis yellow) to 14-lb Sufix Advance Fluoro, 13 Fishing prototype spin reel, 6′ 10″ ML 13 Fishing prototype spin rod.

> Why the minnow on the last day: “…[in that creek it was] definitely cleaner than anywhere else on the lake…kind of a green tint, like TVA-color water. They wanted something where they could really see the roll of the bait, and the ‘gizzard shad’ with the pearl belly and the grayish black back, they could see the roll a lot better.”

Electronics

He runs all 3 brands:

> “I used my Lowrance mainly to see the fish. The 2D on the Lowrance…the separation between the fish [and the rocks] was definitely better on that unit this week.

> “The [Lakemaster] mapping for Grand was a whole lot better with Humminbird. I could do a water-level offset and it was just a lot more accurate….

> “For my FFS I was using Garmin with a LVS34. I kept my range this week at around 85′ and my depth down to 30. …a lot further zoomed in this week so I could really see the size whenever I was using it around those schools. That way I could target the bigger than average fish.”