How Pat Schlapper got his 2nd blue trophy this year

What’s up with the 2 wins in a season deal now? In Pat’s case you sure as heck can’t say it was FFS because it never figured in either of his wins.

And are Pat and Easton Fothergill in the same beginning of the season “northerners who sandbag the entire field” club? 😁 If you recall, Easton had 2 bombs and then won the Classic. And here’s what Pat’s first half looked like:

Then in the next 5 he had 2 30s, a 20 and 2 wins. The first win was the ultra-tough Sabine RIVER, TX, and this one was his old stomping grounds: the Upper Mississippi RIVER, WI. Here’s how it went down this time – a little unusually. You’ll see what I mean.

Going in and practice

> “My original gameplan was to practice all 3 pools – because I’m familiar with pools 7, 8 and 9, and I figured a lot of people would stay on 8. They’d be scared to lock…typical river stuff. I figured if I could find something on the other pools, I’d have a better chance of having it to myself.

> “The first day of practice I on 7, I found one good area. I checked a bunch of stuff that normally have ’em that didn’t really have ’em.

> “I went to pool 8 on day 2 and caught fish but the size wasn’t great down there. And a couple areas I really planned on catching ’em I couldn’t get in there. It was a hair too low. So pool 8 I could catch keepers if I needed to, but I was not going to catch the fish I needed to win.

> “Day 3 of practice I went to pool 9…fished a couple spots. We had gotten a bunch of rain and the main part of the pool I wanted to fish was completely blown out – compeltely mud, big tres floating everywhere. So I pulled the pin and…went to pool 7, and that was the day I found the spots I primarily caught my fish on.”

Tournament

> “The 1st day I started in an area which I thought would be one of my main areas. I only caught 1 decent one, then went to what I thought was my best spot. [In practice] I spent 7-8 hours on a flat to find 1 little spot.

> “…just out on a big grass flat…2-3′ with grass up to the surface – it was so hard to fish. …a boat and a half size area….

> “I think shad were there or something, I don’t know [why the fish were in that 1 spot – no depth change or whatever]. I cast at a million things that looked like that for hours and hours. For whatever reason they were there.

> “I started smashing them…had a good bag pretty fast. Once I kinda went through that, I think I might have had 15.5-16 lbs.

> “Those were all on a [TX-rigged] Big Bite Jerk Minnow. Most of them were on that. I did use another one, but but the Jerk Minnow was the best one.

> “I went to [an] area I found late day 3 of practice where I had a couple frog blowups, and ended up catching 3 of my fish there on a  frog – a 4, 3.25 and 3.75. …shallow – the first 2 days it was a foot or less out to 3-4’…different things in each area I keyed on.

> “Day 2 I started out on the schooling fish and 13.5-14 lbs on that Jerk Minnow. Then I went back to that frog area. I think I caught 1 good one over there and then after I had like 15 lbs I went exploring again.

> “Day 1 I went exploring at about noon, just to see if I could get into some areas, and day 2 I did the same thing. I went into some areas and just checked them out, then locked down to pool 8.

> “…got my biggest one down there just flipping a bank. I caught 1 other one flipping that I weighed.

> “Day 3 I started on the schooling fish but the wind was blowing so hard I couldn’t even see where I needed to cast. Then I went to the frog area…caught a couple good ones there. I think I had 13 lbs but it was super tough.

> “That’s common the first day of a cold front down there. It was dead calm all of practice and the first 2 days, then it was blowing straight N and hard.

> “I had some smallmouth down on pool 8…they weren’t big. The day before I went down there just to see what was there and I caught several 2.25-2.5 lbers. I’m like, Well if I get 2 of them, it’ll gain me over a lb.

> “So I went there and caught 2, they were both 2.29, which gave me half a lb each. That was on a ChatterBait – just a current seam.

> “Then I went to 1 other area, which ended up being the area where I caught ’em the last day.I rolled in there and caught 1 3-lb largemouth [flipping] grass.

> “Day 4 was windy but it had diminished a little bit and I was able to get out on the schooling fish and actually fish. I had 1 keeper and that was it.

Frogging wasn’t gonna work so:

> “I went and hunkered in on my other zone [flipping]…fish slow and be thorough and methodical. My first bite was over 4, then the same little weed clump I got a 2.4, another keeper and a short.

> “I kept working through there slow. I got another 3.5 and another 2.5, and had a pretty decent bag pretty quick. I caught all them on the first pass and just stuck in there. KJ Queen [who finished 8th] was close…fishing a little different section.

> “…eventually, once the sun came up, I caught another one that was close to 3 and another that was over 3.5. So I had 3 real good ones – 1 over 4 and 2 over 3.5 – 1 close to 3 and a 2.5-lber. All flipping.”

When he locked back to pool 8:

> “I ran all the way to the bottom of pool 8, fished for 10 minutes and caught a 4.38 and 3.19 to get rid of a 2.6 and 2.4. That brought me from 16.5 to 18.5…ran back to weigh-in.

> “I thought I needed 17 lbs. I knew I had 18-19 so they’d have to catch a good bag. I felt good but not great because if [Caleb Kuphall] catches 16 lbs, he beats me.” [Caleb had 12-13 and lost by 2-12.]

Couple unusual deals

1. Hardly any commercial traffic through the locks = a lot more fishing time and less stress

> “I was locking up to pool 7. I’d been watching the barge traffic all week [on an app] and there wasn’t a lot of barges. That’s good but that’s weird. I was a little nervous because I didn’t know if it was gonna pick up.

> “The barge traffic was very minimal because the next lock up – the pool 6 lock – was getting worked on. I didn’t know that til I talked about it with the guys at the lock. …so not a lot of barge traffic…gave us a lot more time.

> “Most days I ended up locking down by like 1:00 anyways because had a bag and wanted to check stuff on pool 8. There were guys who didn’t lock until an hour before they were going to check in because there was no barge traffic. You could fish 7 hours up there pretty easy in this tournament because there wasn’t a lot of risk.

> “I’ve fished the river for 20 years. I’ve locked through a lot of tournaments. And I’ve never seen it like that. Usually you’re stressing about it – I gotta be back there by this time, a lot of time lockmasters say, ‘Be here by 1:00 or you’re not getting through.’ There was none of that. It was pretty much wide open.

> “The stars aligned for what I wanted to do.”

2. Weather + water level change = local knowledge helped

Used to be a thing called a “home lake curse.” That deal appears to be fading for whatever reason, and for sure it was the opposite for Pat in this one. Why:

> “The river was changing so much. I have a lot of experience in fluctuations of the water levels and cold fronts, and I knew what to do.

> “…the 2nd day of that cold front, you’re not gonna catch them well on a frog when it’s blowing 30 from the N, it’s 20 degrees colder in the morning and the water was dropping too.

> “…in practice [the water] went up 2′, then it started dropping. I know what happens when those conditions come around. And then when that cold front rolled in…I knew that 2nd day [of it] would play into how I wanted to catch them, and I knew the other guys wouldn’t adjust like I would.”

Baits

> Choked out grass flat: 5″ Big Bite Baits Jerk Minnow (glow silver – “it’s translucent whiteish with a lot of silver flake – if you’re trying to imitate a shad it’s the most realistic color in my opinion out of all the brands, it looks so good in the water”), TX-rigged (Texposed at most) on a 5/0 heavy-gauge round bend hook, 50-lb Sunline SX1 Braid, 7′ 3″ H St Croix Victory Rod.

> Frog: SPRO Bronzeye 65 (brown), 50-lb Sunline X1 Braid, 7′ 4″ H St Croix Legend Elite Rod (“I like it for frogging – it has a little longer handle with full cork so it’s comfortable on my side.”

> Flipping: Unnamed creature bait (black), 4/0 straight shank flipping hook, 3/8-1 oz weight, 60-lb Sunline XPlasma Braid, 7′ 11″ H Mod F St Croix Legend Elite Rod.

> Why a moderate rod: “It’s more parabolic. Especially with that heavier weight and that straight shank, you get too stiff a rod you just rip a hole in their mouth. In the St Croix line, that Mod F gives you a little more forgiveness.

> “I cater how I set the hook to that and how I fight ’em – it’s a whole very refined system that I have for flipping bigger weights. If I’m throwing a bigger weight, that rod and that whole system is what I like.”

> The areas he flipped: “Some of it was cut bank, anywhere from 2-4′. Some of it was just flipping grass…coontail and duckweed mixed up, eelgrass clumps – just stuff.

> “A cut bank had to have current and had to be a true cut bank – it had to have an actual undercut. Current is the big factor down there. If there’s not flow on those banks, the fish don’t position right and it’s not as productive generally.”

With the water coming up, he did check some backwaters but the fish weren’t there.

> Current seam smallmouths: 1/2-oz Z-Man JackHammer (white) with a Big Bite Baits Kamikaze Swimon (pearl), 20-lb Sunline Shooter fluoro, 7.3 reel, 7′ 2″ H Mod St Croix composite Legend Tournament Ripping Chatter Rod.

Electronics

> “I never turned [FFS] on, and I turned the pinging off on my 360. I was just using my map for waypoints and my [Minn Kota Ultrex] QUEST for plowing through stuff.

> “I was running Humminbird Apex units – when you’re running, the GPS is really fluid. So when you’re turning it doesn’t stick or get jumpy. So that helped a lot for running around because I’ve got some pretty precise tracks I need to stay on. …night nd day difference from what I had been running previously.”

Shoutouts

> “The pool 7 lock crew was awesome this week. I’ve fished a lot of tournaments and it usually isn’t like that. They went the extra mile to take care of us. A lot of times we’d pull up and they’d already have the gates open…you’d pull up and they’d already have the gate open to go back down.

> “The last morning they brought us all breakfast sandwiches and water. Dude it was unbelievable. They were so cool. I’m gonna try to bring the trophy down there.

> “They were cool guys, they fish too…they were real excited. A lot of times, if you tick those guys off, they don’t have do some of the things do to get you through…. It was awesome. I told them, ‘That’s the best locking experience I’ve ever had in 20 years of fishing down there.'”