How Patrick Walters won the NPFL Championship at Smith Lake, AL

Patrick is the first dude to win a regular-season NPFL tournament, NPFL AOY and the NPFL Championship – not bad! He’s also won at big-fish and small-fish lakes, with and without FFS. So I guess you would call him…a real dang good fisherman. 😁 Here’s how he got ‘er done this time – in a no-FFS tourney.

Going in and practice

> “It was an extremely warm week, 70s every day. When we showed up the night before the 1st day of practice, we were wearing T-shirts. Then within 20 minutes of being there, a cold front start hitting and it was down in the 30s that night.

> “The 1st morning of practice it’s 20-something degrees. It’s cold and the water temp was already 58. The fish actually bit really good…. I was catching them jerkbaiting, on a jig, a ChatterBait – it didn’t matter. The fish were biting.

> “The next day the high was like 32. It was cold, but it only knocked the water temperature down to 55. It didn’t shock it as much as we expected it to. We still caught plenty of fish.

> “You could catch 15 lbs…not easy…okay my goal is 15 a day. At Smith that’s a good bag.”

Tournament

> “[In practice] the fishing was surprisingly good even though there was a cold front [it was sunny]. The 1st day of the tournament it was overcast, cloudy, rainy, no sun. …that morning it was already 60 degrees…I thought, They will absolutely chew. I thought I’d catch them on a spinnerbait, ChatterBait, topwater…glide bait….

> “In practice, if you fished anything, you got a bite. I go out there and don’t get a bite on my first spot. …let me just fish around on down the bank…nothing….

> “I fished some docks – I didn’t catch a fish. I was running around fishing stuff and was like, Wow I’m actually kind of struggling.

> “…I checked an area and caught a few fish, but they were smaller. I was having a hard time catching 15-inchers. So I kind of pulled the plug on everything and went to fish deep.

> “I wanted to fish shallow. Every bite I thought I could get over 3 lbs would’ve been shallow. I thought I would top out at 12 lbs fishing off the bank. [But] I had to go deep and catch me some fish, and I think I caught the majority of my weight deep that 1st day.

> “I could catch ’em on 2D sonar…drop on ’em.

> “I figured it’s a championship, it’s not a season tournament, so I gotta leave this. If it was a normal tournament I would have culled up and tried to get to 12 lbs. But I [went back to] running shallow to catch a 3- or 4-lber [but] with no sun I couldn’t do it.

> “At the end of that day I ran back to the boat landing…little shallow rockpile. I catch like 6 in a row, 1 of them culls. I lost 1 on a jerkbait – a big one. It pulled off. I thought I’d just start on that fish, that spot, in the morning and just go from there.

> “It rained cats and dogs that night…it was unbelievable. We get out there the 2nd day and it’s warming up. There’s logs floating on the boat ramp…you could see bottles floating past the boat ramp at like 1 mph. I was like, We’re not going to catch a bass today.

> “…I head to my spot and there’s a mudline directly on my shallow rockpile. …my first cast down the rockpile l hook a 5-02. I thought it was a catfish.

> “I throw in there again…and catch a 3-lb spot. That would’ve been my biggest fish [day 1]. …I’ve got a chance now. I stayed on that spot for 10 minutes and never caught another fish.

> “I had been casting down a mudline, but once I caught those 2, the mud had moved over the top of that spot. I thought, I’ve got go up to this shallow bank…clean water.

> “…pitch [a jig] to a piece of wood and catch a big 3. Down the bank a little ways I catch a 3+ on a crankbait. For the next hour I proceed to catch ’em on that jig and a ChatterBait…I had like 18 lbs.

> “I caught another 5 [and] got to 20-something lbs. I thought, This is unbelievable. It was only like a 100-yard stretch – I went down it once, and back. That was it.

> “I didn’t think I could cull from there [so] let’s run down the lake and see if we can pre-fish for tomorrow. Find some waterfalls, some trash mats….

> “…shallow docks, some laydowns…but never caught any big ones…2-lbers.

> “I fished some deep docks and caught a 4.5-lb spot [on a shakey head] which culled out 1 of the 3-lbers. I thought, Let’s save this for tomorrow. I found another area I shook a couple off on, a little current seam.

> “The next day we had an east wind…I knew it would be tougher. Turns out the water was back-flowing and was starting to clean up too. I went to my starting area. I caught 1 15-inch fish and never had another bite in there. They were gone.

> “…I ran up the river a little ways, and it’s already clearing up. The water was completely still and was cleaning up…backflowing – it was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.

> “You know that whatever you did the day before ain’t gonna work. It’s gonna change…it’s Smith Lake. [Day 2] was a gift.

> “I ran to another pocket…clean water…slowed down…pitching a jig to some wood. I filled my limit out and went back to the boat landing. I caught 2 decent spots on a crankbait. Now we’re getting somewhere…nickel and diming.

> “…I gotta go back to that pocket…the last pocket getting clean water. …I finally get one on a wacky worm…super-shallow. A 3-lber, my biggest fish of the day. It was the only one I caught in there.

> “I ran down the lake, fishing shallow docks, fishing deep docks – I culled 2-3 times on a shakey head. I ended up getting to 12 lbs but it was a grinder.”

Baits

> 1/2-oz Z-Man Chatterbait Elite EVO (white) with a Zoom Shimmer Shad (toxic shad), 20-lb Sunline Sniper fluoro, Daiwa Tatula Elite Reel (7.1), 7′ 4″ H discontinued Daiwa Tatula Bass glass rod.

> Why that ChatterBait version: “I like the EVO better for some reason. I think I can get it to run truer sometimes. I love the JackHammer, but [the EVO] is an all-around good ChatterBait, I like the the colors, and I think it has a good hook and bait-keeper.”

> 3/8-oz Pulse Fish HD Jig (summer craw) with a Zoom Big Salty Chunk (gp), 20-lb Sunline Shooter fluoro, Daiwa Tatula SV TW 150 Reel (8:1), 7′ 1″ H Daiwa Tatula Elite Skipping Rod.

> Zoom Swamp Crawler (gp) on 1/4-oz (1st day) and 1/8-oz (2nd and 3rd days) Gamakatsu Ball Head Shakey Heads, 10-lb Sunline braid to 10-lb Sunline V-Hard Fluoro Leader, Daiwa Tatula Elite MQ LT Spin Reel (4000), 7′ 1″ M Daiwa Tatula Elite Cory Johnston Ned Rig Rod.

He also fished “a variety of different crankbaits.”

> Why BaitFuel: “Every bait was super-charged with BaitFuel. Mainly it was on the jig and the shakey head… The new Fuse Gel is stickier than the normal BaitFuel. I use [the original BaitFuel] for marinating in bags. This [gel] is sticky on baits and lasts a little bit longer.

> “I use it when I skip a dock and when I throw into a brushpile…about every single time. I’m only gonna throw in there 1 time and don’t have Scope, so you have to believe [the fish is] there. I’m gonna throw in there and make it count. That’s why I use it.”

> Why gp in the dirty water: “That lake has 10′ of visibility [typically] and where I was fishing was 5′ visibility. [In practice] I was throwing [a gp jig]…and it was the hardest jig bites I ever had in my life. …set the hook and it’d be in their crushers. Ain’t no need to change.

> “I wanted to try b/b. [He did] on day 3 and I never caught a bass on it. So I was gonna change, but dude they were gagging it, why would I change?

> “My belief was it was rolling mud. You could see clouds of it, but I don’t believe it was super dirty on the bottom yet.”

Electronics

He said Humminbird MEGA 360 was key, along with PowerHouse Lithium batteries and shouted out Sonar Pros for making it all work optimally.

In this tourney he replaced the Garmin 16 (for Scope) and Humminbird Helix 12 he has for the Elites with a Helix 15 (for 360) and Lowrance 10.

Shoutouts

> “Shoutout to Pulse Fish for the jig, to BaitFuel, Z-Man for the ChatterBait, Sonar Pros’ dedicated power harness – everybody that makes it count.”