Elite rookie Jamie Hartman had 3 patterns going at the Toledo Bend Bassmaster Elite: a Carolina rig, and jigs.
Carolina rig
> He had 4 different C-rig baits: a Zoom Fluke (watermelon red), a Zoom Brush Hog (gp blue), a Riot Baits Relic (skirted grub in “slayer” = half gp and half junebug), and a Zoom Magnum Trick Worm (gp candy and watermelon candy). “I was just rotating through them.”
> Weights varied: “If it was shallow I went with 1/2-oz. In 8-15′ I used 3/4-oz. And deep it was 1-oz.”
> Fished on extended main-lake points, and secondary points in creeks that had a little grass.
> “I worked everything really slow…dragging it in the grass. A lot of people fish C-rigs pretty quick but I slow it down.”
> 7′ 3″ and 7′ 6″ MH Cashion rods with 20-lb Hi Seas fluoro mainline and 15-lb Hi Seas fluoro leader.
Jigs
> Custom-made 1/2-oz football jig (watermelon candy) with a Strike King Rage Craw (watermelon red), on 20-lb Hi Seas fluoro.
> 1/2-oz Riot Baits Minima finesse jig (PB&J) with a Yamamoto Double Tail Grub (gp) on 15-lb Hi Seas fluoro.
> Fished the jigs “in hard spots and around timber.”
Dropshot
> 6″ Roboworm (morning dawn), TX-rigged, with an i1Baits prototype Loudmouth Rattle Weight, which is a glass rattle molded into the lead dropshot weight itself. “Every time you shake it you can hear it clicking.” Not available yet, but he thinks that got him dropshot bites where others didn’t.
> “I was constantly shaking it out deep [35-32′]. A high spot or tips of long points….”
> You’d get a lot of small fish, then a good one. The dropshot was key for me.”
> 7′ 3″ medium Cashion spinning rod, 15-lb Hi Seas Braid, 12-lb Hi Seas fluoro leader.
More
> “It was a slow grind for me — 3′ to 32′, flip-flopping all day long. I’d pick off a fish here or there.
> “I tried to find grass on offshore on points or flats that would hold some fish. That’s what I keyed on, what I call ‘tickle grass.’ It’s like 4-5″ high.”
> He also bed-fished a little with a prototype Riot Baits Little Fuzzy (pictured) in gp.
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