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Evan Kung just proved a bass fishing deal we all know: There's nothing better than confidence. He knows the St Lawrence River + Lake Ontario/America real well, and even after a tough season on the Elites he thought he could win. Which he did. Here's how it went down.
Going in and practice
> "I thought if I was gonna have a good tournament or finish in the top 10 – or even keep my career alive and finish in the top 40 – I was going to have do it out on the lake. Because that's just where IU'm used to fishing and catching the big ones at.
> "But the first 2 practice days, when the weather was really bad, I spent my whole time in the river almost fun-fishing around. I ran into a few areas that had some big ones on it. I had like 29 lbs my 2nd practice day in the river, and realized that if we had super-windy day – like the 1st day was gonna be – I could survive 1 day in the river.
> "The last [practice] day I did go out and run around on the lake. But a lot of the stuff I fished in the tournament I didn't even check in practice because I didn't want people seeing what I was on...stuff I've fished in past Canadian tournaments."
Tournament
> "Day 1 [on the river he fished] little humps. There'd be like a big flat and a little hump right near to where it dropped into any sort of channel where it got really deep. I fished about 10 of them day 1 [with a dropshot].
> "...1 fish here/1 fish there, especially for the big ones...usually only one big one per spot [though might be mixed in with a couple 3-4 lbers]. The 5 I weighed came from 5 completely different spots. I fished a bunch of different spots.
> "The way I did my run through the spots took me from close to takeoff almost to the mouth of the lake, to the Canadian side – a long ways away so it hard to fish [his spots more than once].
> "Day 2 I headed right out to the lake, and I sorta just got on a run of boulders I had. Some were closer together, some were father apart.
> "...flats with boulders...a couple of them were...flatter rock with little cracks in it – it almost made a little ledge. ...sort of anything different on the bottom fish would get around.
> "After going through my first little section I was seeing a lot of fish roaming around. So I started trolling between all the boulders even if it was 300' between them. I was catching a lot of fish cruising around.
> "They were a lot easier to catch than any I saw sitting on a boulder, whether they were swimming away or swimming toward me. I think maybe the ones that were roaming maybe were roaming for food.
> "[The fish] right on the boulder maybe had seen so many baits by a boulder. Whatever it was' [the roamers] seemed a lot easier to catch. If I saw one swimming, I'd catch it almost every time.
> "...same dropshot. I had 2 rigged up. One that was a little taller I would throw near the boulders. The one a little shorter I'd throw at the ones just roaming around....
> "The 3rd day I ran out to the lake again to try to fish a lot of the stuff I fished on day 2. It was not happening. It was too sunny and calm. I only caught 2 4-lbers.
> "I checked one shallower spot I had to see if any moved up. In half an hour, I had 2 6.75s and one just over 5. I didn't cull any fish after that. I had a a 4.3 and a 4-lber...those 2 really big ones carried the whole day.
> "I caught them with the dropshot. I threw the [GLF] spy bait around a lot [as a search bait]. A lot of weeds and stuff were along the bottom, and I drew them up with the spy bait to see where they were [then he threw the dropshot at 'em]. Unless I pulled them off the bottom, they were hard to see.
> "It was on the main lake, about 8-12' – like a big point, but it's so big it set up kinda like a flat. I was on the very top of it. It had a lot of grass, some open areas with sand, and little boulders mixed in...everything they wanted.
> "The last day I struggled a lot with trying to figure out if I should run to the lake or stay in the river. It was blowing pretty hard in the morning. I decided to stay in the river.
> "I went to one island and caught 22 lbs pretty quickly, then went looking for big ones in the river. I pulled into one spot I hadn't fished the whole week and caught a 4.5, a 5.25 and a 5.75. Then I realized I had a chance to win if I could get 1-2 big ones.
> "I ran out to the lake for 2 hours and 2 bites – both were small. So I came back to the same [river] spot where I caught the other 3, and caught a 6.15..culled a 4.5."
Baits
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