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Did Jared use FFS? Or sin in some other way? 😁 Let's find out!
1. When did you think you had a shot at winning this one?
> "Man about mid-day on day 2 when I caught my second big one and I'm like, Dude this pattern that I've found is getting better, not going away.
> "The end of day 2, the last hour and a half I shook off fish to save them for the next day. I didn't think I was going to win...as long as nothing crazy happens I have a legit shot at it."
2. Did you ever figure why those docks in particular were good?
> "Over the course of practice we fished a ton of water [his son was a co-angler] to only find 1-2 docks in a whole general area where we even had a bite, whether it was a keeper on not. Okay why are there fish on those 2 docks and not on any other ones?
> "I looked at the contours on my Garmin. A lot of it was point-related. It was very strange...either the furthest dock that hung out over the deepest water, or the shallowest dock over the shallowest, skinniest water. That's kind of what I ran.
> "...couple stretches were productive...2 docks I caught fish on every day. The rest of it was brand new water. The 2nd and 3rd day I fished 80% new water.
> "Just looking at my Garmin...in this zone that dock across the way looks like it might be a good one, and I'd either catch one or I didn't.
> "...junk fishing – I wouldn't say that because I was looking for specific things and did have a rotation of baits. I had a swim-jig, a ChatterBait and a flipping jig, and that was it."
3. Gotta ask – did you use FFS at all?
> "...I did not. However...I was telling Cal who I was rooming with...I said, 'Dude zoom in on your graph'...another brand. The docks on his unit looked nothing like they did on my unit [meaning his Garmin was much more detailed]....
> "[Garmin] mapping was highly, highly detailed. I attribute a lot of my fish catches to that. With 75,000 registered docks on Lake of the Ozarks, having that good mapping [was key].
> "In practice of course I scanned around, looking out there [with FFS] – there was bait and fish every direction you looked. Everywhere. It was too overwhelming – it was blowing my mind. I wouldn't even know what to throw."
4. Fishing docks for you guys isn't just rolling up there and skipping something or whatever. Can you give us a finer point or 2 about dock-fishing?
> "At Clear Lake [CA] many years ago, like when I was in my late teens, I learned that the deal with a boat dock is – I would say this is more important than anything else – the angle, your presentation, has to be right. It has to have the right angle pretty much your first cast.
> "If you know it's a high-percentage dock, you better have the right angle on your first cast. If there's a big one there, the odds of him biting after making multiple casts goes way down. The angle of your cast and retrieve is way more important than shade or anything else.
> "This week every fish that mattered I'd pull up to a brand new dock and catch it on the very first cast.
> "If I was throwing a swimbait or a ChatterBait, I didn't want to fish the bait too slow. I felt like I had to make those fish react. If they got too good of a look at it, they wouldn't bite it. I was not throwing it out there, letting the bait fall to the bottom, and then a slow retrieve.
> "Different lakes...all kinds of different retrieves...the angler, time of year, the situation...figure out the retrieve."
5. Why didn't you use the 'milkman'-color jig?? 😁 [That's his nickname – because he used to be one!]
> "Man you know so my son did in practice and he caught a nice one behind me, but then he really didn't catch many more keeper-size fish. ...I wanted more of a natural gp old-school brown color, not a real dark color [like the 'milkman' color].
> "But trust me...I sent [Randall Tharp] that color skirt that I had for many years. I've won a lot of money on that color, and it will get fished – soon. That color right there dude [below right] – I don't know how many bass I've caught on that thing."
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