Here you go, short and to the point, pics of the actual baits used from the guys themselves:
2nd: Skeet Reese
Skeet fished (L to R): a Berkley Havoc Pit Boss (gp) on a 5/0 Lazer TroKar flipping hook with a 1/4-oz tungsten weight; a Lucky Craft squarebill on one of his glass rods; and a 6″ Berkley PowerBait Hollow Belly and a 5/0 Lazer TroKar 1/4-oz weighted swimbait hook.
3rd: Chris Zaldain
Zaldain was in the running to win and ended up 3rd. He and 2nd-placer Skeeter Reese were fishing swimbaits, and Tharp and 4th Matty Herren were flippin’. Here’s his bait and pattern:
> I fished a 6″ Megabass Magdraft Swimbait in white black shad. Fished it on 15-lb Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon, which helped get it down to 4-6 ft.
> The key to my swimbait bite on Norfork was targeting 3 things in Bennett’s Bayou, in this order:
1. Channel-swing banks that looked like bluffs from far, but actually flattened out along the bank.
2. Algae growing on the rocks — held baitfish and limited lure selection, swimbait was best.
3. Shade.
> I would troll along the channel swings with the side of my boat no further than 5 ft off the rocks, casting parallel to the bank and sometimes uphill. Slow, steady retrieve, and I would see just about every fish swim out of the shade and smoke that swimbait.
> I ran new channel swings each day chasing shade, and noticed that the closer I worked towards the main lake, the bigger the bites got. I missed several 4-lbers that would have really helped.
> It was a dream scenario being in contention to win on the final day, knowing I had a shot at a huge bag if I stuck with the swimbait all day. Reminded me of the tournaments I used to fish back in CA.
4th: Matt Herren
Herren fished two baits:
– A 3/8-oz Santone M Series Jig (river bream) with a root beer chunk fished in bushes on Bull and steep channel-swing banks on Norfork.
– Reaction Innovations Pocket Rockets fished wacky in flat pockets.