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Alton Jones Jr. Wins Red River Central Open

Alton Jones Jr. gave himself a day to get over it. Following a 3rd-place finish at the Lake Champlain Northern Open that left him one point - ONE! - away from clinching an invitation to join his father as a Bassmaster Elite Series angler in 2017, the 24-year-old Jones knew he needed to move past the disappointment quickly. He faced a 27-hour drive from Plattsburgh, N.Y., to Shreveport, La., site of the Red River Central Open last week. Jones used that time to vent, wallow and get all of the frustration out of his system. Friends and family texted him, saying it was okay to be disappointed, but to use it as motivation for the next one. When he launched his boat at the Red River, Champlain was a distant memory. He struggled in practice, but eventually settled on a flipping and cranking program and got a helpful tip from roommate Sam George on day 2 that helped spur him to the ultimate bounce-back performance.

Faced with a set of unique and challenging conditions, Jones averaged just under 12 pounds per day to post his first B.A.S.S. victory and (provisionally) clinch a berth in next year's Bassmaster Classic where he'll join father Alton Jones Sr. in the field at Lake Conroe, not a bad consolation prize considering the depth of his disappointment a week prior. "It's definitely been a roller coaster of highs and lows," Jones said. "I went into Champlain knowing I needed a top-12 to get into the Elite Series. It turned out I needed a top-2. The right guys caught 'em. Going into the final day, I knew I was around the winning fish. I just couldn't execute. I had the bites to have 22 pounds. To watch that Elite Series hit you in the face like a jerkbait was hard. "It was a rough time emotionally to come so close to a lifelong goal, then to fall short by one point," he said. "I'd caught the fish to do it, but I had two dead fish on day 1 at the [first Northern Open] James River. That cost me eight ounces and one ounce would've done it. "During that 27-hour drive, I had my sad time. People said it was okay to be sad, but that it needed to fuel me and that I needed to treat it like a speed bump and accelerate off the back side of it." He'd finished 15th in the first Central Open at the Arkansas River so his mindset going to the Red was all about points. He wanted to stay near the top of the standings so he had another shot to make the Elite Series through the Centrals. "Winning was not on my mind," he said. There might not be two more dissimilar fisheries in America than Champlain and the Red River, yet Jones was able to finish 3rd at one, then win at the other in consecutive weeks, a credit to the aspiring pro's versatility. Just four of the 12 finalists registered a limit all three days. Jones was not one of them, but the tournament-best 5-15 kicker he caught on day 2 helped him take over the tournament lead that he never relinquished.

After his marathon journey from the Adirondacks, Jones was hoping to find the Red River in prime fishing shape. He'd figured with the flooding that's taken place there in recent months, the stage would be set for a good tournament. Instead, he found the main river to be cleaner than the backwaters - an oddity - and the quantity of fish well below his expectations. "Typically, when there's flooding the fish get fat, mean and angry," he said. "The flooding has taken a huge toll. I was optimistic coming in. The river hasn't been touched for two years and I was hoping the lack of pressure would be good for us. I'm not sure if a bunch of fish swam into some of the oxbow lakes and didn't come back when the water came down, but I feel like the population of fish there is hurting right now. Something's just not right. The fish were very skinny." Practice was largely a struggle for him until the final day when he went through the backwater area adjacent to the Red River South Marina, site of the tournament takeoff. It's also the same area that produced key fish for Skeet Reese when he won the 200x Classic there and for Randall Tharp when he won the 2013 Forrest Wood Cup. He also had some bites on the main river not far from takeoff as well. The backwaters, to his surprise, were not productive at all. "I spent lot of practice in there, but they're very dirty," he said. "The main river is clean, but the backwaters are red, sandy and silty. I don't know why that is. It's nasty looking back in some of those backwaters. Something happened with that flood. The Red River is definitely struggling right now."

Competition:

Jones spent the first three hours on day 1 in the backwater pond near the ramp and came out with zero fish. "I went out to the main river after that to where I'd had two nice bites in practice," he said. "I caught a few key fish, but it was clear to me that I wasn't going to catch a limit doing one thing or off of one stretch." He moved to some new water and caught three by concentrating on current breaks. "Even though there wasn't much current, it put enough fish in position to be caught," he said. "I tried to hit as many high-percentage places as I could in a day." His 10-11 stringer was the ultimate junk-fishing bag, he said, but it was good enough for sixth place. He caught two keepers on a balsa square-bill crankbait, two more flipping a creature bait and his fifth dragging a creature bait on a wobble-head jig. He tried to recycle water on day 2, but it was evident early on that that strategy wasn't going to work. He was, however, able to get on a stretch of water near discharge pipe that was crowded with boats every time he went by it on Thursday. That's where he caught the 5-15 flipping a Missile Baits D-Bomb. "That was a blessing of a fish," he said. "I must've seen 100 boats fish that spot and I couldn't fish it on day 1. I ran by it on day 2 and there was an absolute giant sitting there." It was the anchor to his four-fish bag and accounted for more than half of his 11-05, which moved him into the lead. He also got a big assist on the water from close friend and rooommate George, who clued Jones in on a finesse pattern that George might hold up through Saturday if Jones made it to the final day.

"He ran by right after I caught that big one and asked if I had a dropshot rod," Jones said. "I said, 'No, it's the Red River. I don't even have a spinning rod in the boat.' He threw me his dropshot rod and a bag of worms and I wound up catching my fourth keeper that way." Jones was impressed with George's generosity in the heat of competition. "It was really incredible that he'd do that for me," he said. "He knew he was out of it. The fact that he would root for me like that and give me his rod and reel and say, 'Go win this thing,' speaks to his character and our friendship. I'd so the same thing for him any day." On the final day, Jones returned to the area George had suggested. His co-angler had caught a couple fish there at the end of day 2 so he figured it might hold a group of fish. It was an outside current bend and it continued to produce as Jones thinks he was catching retreads that had been released. "A majority of the fish had cull holes in their mouths," he said. "It was one place I could go back through and catch fish consistently." His final-day bag included two caught on a dropshot, one on the square-bill and two flipping the D-Bomb. His 13-14 stringer was his best of the week and helped him beat Louisiana angler Todd Murray by more than 3 1/2 pounds.

Winning Pattern:

While there wasn't much current to speak of, Jones found most of the fish he caught were holding in places where the water was moving at least somewhat. "When we have hard current, fish like to get in eddys, but there wasn't much current," he said. "So I targeted places that the current hit the hardest. It was almost like fishing for spotted bass. If I was on an outside bend or even the smallest point where the current would accelerate around the corner, there'd be a fish more often than not. Also, isolated pieces of wood were big. I'd fish a whole stretch of bank and see a piece of wood 100 yards ahead and I'd know there's almost always be a fish there." He caught a number of fish out of 6 to 8 feet of water, which is considered deep for the Red River.

Winning Gear:

Square-bill gear: 7' medium-action Kistler Carbon Steel crankbait rod, Abu Garcia Revo SX casting reel, 17-pound Silver Thread fluorocarbon line, custom balsa square-bill crankbait (chartreuse/black). Jones upsized the rear treble on the plug to a #2 Mustad. He had a red hook on the front, but every fish he caught cranking was on the back hook. "You could tell these were pressured fish because they were all skin hooked," he said.

Flipping gear: 7'1" heavy-action Kistler Argon casting rod, same reel, 65-pound PowerPro braided line, 25-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon line (leader), 1/4-oz. unnamed tungsten worm weight, 3/0 Gambler KO flipping hook, Missile Baits D-Bomb (California love). Jones favored the California love version of the D-Bomb because of the amount of red flake it has. "It's a unique color because it has so much red in it," he added. He also noted several anglers were using heavier weights on their soft plastics, but he opted to go lighter. "A lot of fish were suspended on the back sides of stumps and I felt like the lighter weight allowed the bait to stay in the current longer and allowed it to look more natural."

Main factor: "Definitely working hard and keeping a level head. I was down after missing the opportunity at Champlain. My fiance wrote me a letter that said God's timing is always perfect. The only reason I won that event was it was God's timing."

Performance edge: "My Skeeter and Yamaha were huge. I put a ton of miles in during practice. We put these things through the test. The Red River is as nasty as any of them and they held up."

Red River Winning Pattern BassFan 10/04/16 (Todd Ceisner)

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