Lugar saw Dardanelle for the first time on a 2-day pre-practice trip in September. "That helped me, but that's not when I found the fish that I caught during the tournament," he said. "I learned to navigate the water and I got a feel for the lake as far as what it had to offer for places that could hold fish - grass vs. wood vs. offshore stuff. But how I caught then in September was not how I caught them in October." Last month, the fish were stacked up on docks and shoreline grass and were easily enticed by reaction baits. By last week, when the 56 competitors got on the water for the 2 days of official practice, many had moved out into the colonies of coontail grass, where big populations of baitfish were feeding on insects. Not just any coontail would do, however. "Some of it had this black slime or moss in it or on it and it had a very pungent odor. In those places, even if the bait was there, the bass were not in there. "I was able to find some other areas that had clean coontail in the bigger bays (Dardanelle and Delaware). If they didn't have that moss or slime, and they had baitfish, the bass would be in there with them." Moving baits were still the ticket, but they had to be fished more deliberately than before.
Competition:
Lugar caught his biggest sack of the tournament on day 1 to put himself just a pound off the pace set by Louisiana's Ryan Levigne. He compiled it despite getting only six keeper bites on the day - all on a spinnerbait. "I had two that were right at 4 pounds each," he said. "I didn't catch anything real big, but they were solid. I had a little flurry in the morning, and then I changed areas in the afternoon and caught one good one." A stiff wind changed a lot of things on day 2. His starting spot produced just one fish albeit a 4-pounder and the locale he'd come to consider his primary area gave up a 2 1/2. Both places had been muddied up by the wind. He added another 4 and a barely legal keeper at his third stop (like the previous two fish he'd caught that day, they bit a ChatterBait). Even with the short bag, he concluded the day right where he'd started it in the standings in 2nd place, just 15 ounces off the lead. Day 3 was the only day that featured significant cloud cover. He expected the action to pick up under those conditions, but he had to resort to a shaky-head to catch a single keeper from his starting spot, and his primary locale was good for only one non-keeper. He expanded farther out into the coontail colony and found more clean grass, and when a fish busted the surface nearby, he threw the ChatterBait to the spot, but got no response. He tossed the spinnerbait out there and slow-rolled it, and caught a 2 1/2. After 20 minutes of plying that tactic over a 65-yard stretch, he had a limit and had begun culling. He made a couple more improvements within the hour, then went to a place that had given up a 4 on each of the 2 previous days. He picked up a 3 1/2 there that finished off his sack.
Winning Gear:
Spinnerbait gear: 6'6" medium-heavy G. Loomis IMX 783 rod, Lew's Tournament Pro casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 20-pound Berkley Trilene Big Game monofilament line, 3/8-ounce War Eagle Extreme Trokar spinnerbait (chartreuse/white with silver and gold willow-leaf blades).
ChatterBait gear: 6'8" medium-action G. Loomis Topwater Series rod, same reel, 17-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon line, 1/2-ounce Z-Man Original ChatterBait (white with silver blade), Zoom Split Tail (blue glimmer) or Zoom Swimming Fluke Jr. (disco green) trailer.
Main factor: "I guess it would be figuring out what the fish were relating to and figuring out the presentations to get them to bite. Other guys were fishing the grass, but a lot of them were fishing all the grass whether it had the slime or not. I focused only on the clean coontail and I slow-rolled the bait because the fish didn't want it fast you almost had to tickle it through there to get bit. I didn't catch a ton of fish, but by being patient and fishing as thoroughly as I could, I was getting the right bites."
Performance edge: "It might be crazy to say this, but I think the HydroWave really helped. I ran it all 3 days in that grass and it seemed like the shad were always active around me."
BASS Nation Championship Winning Pattern Bassfan 10/29/13 (John Johnson)