FLW Ft. Loudoun/Tellico Lakes Baits, Gear & Patterns

Glenn Browne, a Florida pro, didn't pre-practice, but he did have the experience of two previous Tour stops here. He therefore "had a pretty good idea of how it laid out and how it fished."

Browne blasted off and started on his lower lake locations. His goal was to catch a few in the morning "and get things rolling." He caught a 4-pound dock-fish on a Gambler Big Easy swimbait and by 8:00 he had three keeper largemouths. Shortly after, he landed another 3-pound swimbait fish from a floating dock.

Browne again started day 2 in some lower lake pockets, but caught only one keeper. He then ran upriver with one fish and when he reached his backwater, "they were chewing," he said. "I caught one on absolutely every big laydown I pulled up to. I think I caught 10 or 11 keepers in there, and I ended up culling a few just outside of there." He only made one pass through his primary area, and spent the rest of the day flipping in different parts of the river. He said he caught three limits en route to a final weight of 16-15 and 2nd place.

The bite turned tougher for nearly the whole field on day 3. That's when the bedding smallmouths finally petered out, and Browne noted his largemouths weren't chewing. As well, he had company for the first time in his primary area and couldn't fish it effectively.

He headed straight there in the morning - no lower lake stops - and started on a bank where he saw some shad spawning the day before. "It was a riprap bank with a boat ramp along a park that I hadn't even fished yet," he said. "I caught a keeper on a spinnerbait, and then another close to 4 pounds. Then I picked up the flipping stick and right off the bat caught another 3 1/2 or 4-pounder. So I had three keepers in the first 45 minutes. I caught one more in there, and then had to scramble to catch my fifth. I only caught five keepers the whole day."

Browne didn't mess around the final morning - he headed straight for his primary area and started flipping. "The first fish I caught was a 3 1/2 about an hour into the morning," he said. "Probably 5 minutes after that I caught a small one and 15 minutes after that I caught another 3-pounder. Just a few minutes after that I caught my fourth one, then had to work around." He eventually added his fifth fish and that was it - game over.

Swimbait gear: 7'3" Abu Garcia Vendetta rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier casting reel, 6/0 1/8-ounce Davis Swim X hook, 30-pound Spiderwire Ultracast braid, Gambler Big EZ (white).

Flipping gear: 7'6" heavy-action Fenwick Elite Tech Flippin' Stick, Abu Garcia Revo STX (left-handed), 20-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, Gambler 4" tube (black-neon/chartreuse).

He started out with a 5/0 Gamakatsu Superline EWG hook, but ran out. "I went out that night and the only ones I could find were the new Trokars - the 5/0 MagWorm," he noted. "I put one on and those hooks are absolutely unbelievable. You'd hook that fish way back in the jaw and normally you'd be able to pop the hook out, but I needed pliers. That barb was so far in you owned him. I'm going to start using them more. I hate to pay the price, but if they put fish in the boat like that, I've got to."

Main Factor: "I had a lot of confidence in the area. Once I got in there the first day and fished, I knew there were a lot of fish there and it seemed like they kept coming."

Performance Edge: "I'd have to say that Gambler tube and the line. I've been fishing that tube for I don't know how long. It's accounted for a lot of the checks I've cut. Whenever I go out of state, it's my go-to bait. A lot of people don't like to use a tube because the hookup ratio's a little tougher, just because you have to go through a lot of plastic, but man, I catch so many fish on it. I love fishing it."

Ft. Loudoun-Tellico Winning Pattern April 27, 2010. Bassfan (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3593).

Considering his smallmouth program basically ran dry after day two, pro Chad Grigsby did an admirable job staying near the top of the leaderboard.

"For my smallmouths, you had to have pea-gravel points," he noted. "They were out on the main river or just off it. There were guys looking for beds in the backs of pockets, but I stayed out in the main river and looked at anything that was gradual (in taper) with pea gravel and chunk rock. And the water had to be cleaner."

"I worked that one for about 10 minutes, and then I fished the entire pocket," he said. "On the way out I came back to it, and it bit on the first cast. That's probably the biggest one I've ever caught on the Tennessee River. It feels really good because I lost that fish on day two."

When he started junking, he hit likely areas - small pockets, points leading into pockets, laydowns on points, the ends of bluff walls. He threw a Secret Lures jig (black/blue) and a Venom Hollow Hog (green-pumpkin/candy).

Bed-fishing gear: 7' medium-action All Star rod, Abu Garcia Soron spinning reel, Berkley FireLine main line, 8-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon leader.

His primary bed-fishing bait was a 5" Berkley Power Shaky Worm on an 1/8-ounce Bite Me Shakey Head jig. If a fish was "really tough to catch" he'd dropshot a Berkley Gulp! Minnow.

While Grigsby also fished Loudoun, he was only 15 miles from the Tellico Recreational Area Ramp. The drop-shot only had 5 or 6 inches of line attached so that the bait would come right across the fish's head as it sat on the nest. Rarely did Grigsby have enough visibility to actually see the fish. Instead, he looked for a dark spot. That task was made easier with the bright sunshine experienced early in the week.

Main factor: "Patience. The second day, when I had 18-01, I didn't have anything at 1:00. But I knew I was around them. A lot of guys would have just given up."

Performance edge: My Costa Del Mar sunglasses. They were spawning so deep that guys would go right over the top of them. I'm not saying my glasses were that much better, but without a doubt, there's no way I could have seen them without glasses."

Ft. Loudoun-Tellico Patterns 2-5 April 28, 2010. Bassfan (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3594).

Thrift found some bedding smallmouths the final day of practice and decided to start the event on those instead of his largemouths. He rode those smallmouths for 2 1/2 days, but threw a frog the entire final day and caught up to 40 fish, but never got a quality bite.

About his bed-fish pattern, he said: "I was fishing on Tellico. The smallmouths all tended to be toward the mouths of the pockets - definitely closer to the main lake. Many of them were on gravel bottoms, but I actually found one the third day spawning on a boat ramp. But there really wasn't a rhyme or reason. Some were on gravel, some were in trees, some were on stumps. The only thing that seemed to be consistent was when you found one, you'd usually find one or two more within 100 yards or so."

He ran the backs of creeks and pockets with the frog and targeted docks and laydowns and other such cover. "The bite was surprisingly strong for me the last day," he noted. "I probably got 40 bites on the frog, but never got a good bite. I had one 2-pounder jump me off, but I just wasn't around the quality I thought I was."

Bed-fishing gear: 7'2" medium-heavy unnamed rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX HS (7:1), 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 3/8-ounce Evercast Lures football-head jig (green-pumpkin), Damiki Hydra (green-pumpkin).

The Hydra looks like a tube, but has little balls on the ends of its tentacles. "When it's sitting still, the tentacles keep waving around," he said. "It's a really neat bait, and it works really well for bed-fishing."

Frog gear: 7' medium-heavy unnamed rod, same reel, 20-pound Berkley Trilene Big Game (clear), Spro BronzEye Jr. (natural red).

He caught one smallmouth on a California Swimbabes Tiny E swimbait in osprey.

Main factor: "I guess it was patience, because my practice was so frustrating the first 2 days. I didn't get on much of anything, and then the third day at like 10:00 I started going down some banks and saw some smallmouths. That gave me a starting place."

Performance edge: "Probably my Costa Del Mar sunglasses for being able to see the smallmouths deeper. Most of them were bedding in the 4- to 5-foot range. The water was more off-color this year and after 10:00 you could hardly see anything."

Ft. Loudoun-Tellico Patterns 2-5 April 28, 2010. Bassfan (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3594).

Baumgardner's pattern was different than the rest of the Top 5 patterns, in that he targeted a largemouth spawning area and fished blindly with a trick worm. He also flipped a little bit. When he worked through all those fish, he switched to a shad-spawn bite with a wakebait - a famous and well-known pattern at Lou-Tel, and one Mark Davis used to win at the venue back in 2007.

About his trick-worm pattern, he said: "I was just casting it where I thought there might be fish spawning or laying - any wood I saw, but the fish were mainly on natural rock. I had some main-lake pockets and some pockets in a creek."

About his shad-spawn pattern, he said: "That was mostly natural rock too, and it was in the same areas, but more out toward the mouth of the pockets and the points leading in. I was throwing up into 3 or 4 feet (of water)."

Worm gear: 7'3" American Rodsmiths Denny Brauer Swimbait rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX, 17-pound Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 4/0 straight-shank hook, Zoom Magnum Trick worm (black).

Wakebait gear: 6'9" medium-action American Rodsmiths Soft Plastics rod, same reel, 14-pound Berkley Trilene Sensation, Brian's Bees Long Wake (black with chartreuse on back).

Main factor: "I think the main factor was I found a little area that I had some confidence in. In practice I just fished it real hard and located the fish in the area of maybe a 5-mile stretch of the lake. I was able to fish little bits of it one day, little bits the next day, and just kind of rotate through it. Then, switching to the wakebait was key, because they weren't replenishing and I needed something else."

Performance edge: "I think it was that Zoom Trick worm. In practice, I could see them come up and then I could take it away from them. That's how I found the areas where the fish were spawning."

Ft. Loudoun-Tellico Patterns 2-5 April 28, 2010. Bassfan (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3594).

Local pro Brandon Coulter relied primarily on bed-fishing and topwater for his bites, although he did catch a big largemouth off a dock on a ChatterBait-style lure.

He sight-fished for both largemouths and smallmouths with plastics. For topwater, he threw a vintage Rebel P70 Pop-R, because if he tried to pitch plastics up shallow for fish that weren't locked on, he'd spook them.

"They were up there trying to spawn, but they just weren't comfortable because the lake was low and they were in a foot of water," he noted. "If I could roll that Pop-R up there right on top of their heads and twitch it one or two times, they'd bite it. The key was I was fishing topwater where you'd normally throw a jig and getting it up there with no splash." He threw the exact same bait he used to make the Top 10 at Smith Lake 2 years ago. "It only comes out for tournaments, and not local tournaments," he said. "Someone asked me if that's 'One of those $100 Pop-Rs?' I said, "You couldn't touch it for $100.'"

Pop-R gear: 6'2" medium-light Dixie Custom rod, Shimano Core casting reel, 14-pound Berkley Trilene Maxx, Rebel P70 Pop-R (was originally baby bass, now it's "mostly bone").

He bed-fished with a 3" Berkley Chigger craw. For fish that were a little more spooky, he used a Jackall Superpin-Tail (violet shad).

He caught his biggest fish of the week, a largemouth, on a Castle Baits Quake & Shake (white/chartreuse) that he got from fellow pro Terry Baksay.

Main factor: "Not fishing memories. Of the 17 fish I weighed in, I caught over half on a place where I'd never made a cast. I was just trying to fish each day by using my local knowledge to find areas that fit a pattern."

Performance edge: "My Yamaha 4-stroke. It gave me peace of mind. Last year I missed qualifying for the BASS Elites because of motor trouble, and I had three did-not-finishes. Now I have just zero doubt about the comfort and reliability of a 4-stroke. It's really not a plug. It's the truth."

Ft. Loudoun-Tellico Patterns 2-5 April 28, 2010. Bassfan (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3594).