BASS Ft. Gibson Lake Winning Baits, Gear & Patterns

Biffle said his starting spot was way off the bank, the bottom was rough with little flat rocks. The rest of the bottom around it was pretty smooth, and they were staying on that rough rock. The rest of his areas were all offshore. They all had rough rock and were places I've known about forever. But they were shallower than I wanted to be. I had a lot of good stuff out deeper, but for some reason, the fish just weren't out there deep yet. So I kind of had to do what they were doing.

"I don't know why they were shallower," he added. "The water that flows through there kind of stays in the main channel when it flows through, and the water level the whole week didn't vary more than 6 inches. They do stay shallow a lot in this lake, but at this time of year, with the water being in the mid-80s, some should have been deeper. I'd go each day to a couple deep places and maybe catch one or none. They weren't out there."

He didn't fish the river and noted the irony: "Everywhere I go in this country I try to fish the river, but here I never go up the river. I about messed up when I told Matt Herren he could catch them up the river. He almost caught them too good. There's a lot of good fish up there."

Biffle got a new, homemade football head from his buddy Earl Collins shortly before the Smith Mt. Elite Series this year. The football head has a round wire loop, and the hook swings freely in that loop (you have to put the hook on the loop before you pour the head). Biffle rigged it up with a Gene Larew Biffle Bug and used it a little at Smith Mt., but ever since then he's used it a ton, and it's catching fish everywhere he goes, he said.

The traditional way to fish a deep or mid-depth football-head is to drag it along bottom. The design of the head catches on rock and tips the trailer up much like a crawfish in a defensive position. It's a technique that was born in the west, brought east by Jim Moynagh for a tournament on Minnetonka, and is now a dominant presentation throughout the country. But Biffle's hinged football-head technique is different. He said he throws the bait as far as he can, then reels steadily at a good pace so the jig constantly ticks bottom. He likens it to digging bottom with a crankbait.

The hinge action creates a presentation the fish want to eat, he noted, and said fish are seeing a lot of crankbaits these days, but not this new presentation. He added: "A good way to describe it to somebody who's not thrown it is it's always bumping bottom and it can be hard to detect the bite. You reel it along at a pretty good clip and it's going thump-thump-thump-thump-thump real fast as it ticks bottom. Sometimes they hit it pretty hard, but most times you lose contact with the bottom and just feel a little weight. That's a fish."

He said no matter where he goes now, he has two of the rigs tied up and on deck at all times. And he plans to use it next month at the BASS post-season in Alabama. Word is Gene Larew plans to build and market the jig. The name isn't set yet, but the company joked that they were going to name it after him "the HardHead" and Biffle reportedly liked that.

Bug gear: 6'10" heavy-action Quantum Tour Tommy Biffle rod, Quantum Energy PT SS casting reel (7.3:1 "Burner"), 20-pound Sunline Shooter fluorocarbon, 7/16-ounce homemade hinged football-head jig (green-pumpkin/copper), Gene Larew Biffle Bug (watermelon-red/dark-back).

Main Factor: "Fishing with the Bug all the time. I could say it was knowing all those places, but if I was fishing some other bait there, I probably wouldn't have caught much. So it's definitely the Bug. I'm sure the fish have seen a bunch of cranks already this year, but they haven't seen this. It must look like a crawdad to them."

Ft. Gibson Winning Pattern June 22, 2010. Bassfan.com (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3651).

Although Reese ran all over the lake and caught fish from deep to shallow, the only common thread among the spots, he said, was the fish were either real deep or real shallow. "I caught fish from out in the middle of the lake on humps and breaks all the way to the very backs of shallow bays on foundations and rocks in a foot and a half of water," he said.

His two primary weapons were a jig for deeper fish and a crank for shallower fish. He had to keep replacing his crankbait because the bills wore down as he ground bottom.

Jig gear: Wright McGill Skeet Reese Jig & Big Worm rod (yet to be released), unnamed prototype reel, 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce unnamed football jig (green-pumpkin), 3" Berkeley PowerBait Chigger craw (green-pumpkin).

Crankbait gear: 7' Wright McGill Skeet Reese Crankbait rod, same reel, same line, Lucky Craft RC 2.5 (chartreuse/copper-shad, splatterback).

Ft. Gibson Patterns 2-5 June 23, 2010. (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3652).

Golden, a third-year pro, was oh-so-close to clinching his first win, but lost several big fish the final day that cost him the victory. His comments mirrored those of Biffle - the fish were in very specific spots, and where there was one, there were more. In fact, Golden caught half his weight from a single laydown. He focused on creek-channels in pockets and thinks he was catching late-spawners, many looked like they'd just come off beds.

"I think they backed off the flats and were hanging around these ditches wanting to move out into the lake or something," he noted. "One little area I found was really unique. It was a creek that had a cold-water drain running through it, which caused a pretty thick algae bloom in the back. The bait just went nuts back there and I think the bass followed the bait."

He got bit all 4 days in about 3 feet of water. He started out with a crankbait, but early in the tournament they suspended in brush and around stumps, so he switched to flipping and pitching.

Flipping/pitching gear: 7'5" heavy-action G. Loomis Mossy Back rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX casting reel, 15- and 17-pound Trilene Big Game mono, 5/0 Gamakatsu round-bend offset worm hook, 1/8- and 1/4-ounce tungsten weights, 6" Zoom Brush Hog (watermelon/red, scuppernong).

Main factor: "I took a lot of time to set up on each piece of cover as I approached and made multiple casts. I realized early in the event that if I caught one off a piece of cover, there was another one there. I found one brushpile or laydown in a creek that produced 30 pounds. A lot of guys may have hit that piece of cover and moved on. With the water low, the fish were kind of ganged up."

Performance edge: "Bigger baits, the Brush Hog and the R.C. 2.5 I threw at first. I was fishing around a lot of guys in one creek and most of those guys weren't catching over 13 pounds. I seemed to be getting better bites fishing a bigger bait. I noticed early in the tournament the bass were feeding on gizzard shad, so I fished a big crank and then the big Brush Hog. It seemed like everybody else was throwing little cranks and Rat-L-Traps, but they didn't seem to be getting better-size fish."

Ft. Gibson Patterns 2-5 June 23, 2010. (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3652).

Herren, a river-rat at heart, spent a lot of time up the river, but in general fished from mid-lake up. And he might have won if not for a mishap on day 2. He culled at 2:00, then a half-hour later went to cull again with a 4-pounder and saw that all his fish had died. He had to toss the 4-pounder back and quit fishing, as the culling of dead fish is prohibited in BASS competition. The mysterious event cost him at least 4 1/2 pounds, he said.

He caught his fish three different ways: a crank, a flip-bait and a big worm. "I started off the first day cranking a Bandit 300 and caught the big fish of the tournament (7-05)," he said. "The next day I got into a little flipping/pitching deal with a Beaver. Then the rest of the tournament I caught them on a Big Unit 10" worm."

"What was happening was they had current coming into the lake but they were drawing the lake down. They were losing water every day so you had to chase it. The whole week was about adjusting and rolling with the punches. For me, once I caught them in an area, it didn't really reload, so I always had to find new water."

Crankbait gear: 7' medium-action Colmic rod, Pflueger Patriarch casting reel, 12-pound Trilene XT mono, Bandit 300 (shad).

Flipping gear: 7'6' medium-heavy Colmic rod, 15- and 20- pound Trilene 100% fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce and 5/16-ounce tungsten weights, Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver (black/blue-glitter) and Reaction Innovations 10" Big Unit (plum).

He rigged the Beaver on a 5/0 Reaction Innovations BMF hook, while the Big Unit went on a 5/0 Gamakatsu offset worm hook.

Main factor: "Understanding rivers and currents and how fish position in them. I was fishing classic current patterns, like cranking ledges, especially in the area where the lake started closing into the river. There were all these flats that were 6 to 7 feet deep, with ledges that broke into the channel."

Performance edge: "My Humminbird Side-Imaging. The stuff it found on those ledges, that was the deal."

Ft. Gibson Patterns 2-5 June 23, 2010. (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3652).

Morris, a river rat too, fished the river the entire time and roped several giants. He kept the RPM broomstick in his hands, hoisted all his fish into the boat (no lipping) and attacked the gnarly river cover. But he did it in a methodical fashion.

"The key to my success was just covering a lot of water," he said. "I only fished a 2-mile stretch, but I probably fished 6 miles of water during a day. This place has some giants, and they're strong. The water temp up the river's in the high-70s, so they've got some really mean fish up there. "I was flipping laydowns and stumps, but the key was to find the laydown that lay in the right direction and was in the right depth of water."

He said the "right laydowns" were those pointing downstream, and they had to be big and bulky. And a lot of times the big fish were on the top side of the laydown, where the current was hitting it. But they were never out on the ends of the laydowns, they were always close to the bank. "You had to flip the bait up there and let the current suck it under the tree. You'd never feel the bite, it would just pull down."

Flipping gear: 7'11" heavy-action RPM Custom Rods Okeechobee Special, Pflueger Trion and President casting reels, 20-pound Gamma Edge fluorocarbon, 3/4-ounce War Eagle football jig (black/blue), Prowler Flappin craw (black/blue).

He also flipped an unnamed 10" plum worm.

Main factor: "Covering enough water in heavy current and how hard I worked. I was fishing like a maniac and I worked so hard I got heat stroke. I couldn't be onstage on day 3 and missed the Top 10 meeting, I was getting ready to go to the hospital."

Performance edge: "Everything made a difference so I couldn't narrow it down to one thing."

Ft. Gibson Patterns 2-5 June 23, 2010. (http://www.bassfan.com/news_article.asp?id=3652).