Drew Cook's Pattern, Baits & Gear
Drew Cook, the rookie from Florida who sits atop the Angler of the Year race, sight-fished for 18 of the bass that he took to the scale. The other two came on a wacky-rigged worm. "I knew what I was going to do 10 minutes into the first day of practice," he said. "I found some stuff (on a pre-practice trip) up in the muddy water and I kind of thought maybe I'd do that the first day and just burn it up, and then go to the (main) lake and sight-fish. The muddy water was colder, though, and I just couldn't get bit in it." He'd marked five bedding fish that he'd planned to catch on day 1 - two big females and a trio of 3- to 4-pound males. However, the water level had dropped a couple of inches when he arrived and all were gone."
He had some 3-pounderss pinned down in deeper water that he was forced to resort to, and then he was forced to find new ones from there on. He did a stellar job of that on day 2 as he weighed a 20-06 stringer that was the biggest of the tournament. All five fish were nearly identical in size - the biggest registered 4-11. "The strategy played out pretty well and I ended up in a good area where I caught them on the second and third days. During practice, those fish weren't spawning yet - they were cruising around and I think that caused a lot of people to overlook them. I never saw a boat on the second day and that was definitely one of the main keys for me." He had a difficult day 4 as he managed to catch just one of the four bedding females he worked on. He said none of the three he failed to convert on was under 4 3/4 pounds and the biggest one was over 6. He hooked and lost the latter fish twice.
Gear:
Sight-fishing gear: 7'4" medium-heavy Dobyns Champion XD rod, Shimano Curado casting reel (8.2:1 ratio), 20-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, 1/4-ounce tungsten weight, 4/0 Gamakatsu G Series Heavy Cover hook, Big Bite Baits Fightin' Frog (tilapia magic).
The bait for his wacky rig was a 5" Big Bite Baits Trick Stick (tilapia).
