Greg Vinson's Pattern, Baits & Gear
Reaction baits were the central player for Greg Vinson's impressive showing last week. He located several areas holding a concentration of fish and played the strategy game to perfection, meaning he made sure to not be seen doing the same thing in similar places too often. "Day one of practice was unbelievable," he said. "I got dialed into what I was looking for and credit my Garmin mapping. Once I got bites on two or three places, I picked up on the consistency and it got predictable. I knew it would be important to protect that, especially during early rounds. I knew not to run straight to places with similar features." He said he experienced some "scary moments" during the Elimination and Knockout rounds related to when he pulled off certain areas, but it wound up paying off for him.
"I felt like I was laying off some early on and trying to protect them," he said. "There were a bunch of anglers up in the grass and I was out on the edges. It's what you do in Wisconsin. You swim a jig, frog or flip. There were a lot of fish on the outer edges (of grass) with the lower water." And that's where Vinson did the bulk of his damage. Areas with submerged eelgrass and coontail were the best producers. He also fished hard cover and riprap near bridges and causeways. "They'd school in the grass chasing bait, but from what I could tell, they were staging and then run in and feed on shad," he said. "It was all about the baitfish. Some of those places were stocked full of shad. If you could find the shad you'd find the fish close by."
His approach to the schooling fish took some thought and planning. "They'd move into the holes in the grass and over time I figured those fish would sit there and move into the holes waiting for shad to come by," he said. "It was frustrating throwing treble hooks into the eelgrass. I tried jigs, frogs and plastics and they would nip at it, but they've seen those so many times. With the topwater, they would crush it after a few pops." In the Championship Round on Pool 7, he saw plenty of areas that had the potential to hold fish based on how fished in Pool 8, but he opted to fish near the tail race below the dam separating pools 6 and 7. "I fished wing dams and current breaks," he said. "I caught them in groups of three or four, but I needed groups of 20. I made a good move, though, that was worth $18,000. I don't anybody that wouldn't be proud of that."
Gear:
Jerkbait gear: 7'2" medium-action homemade MHX casting rod, Shimano Chronarch G casting reel, 15-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, unnamed 110-size jerkbait (white).
Vinson swapped the hooks on his jerkbait for #5 Owner STX trebles.
He opted for bigger line than normal because he wanted to keep the bait up higher in the water column, allowing the fish to come get the bait above the submerged grass.
Topwater gear: 7'6" heavy-action homemade MHX cranking rod, Shimano Metanium MGL casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 40-pound Seaguar Smackdown braided line, Strike King Sexy Dawg (bone).
He opted for braid for added confidence when hauling bass back to the boat through and over the grass. The big rod also allowed him to make long casts, when necessary, to reach school fish.
MLF/BPT Tour RedCrest 2-5 Patterns BassFan 8/29/19 (Todd Ceisner)
