James Waston Wins Norris Lake FLW Tour Invitational
Watson had never been to Norris prior to his arrival for practice. Some information he'd gotten a couple of months earlier from a semi-local named Joe Lee, whom he'd become acquainted with through the now-defunct PAA Tournament Series, proved invaluable. "We fished together at Douglas and we kind of fish similarly, and I asked him to grab a Norris map and circle some stuff that I'd like," he said. "He pointed me in the right direction. It wasn't 'fish this bank right here,' it was more just this general area and that general area. "He knew I'd figure it out once I got a look at it, and it worked." He caught two fish on each of the first 2 practice days, then spent the rest of the time throwing baits that either had their cooks covered up or removed. "Both days I had two quality bites and a handful of other bites that really dialed me in. I don't need to catch 17 or 18 pounds in practice to know what I'm going to do - I just need a few key bites to give me those clues. I think a lot of people make the mistake of catching fish in practice that they could use in the tournament." His best action came from an area known as Loyston Sea. The mile-wide stretch is at the site where the town of Loyston sat before the Clinch River was dammed to form Norris in 1936. The key features were silt or mud banks that transitioned to rock, and the juncture had to be flat rather than the severe slopes that surround most of the lake. Big gizzard shad were hanging out there and the bass were feasting on them. "When I'd run my trolling motor, they'd be jumping out of the water like Asian carp," he said of the baitfish. He could catch the bass, which were holding in 0 to 3 feet of water, with a variety of topwater offerings.
Competition:
Watson relied on three key stretches of bank on days 1 and 2. "Those places actually reloaded better than the Ozark lakes do," he said. "I ran new water every day, but all 3 days I cycled back through my best areas." He averaged nearly 13 1/2 pounds through the first 2 days and had a 1 1/2-pound lead when the field was cut to the Top 20 for day 3. He caught a quality smallmouth on a spinnerbait early in the final round from a place he'd visited in practice, but the remainder of the day was a struggle. With his best areas seemingly having dried up, he ran to a big bay up the Clinch and boated three run-of-the-mill keeper largemouths. He later learned that the bay had been fished hard by three other competitors who made the Top 20. With 10 minutes remaining in the day, he had 9 pounds in his livewell - an amount that he was certain would not be sufficient to win. He then caught two more largemouths on a River2Sea Whopper Plopper that improved his total by just a couple ounces each, but it was enough to hold off Lambert.
Winning Pattern:
Watson said he made super-long casts with his topwater baits in order not to spook the extremely shallow fish. He also downsized his braided line from 65-pound to 50 for the same reason. "That worked because I didn't have a bunch of obstacles in the water," he said of his line-size reduction, "but I did break off with braid for the first time ever on some zebra mussels." He caught a couple of weigh-in fish flipping boat docks and a couple on a Spook-style River2Sea Bubble Walker.
Winning Gear:
Topwater gear: 7'10" heavy-action Waft Fishing rod, casting reel (7:1 ratio), 50-pound Maxima braided line, River2Sea Whopper Plopper (loon). The Whopper Plopper accounted for eight of the 15 fish he took to the scale. Several others were enticed by a War Eagle Buzz Toad with a Luck-E-Strike Frantic Frog trailer (black). The spinnerbait he used to catch the key smallmouth early on day 3 was a 3/8-ounce Luck-E-Strike Rick Clunn Trickster with a gray skirt.
Main factor: "Just dialing into the type of stuff I needed to be looking for."
Performance edge: "Some people might think that 7'10" Waft rod was overkill for what I was doing. I'm always open to criticism and becoming better, but I think I've got the right rod, reel and line setup for the Whopper Plopper and the Buzz Toad."
