Jason Reye's Pattern, Baits & Gear

Jason Reyes missed the equivalent of a day of practice for Smith Lake, but it didn't seem to hamper his performance come tournament time. He practiced Sunday and part of Monday before flying back to Houston in order to coach his son's t-ball team that night. He returned to Alabama on Tuesday in time to get another half-day on the water. "What I figured out real quick was that I could catch some fish on 45-degree transition banks with rocks," he said. On day 1, while throwing a swimbait around docks, he noticed some fish nearby breaking the surface over deeper water. He turned his attention to those fish and rode them to his best ever finish in a Tour event. "It was just a fortunate deal around noon that day, I saw them blowing up and started fishing for them and that got me dialed in," he added. "On day 2, I started on them and cracked them pretty good." He caught 18-04 last Friday to make the Top-20 cut in 8th place. He spent his whole tournament on the lower end of the lake and caught his fish on a small swimbait rigged on a small lead head. He was targeting spotted bass chasing schools of blueback herring. "I don't understand the whole herring thing so I was trying to learn on the job," he said. "Once I saw one choke up a herring, I switched to a bigger size bait. They were a lot bigger than I had imagined. "I'd make a long cats and count it down to 10 or 12 feet and use a super slow retrieve," he added. "You hear so much about herring and a swimbait and I went with it. I know fish got caught behind me on a jerkbait, but that's not my forte. The swimbait was a better fit for me." He had multiple pockets inside a 4-mile stretch of water and he just worked back and forth throughout the day. "A couple of the pockets they were out over deep water," he said. "In between, I mixed in docks and rocks."

Swimbait gear: 7'1" medium-action G. Loomis GLX 852 casting rod, Shimano Metanium casting reel, 6-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, 1/8- and 3/16-oz. unnamed jig heads, 2.8" and 3.3" Keitech Swing Impact FAT swimbaits. He also had a swimbait rigged up on a G. Loomis NRX 822 spinning rod paired with a Shimano Stella spinning reel.

Main factor: "Just fishing in a good clean mental state and leaving everything wide open and adapting to the daily conditions. To me, coming in with positive attitude was key. I had some momentum coming from Toho as well. I really believe fishing is 95 percent mental and the other is skill and ability."

Performance edge: "I think my HydroWave played a big role is keeping those schooling fish going. I had it on 30-second loop on the frenzy shad setting. When I'd pull in and drop the trolling motor and look over see nothing going on, then all of a sudden you'd see one raise, I knew it was working. If it puts one bass in the livewell that makes the difference, then it's worth it."

Smith Lake 2-5 Patterns BassFan 4/1/15 (Todd Ceisner)

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