Rick Clunn's Pattern, Baits & Gear
While other competitors had their sights set on shallow and shoreline cover, Rick Clunn slid out a little further and discovered a pattern that wasn't heavy on quantity, but produced enough quality bites a day to make him a contender.
"In practice, I was figuring out the bigger fish weren't really hanging out in the grass," he said. "Some guys were swimming a jig. In fact, I'd say probably 80 percent of the field was. It made me feel like I was doing something a little different and I felt good about it."
He combed the outer edges of grass lines with stumps and wood with a beefy square-bill crankbait and threw a spinnerbait where the crank couldn't get to.
"I was just making 2,000 casts during the day hoping my timing was right for the bigger bites," he added. "Other boats were on top of that stuff and that's why I was so confident. I knew the boats ahead of me or behind me weren't going to hurt me.
"The whole key was throwing that big (Luck-E-Strike) series 4 square-bill. It almost any time in off color or dirty water. In the past, I've had that bite and with all the fresh rain we had, the visibility was about 2 to 6 inches and that's perfect for that bait."
Cranking gear: 7' heavy-action Wright & McGill S-Glass cranking rod, Johnny Morris Signature Series casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 17-pound Excel monofilament line, Luck E Strike Series 4 RC square-bill crankbait (copper perch).
He swapped the stock hooks for larger Lazer TroKar round bend trebles.
He also threw a Luck E Strike Trickster spinnerbait (chartreuse red) with a 4" Luck E Strike Ringworm trailer (white). "The key on the spinnerbait is the drop blade," he said. "It's a cross between a willow and an Indiana. It's just a big bass blade."
Main factor: "The off-colored water in the major creeks."
Performance edge: "Everything performed how it should."
Lake Dardanelle 2-5 Patterns Bassfan 5/21/14 (Todd Ceisner)
