Steve Kennedy Wins BASS Lake Dardanelle

Kennedy started his practice period on the lower (clearer) end of the lake and caught lots of fish on a swimjig, but quality was lacking. He encountered the same scenario at another place where he employed a flipping stick. He spent the second practice day in the ever-popular Illinois Bayou and got just one keeper bite all day. On the final day, he returned to the locales he'd visited 2 days earlier, but there were few bites to be had by then, regardless of size. "I was assuming somebody had fished through there and stuck them all, or they left because the water had finally started to drop," he said. "I was kind of freaking out."

At 11:30 on that Wednesday, he decided to run all the way to the lock at the upper end of the lake. He tried a shad-rich creek with no success, then returned to the main river and started working his way back down. He got a bite off a seawall that had formed an eddy in the extremely muddy water, and that encouraged him to hang around in the area. Then he noticed a gap in some trees that led to a pond on the far side of a levee. There was no visible way to access the pond from where he was, but a quick check on the map on his depthfinder showed a creek coming out of it. The water in that channel was 4 1/2 feet deep and he was able to idle right in. He said it was impossible not to notice all the gar sunning themselves - there were dozens and he estimated that some were pushing 50 pounds. The surface was dimpled by frenetic shad. "I started fishing right there once I got in and I went a ways without a bite," he said. "Then I went across the middle of it where there were a couple of willows sticking out and I got five bites.

"I pulled one up and it was 2 1/2 pounds, maybe 3, and the rest all felt like little fish. I didn't get the impression there was a bunch of big ones in there, but I didn't want to stick any more because bites were so hard to come by." Not realizing what he'd tapped into, he went to the registration meeting late that afternoon singing the same sad tune as much of the field. He predicted that the winning weight would be 51 pounds. "Some guys were talking 14 pounds a day, and I was thinking there's no way there were enough fish to get those numbers. That's how bad I was crying."

Competition:

Kennedy started the first tournament day in the place where he'd gotten all the flipping bites on the opening day of practice and boxed three ordinary keepers (and missed a couple more) by 11 o'clock. With about 7 pounds in his livewell, he decided to make the long run to the gravel pit. He started on the place where he'd had the five bites the previous day and immediately hooked and lost a 3 1/2-pounder flipping a Reaction Innovations Smallie Beaver. Then he caught an almost identical fish from that exact spot, and then a 2 1/2 from a locale just a couple of feet away. "At that point I said to my marshal that I may have enough fish here to win this thing," he said. "I hadn't realized how big they were or how many were in there." His opening round bag left him in 9th place. He came in 2 pounds lighter the following day, but moved up five places in the standings.

He made a bait switch on the morning of day 2, opting for a white jig in an effort to capitalize on the shad spawn. He also got a few bites on a frog, including one fish that ended up in his weigh-in bag. He moved up another place on the leaderboard on day 3 as he got his weight back over the 16-pound threshold. He had four good ones within the first 40 minutes, then went awhile before catching No. 5. He made a big cull with a 4-10 specimen a short time later and bailed at 11:15. "I didn't feel like I had a whole lot left there at that point," he said. That notion was backed up by a relatively slow morning on the final day, which started with him carrying a 1-05 deficit to Davis. He caught only one fish from his best stuff, then made a lap around the pond swimming the white jig and added three keepers from places he considered marginal. He completed a limit of 2-pounders at about 10:30. He'd planned to leave the pond at approximately noon, which would've left him an hour to fish some stuff on the lower end of the lake. Instead, he decided to tour the perimeter again, this time with a green-pumpkin jig. He caught only one keeper, but it was a 5-10 bruiser that sealed the win for him.

"I'm still shocked that that fish was sitting where it was," he said. "It wasn't even in a tree; it was on a short, rounded point and there wasn't a willow there that my bait ever touched. I pitched the bait and hopped it and I was already looking for the place where I was going to make my next pitch. "I was totally surprised to get a bite and it was immediately apparent that it was much bigger than anything else I'd caught. I don't want to call it luck because I was playing a percentage game - I was throwing a big-fish bait and covering a ton of water." He made one last cull for just a few ounces on his way back to the launch. "I felt like I had a shot to win and I thought I might've won. That big fish was the game-changer I was looking for."

Winning Pattern:

The majority of Kennedy's bites occurred while he was swimming the jig. "There were in the tops of the willows over 7 or 8 feet of water," he said. "I'd cast past the trees and then reel it up to them and let it drop. I was fishing all through the water column."

There were various types of bushy vegetation in the pond, most of which he attacked with a flipping presentation. "Anything that was isolated on a point was likely to have a fish on it sometime during the week."

He believes that some of the bass in the gravel pit reside there year-round, but others were transitory. "By the number of gar and shad in there, I'm pretty sure that a big number of them moved in off the river with the high water."

Winning Gear:

Jig gear: 7'6" older model Kistler rod, older model Shimano Curado casting reel, unnamed 65-pound braided line (main line), unnamed 25-pound fluorocarbon (5' leader), 3/4-ounce D&L Advantage jig (white or green-pumpkin), Zoom Super Chunk trailer (same color as jig).

He pitched the Smallie Beaver on the same line configuration, but with an extra-heavy rod.

Frog gear: 7'6" extra-heavy Kistler rod, same reel, unnamed 65-pound braid, SPRO Bronzeye Frog 65 (natural).

Main factor: "I can't believe that nobody else found that place - our guys are usually pretty good at finding everything. I was shocked that nobody else was in there. There was a little bit of luck involved with that."

Performance edge: "My Bass Cat boat. I was running 50 miles one way and it's the fastest hull on tour. It got me up there and back every day and it's a lot of fun to drive that thing."

Lake Dardanelle Bassmaster Elite Series Winning Pattern BassFan 6/7/17 (John Johnson)

Mark Davis, who's right in the mix for his fourth career Angler of the Year (AOY) title at age 53, led after days 2 and 3 in pursuit of his first victory since 2005. He ran a specific daily program that had him catching shallow fish far up the Arkansas River in the mornings from a place similar to Kennedy's, then coming back down to fish offshore from mid-day on. "I found both of those deals in practice," he said. "I had a half-dozen offshore places in one creek that had fish on them, and they seemed to bite better later in the day. "My river spot was 45 miles (from the launch in Russellville, Ark.) and the creek was about 20 miles. Once I left the river, I didn't have time to run the 25 miles back up there later on. I just had to milk it the best I could, and then leave." The key feature at his upriver locale was a ditch with a road bed running through it where the water was 1 to 3 feet deep. When fishing offshore, he focused on shell beds and stumps in the 3- to 5-foot depth range. The water level rose dramatically overnight prior to day 4, which put a major damper on the offshore action. Davis caught his lightest bag of the event and others who'd been plying the depths (notably Jamie Hartman and Brandon Palaniuk) failed to weigh limits. Topwater plugs were his most effective offerings in the shallows and he used a crankbait when fishing offshore.

Winning Gear:

Topwater gear: 7' medium-heavy Lew's Custom Pro rod, Team Lew's Lite casting reel (6.81 ratio), 50-pound Seaguar Smackdown braided line, Strike King Sexy Dawg Jr. (bone).

He also caught some shallow fish on a Strike King KVD Splash popper (sexy chrome). He threw it on the same rod and reel combo, but with 15-pound Seaguar monofilament.

Cranking gear: 7' medium-action Lew's Custom Pro All-Purpose rod, same reel, 15-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, Strike King KVD 2.5 square-bill (pearl/splatterback).

Main factor: "Formulating that game plan in practice. I thought it would work, and it almost won."

Performance edge: "My Yamaha outboard, without a doubt. That run I was making was pretty treacherous, with a lot of logs and other debris, and you can't keep from hitting stuff. It held up great."

Lake Dardanelle Bassmaster Elite Series 2-5 Patterns BassFan 6/8/17 (John Johnson)

Kevin VanDam caught day-best bags on the first and final days, but mediocre sacks on the middle days prevented him from claiming his 24th B.A.S.S. victory. He employed so many different techniques throughout the week that he had difficulty remembering them all. "It was one of those deals where the river levels changed so much day to day, it really kept me on my toes," he said. "I was really junking it up." He caught his day-1 bag, which was just an ounce lighter than Davis' tournament-best haul on day 2, from relatively deep water on a jerkbait. That was a no-go on day 2, however, and he was forced to go to his secondary pattern of fishing shallow laydowns and grass on the muddy main-river channel. "I had to adjust to what was in front of me every day. The last day was kind of like the first day, when I seemed to make all the right decisions." His complete list of techniques included flipping, cranking, throwing a spinnerbait, a bladed jig, conventional jigs, topwaters, a grub, etc. "If you had to try to list them all, it would go on forever."

Winning Gear:

Jerkbait gear: 6'10" medium-heavy Quantum Tour KVD rod, Quantum Smoke 200 HD casting reel (6.6:1 ratio), 12-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon line, Strike King KVD 300 jerkbait (sexy shad).

He used Mustad UltraPoint KVD Elite Triple Grip treble hooks on the jerkbait.

Flipping gear: 7'10" Quantum Tour KVD rod, same reel (7.3:1 ratio), 25-pound Bass Pro Shops XPS fluorocarbon, 3/8- or 1/2-ounce Strike King Tour Grade tungsten weight, 5/0 Mustad KVD Grip-Pin hook, Strike King Menace (various colors depending upon water clarity).

He also flipped the Strike King Tour Grade Skipping Jig with a Menace trailer.

Main factor: "Taking advantage of the shad spawn in the morning was a highlight. No matter where I was fishing, shad was the 100-percent focus. You could tell if an area was good or bad by whether it had shad activity."

Performance edge: "The HydroWave was a big plus for me. I'd run it on 'spawning bait' in the morning for the shad spawn and then switch to 'delayed schooling' in the afternoon."

Lake Dardanelle Bassmaster Elite Series 2-5 Patterns BassFan 6/8/17 (John Johnson)

Mark Menendez flipped and cranked his way to his best Elite Series finish since he won at Dardanelle in 2009. "I was blending and mixing things," he said. "I practiced in the mud (along the main-river channel) because hardly anybody else was out there and I thought that if I could figure something out, I'd end up kind of near where I wanted to be. The problem was that I had limited real estate." He also spent a lot of time in the back of the creek where the naturally flowing water was nearly 10 degrees cooler than on the river. That's where he utilized the flipping stick. "I had 10 logs on a 2-mile stretch and I'd just go from one to the next to the next. A lot of times there'd be multiple fish on them and sometimes three or four, and it would reload Ð you could lay off it for an hour and a half and then come back and catch another good one. On the afternoon of day 4, visits to two trees that he'd visited previously resulted in a pair of 3-pounders that moved him up several places in the standings. "Once one fish revealed its position, it would be identical everywhere else. I just had to pay attention to how they were positioned and how they were eating the bait."

Winning Gear:

Flipping gear: 7'6" Lew's Custom Pro rod, Team Lew's Pro Magnesium casting reel (7.5:1 ratio), 20-pound Seaguar AbrazX fluorocarbon line, 5/16-ounce Strike King Tour Grade tungsten weight, 5/0 round-bend Gamakatsu hook, Strike King Rage Craw (black/blue) or Strike King Game Hawg (black neon).

Cranking gear: 7' medium-action Lew's David Fritts Perfect Crankbait rod, same reel (6.8:1 ratio), 17-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon, Strike King KVD 1.5 Cataouatche Special squarebill (custom color).

His crankbaits were custom-painted by Mike Russell of Bag 5 Baits in Benton, Ky. The color is called "spaghetti."

Main factor: "Learning something new every day about what was going on at the various water levels."

Performance edge: "I'd say my Garmin electronics. A lot of the banks I fished were fairly vertical, but the fish were positioned on the flat places. I had the 0- to 5-foot zone marked in red, and every time I saw red I could pull into a piece of cover and there was a good chance I was going to get a bite."

Lake Dardanelle Bassmaster Elite Series 2-5 Patterns BassFan 6/8/17 (John Johnson)

Dean Rojas focused on a 15-mile stretch that started at the Arkansas Nuclear One power plant and ran upriver. "It was a lot of stretches and banks that I've fished over the years," he said. "It was a milk run more than anything. Every day it was the same thing Ð I'd alternate between eight or nine places." A SPRO Bronzeye Frog accounted for all 20 of the fish he took to the scale. "I caught them off tules, water willows, laydowns and stuff like that. I fished anything in the water that had the right depth (1 to 4 1/2 feet) and some current." "I was letting the fish tell me what they wanted every day. Like (on day 4), they were right in the middle of the water willows, but when the water was lower they'd be on the outside." He did some flipping with the Fighting Frog he designed for Big Bite Baits, but lost the two best bites he got on it.

Winning Gear:

Frog gear: 7' heavy-action Duckett Fishing Terex Dean Rojas Signature Series casting rod, Duckett Fishing 360 R casting reel (7:1 ratio), 80-pound Sunline FX2 braided line, Spro Bronzeye Frog 65 (midnight walker).

Main factor: "Just keeping an open mind with all of the changing conditions."

Performance edge: There were a multitude of things that helped me Ð my boat, my engine, my trolling motor. The Navionics mapping on the Lowrance was good. The trolling motor was huge for fighting that current."

Lake Dardanelle Bassmaster Elite Series 2-5 Patterns BassFan 6/8/17 (John Johnson)