Wade Hendrick's Pattern, Baits & Gear

Wade Hendricks hadn't seen Lake Okeechobee before he paid it a visit prior to the off-limits period. He's glad he did because he was able to uncover an area that eventually produced a number of quality fish over the course of the tournament. "I was looking forward to this tournament," he said. "I'd never been to Okeechobee. I grew up fishing guerrilla style and going in and yanking them out of thick cover and I was really looking forward to coming down here and matching up with this lake." The spot he found during pre-practice was "an area where I knew the fish were coming in to spawn during the first spawn. I knew it was a transitional area and I ended up using it in the tournament." He rode a topwater bite through the first 2 days even though his best area in practice let him down on day 1 when he weighed 13-14. The frog was again key on day 2 as he clobbered 24-06 to move into the Top 5. "When the fish revealed to me what was there with the 10- and 9-pounder I caught and the quality my co-anglers were catching, when I knew what was there and the depth of the spot, I just committed to it for the rest of the tournament," he said. "It looked like a hayfield and it was mixed in with pepper grass. There were no specific pitch spots or targets. It was more of a zone and I don't know if it was just a migration location where the fish were moving through or if it was just part of the lake where the fish happened to come to for the spawn." When the winds kicked up on the weekend, he had to adjust presentations and caught the majority of his fish flipping a 1-ounce jig or throwing a swimbait in the grass. "It was all about the conditions," he said. "It changed every day. If I could've caught them on a frog all 4 days, I would've loved to. The conditions really dictated, hour to hour, what I was going to throw."

Frog gear: 7'5" medium-heavy G. Loomis GLX casting rod, Shimano Curado G casting reel (7.1:1 ratio), 50-pound unnamed braided line, Spro Bronzeye frog (albino).

The key to getting topwater bites was to almost dead-stick the frog. "When we had optimum conditions for topwater, the big fish bites were coming from really pausing the bait," he said. "Your instinct is you want to move it to draw a strike, but those giants were coming on it just sitting dead still." He was impressed with the new Loomis rod's ability to handle the topwater assault. "It's not designed for a frog, but in this territory it was really the backbone to my success," he said. "Getting that big sack (on day 2), it really did the job. I was really pleased with its performance."

Flipping gear: 7'1" heavy-action G. Loomis GLX casting rod, same reed, same line, 1-oz. unnamed punching jig (black/blue), NetBait Paca Chunk trailer (black and blue).

Main factor: "The fact I committed to that area in the sense that the big fish were there and I wasn't going to leave it. Mother Nature wasn't going to blow me out of there. I was going to battle her just to be able to keep my baits in that water column."

Performance edge: "My Power-Poles were the key element. They were a big part of being able to manage the weather."

Lake Okeechobee FLW Tour 2-5 Patterns Pattern Bassfan 2/13/13 (Todd Ceisner)

34 Colors

NetBait BaitFuel Paca Chunk

52 Colors

SPRO Dean Rojas Bronzeye Frog 65

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