Entry 214-2

James Niggemeyer – Strike King’s Rising Star

Part 2: How It All Began and How to Fish a New Lake

Question: James, what did you know about the Potomac River before you went to fish this tournament?

Niggemeyer: We fished out of Charles County, Maryland, near the city of Marbury, and launched from Smallwood State Park. I lacked experience on tidal waters. I’d had good finishes in tournaments where I’d fished tidal waters, but I wasn’t as confident as I needed to be about fishing this kind of water. However, I knew Kelly Jordan had won the 2006 tournament on the Potomac fishing matted vegetation, and a number of contestants fishing that same pattern had been in the top 10.

Also, I knew this tournament was being held at the same time of year as last year’s tournament had been, therefore, the pattern should still hold. I’ve built a database on different lakes with the patterns and the techniques have produced winning catches on these lakes. I watch the Bassmaster TV show, file all the articles written about tournament wins on several lakes and Google the lakes I intend to fish to learn information about the lakes before I arrive for a tournament. There’s a lot of valuable information on how to fish a lake I’ve never fished before on the Internet, in magazines and on TV.

If an angler uses all these tools before arriving at a lake, he or she can save hours and even have days off that normally will be spent practice fishing. I’ve found that the easiest way to find the most information at one time is to use a search engine like Google. Type in “Potomac River bass fishing,” and you’ll get a detailed report on lures and tactics. There are also numerous websites that report the details of bass tournaments where you can learn about the biggest and the best bass that was weighed-in, and which tactics and lures seemed to be the most-productive at the time of year you plan to fish. If there’s a tournament being held on a lake I’m not fishing, I print the results and then file that information by the name of the lake and the date the tournament took place. I go to my filing cabinet to get information, pull out my file on a particular lake and study all the information I have on that lake.

After I’ve studied that information and have a pretty-good overview of the lake, I visit a variety of websites to learn more. The lake I plan to fish is much like preparing to skirmish an opposing football team. I want to know all the different techniques that have worked to defeat this lake and convinced it to give up a winning catch of big bass. I want to know the strategies, the lures and the spots that have produced winning catches of bass, and see how other fishermen have fished this lake and been able to win.

Question: James, from what you’re telling me, bass fishing on a competitive level has changed drastically from what it was in the past. Today’s competitive angler is much more of a thinker, a planner and a strategist than he’s been in the past.

Niggemeyer: That’s true. There’s more information available today on each lake we fish than ever before. Today, you can learn so much more about how to catch bass on any lake you want to fish before arriving at that lake than you’ve been able to learn in the past. I gather all the information I can on every lake I can, because I may fish a tournament on that lake at some time in the future. When I go to that lake to fish, I want a file to refer to on how to catch big bass and win. Reading tournament results adds to your base of knowledge on any lake you plan to fish. I use tournament results from “Bassmaster Magazine,” “Bass Times,” tournament websites and several different bass circuits I don’t fish.

Question: Why did you decide to flip creature baits during the Potomac River tournament before you even arrived there?

Niggemeyer: My research proved that flipping creature baits in heavy vegetation was a winning tactic on the Potomac River at this time of year. Flipping creature baits is one of my confidence techniques. When I’m in a flipping situation, I can be highly-competitive. Therefore, the Potomac River would offer me an excellent opportunity to do well in this tournament. I’ve been highly successful in tournaments where flipping was the dominant pattern.

Question: What did you learn when you arrived at the Potomac River and began practicing?

Niggemeyer: I learned that fishing would be tough, but that I could get a few bites and catch a few bass in a couple of places. I made the decision to fish two particular areas in the tournament. I knew I could flip a 1-ounce tungsten weight with a creature bait into grass mats in those two sections of the river and get bites. Other competitors told me how difficult getting a bite was for them, but I decided to take my chances on the two spots I’d established during practice and bet on these two areas during the tournament. I was excited to know that I’d found at least two places where I could get bass to bite and maybe catch a limit of bass.

Question: What made the two regions you fished during this tournament different or better than the other places on the lake?

Niggemeyer: There’s a lot of grass on the Potomac River. But some of the grass is too shallow to float a fish, and some of it isn’t located close enough to a creek channel, a river channel or any other type of deep water where a bass can travel from shallow water to deep water. I was fishing vegetation from 3- to 4-feet deep with quality deep-water access nearby. Sometimes my boat was 50 feet from deep water, and other times I was 200 feet from deep water. There was more vegetation in some of the areas I was fishing then others.

Another critical key was that the vegetation I was fishing was healthier than other vegetation in the area. You’ll often find more baitfish and more bass in greener, healthier grass than in moderately-healthy grass. I had 10 bites in my target areas on the first day of practice. I didn’t find any better spots. On the third day, I returned to my two key areas, expanded on them and was able to add a bit more water to my two key sites.

Next: What Happened on the First Tournament Day

Contents:

• Part 1: How to Land the Big One
• Part 2: How It All Began and How to Fish a New Lake
• Part 3: What Happened on the First Tournament Day
• Part 4: What Happened on the Second and Third Days at the Potomac
• Part 5: What to do When You Don’t Win, and What Life’s Like for a Rookie