Entry 224-2
Mark Rose Wins the FLW Pickwick Lake Tournament
Editor’s Note: On October 13, 2007, Mark Rose of Marion, Arkansas, a longtime Strike King pro, won $125,000 for fishing in the 4-day Wal-Mart FLW BP Eastern Division Tournament held on Pickwick Lake in northwest Alabama. This is Rose’s first, 1st-place finish in his 9-year career as a tournament pro. This week, Rose will tell us how he won, what lures he won with, and what techniques gave him this career-high check.
Part 2: The First Day of the Tournament
Question: Mark, how did you fish the first morning?
Rose: I learned that there were two times the bass would bite on the spots I was fishing –at first light and whenever current was being pulled through the lake. For the first 30 minutes of daylight, I’d cast a 1-ounce chrome spoon, run it just under the surface and get a top-water bite. Then after the sun came up, or if the lake quit running current, I’d use the Football Jig with a Rage Tail Craw.
After the early-morning bite ended, the bass would pull off the mussel bars and move out to the edges and the ends of the bars. That’s when the Rage Craw really would pay off for me. The first morning of the tournament, I caught six bass on top of the bar using the spoon. I had two, 4 pounders and three other keepers.
When the sun came up, and the current stopped coming through the lake, 
I moved out to the edges and the ends of the bars and fished the Football Jig with the Rage Tail Craw. I was able to cull three of the bass I’d caught that morning. I was using a 7-foot, heavy-action rod with 15-pound Seaguar fluorocarbon line with a 3/4-ounce green-pumpkin Strike King Football Jig with a green-pumpkin Rage Tail Craw.
The water was so clear I wanted my baits to be really compact. So, I bit off about 1 inch of the craw and trimmed-up the skirt. Then I sprayed the tips of the craw with chartreuse Spike-It dye. I used the Spike-It dyes to give that crawfish a little bit of flash. Also, I knew that chartreuse attracted smallmouth, and I’d hoped to catch some of them, too.
Question: How were you working that Football Jig with that Rage Tail Craw?
Rose: I was dragging it slowly on the bottom over the mussel beds. I didn’t hop the jig at all. I kept it in contact with the bottom throughout the entire retrieve. I wanted it to look like a crawfish easing along those mussel beds. 
Because the crawfish were feeding on the mussel beds, the bass expected to see them there. If that Rage Tail Craw came by a big boulder, more than likely there would be a fish hiding behind that boulder, and it would come out and eat the bait.
On the first day, I had six bass in the first 30 minutes of the tournament. I caught all six on the spoon, and then using the Football Jig with the Rage Tail Craw, I culled the three smallest fish and weighed in 18 pounds and 15 ounces for five bass for the day. At the weigh-in, I was in first place, and Terry Bolton was 3 pounds behind me with 16 pounds. I was feeling pretty good about the first day of the tournament.
Contents:
- Part 1: Having Good Feelings
- Part 2: The First Day of the Tournament
- Part 3: The Second Day of the Tournament
- Part 4: The Third Day of the Tournament
- Part 5: The Last Day of the Tournament
