Entry 303-4

Kevin VanDam’s Shaky Heads $100,000

Part 4: The Shad Spawn Was the Key to Big Bass

Question: Kevin, when you’re in the lead of a tournament, how do you handle the pressure? What do you say to yourself to remain calm and not get rattled?

VanDam: I had a pretty-good chance to win this tournament at this point because the weather was getting warmer, which meant that more bass would be moving up from deep water to shallow water to spawn. After 2 days, the field got cut to 50 boats. So, there were fewer boats out on the water and fewer competitors. I had more than a dozen bass marked on my GPS that I should be able to start catching on the next day. So, I felt really good going into the third day.

Question: How did you fish the third day of competition?

VanDam: I went straight to the bass I’d found on the bed the previous day. However, a lot of pollen was on the water because the weather was warming up, and I had a difficult time seeing the bass I wanted to catch. In addition to the poor light conditions, I had about 30-spectator boats following me. So, every time I’d stop, boat wakes would bounce me up and down for about 10 minutes before I could start fishing. The boat wakes also made seeing the bass more difficult. To complicate the day even further, the first 10 beds I went to that I’d marked the day before, didn’t have any bass on them. The bass must have left the beds during the night.

So, I had a slow start on the third day of competition. However, about 10:00 am, the sun started getting higher in the sky, and I found and caught a nice-sized smallmouth. I realized I’d have to fish slowly, grind-out every bite and try to catch every bass that took my lure. I only could catch one or two bass occasionally, but finally, I caught a limit of quality bass. By 1:00 pm, I had about 12 pounds. I started looking for the bass moving in and cruising the bank, searching for a spot where they could spawn. During practice, I’d seen shad spawning on some of the main lake rocky points. So, I went to those points to search for cruising largemouth that might be feeding on the shad. Those big largemouths weighed from 3- to 7-pounds each.

When I arrived at one point, I saw a pack of about five largemouths swimming down the bank. I made several casts, and the bass just wouldn’t bite my lure. Finally, I got one 4 pounder to eat my Strike King Finesse Worm. With that bass, I was able to cull one of my smaller bass. Later in the day, I saw another pack of largemouth cruising and caught a second 4 pounder, which really helped-out my stringer. I finished the day with about 15-1/2-pounds and maintained the lead.

What excited me the most on this day of competition was finding the bass on the main river points. These bass weren’t spawning; they were hunting the shad that were spawning on the points. Typically, the shad spawn at night, so the first thing in the morning, I’d still have big bass cruising the points.On the final day of competition, instead of looking for spawning bass, I’d use the early-morning hours to try and find more cruising bass feeding on shad.

Question: On the third day, how many largemouth and smallmouth did you have?

VanDam: I had three smallmouths and three largemouths. Every day of the tournament, I weighed-in three smallmouths and two largemouths.

Question: Kevin, one of the things you mentioned was spectator pressure and how it affected your fishing. How do you deal with spectator pressure, and how do you keep the spectators from upsetting your fishing game plan?

VanDam: The spectators don’t really bother me when I’m fishing. I stop before I reach the spot where I want to fish to let the boat wakes settle down. Then when I get ready to leave one area, I’ll generally motor down the bank a good distance before I take off. So, I take a little more time when I’m approaching a spot where I’ll fish and when I’m leaving a site I’ve just fished to keep the spectator boats from having a negative impact on my fishing. This way, the spectators don’t really bother the bass I’ve been targeting. Too, I try and have enough new water to fish, so I don’t fish the same water all the time. Because this lake had a lot of shoreline, I could constantly be looking for bass and catching them in different locations on the lake.

Question: You said you caught 80% of the bass you weighed-in on the dirt-colored Strike King Finesse Worm. What other lures did you use?

VanDam: When I’d spot a bass on the bed, I’d throw every lure I had in my tackle box to try to get that bass to bite. I caught a couple of bass on the Coffee Tube and several bass on Strike King’s new Baby Rage Craw, a great sight-fishing bait. I rigged the Coffee Tube and the Baby Rage Craw on the Strike King Shaky Head jig. I also caught bass using a small piece of a finesse worm on a drop-shot rig. Too, I caught bass on a Bitsy Bug jig. I had a number of rods rigged with different lures, as well as a number of colors of lures.

Next: Fish the Bass Coming to You and Not the Bass Moving Away from You

Contents:

• Part 1: Developing a $100,000 Fishing Game Plan
• Part 2: Deciding to Not Fish Where Everyone Else Was Fishing and Going Smallmouth Instead of Largemouth
• Part 3: Catching and Cruising
• Part 4: The Shad Spawn Was the Key to Big Bass
• Part 5: Fish the Bass Coming to You and Not the Bass Moving Away from You