Entry 143-1
Kevin VanDam's $106,000 Weekend
Game Plan of a Champion
Editor's Note: Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Michigan, one of the strongest names on the professional bass-fishing circuits for many years, has won a Classic and the title of the Angler of the Year for Bassmasters. He’s long been one of Strike King’s top national pros. In the early summer, VanDam once again proved why he’s one of the best of the best by winning one of the Top 50 Elite BASS Tournaments and going home with $106,000. The tournament was held on Lake Louisville, just outside of Dallas, Texas. To learn what making $106,000 in a week is like, we’ve asked VanDam to tell us the story of the win and the new lake record he set.
VanDam: I really didn’t have a very-good practice getting ready for the tournament. I found a few bass on isolated wood and around some riprap near the dam, the causeways and the bridges. I decided to fish a Strike King 3X finesse worm on a jig head rigged Alabama style, or what we call it a shaky-head rig. I was using a 3/16-ounce lead-head jig that’s made by Bite Me Tackle that’s designed for shaky-head fishing with Strike King’s 7-inch green pumpkin, watermelon-red and watermelon 3X finesse worms. But I cut a little bit off the head of the worm to make it fit tighter against the jig, super glue the worm to the jig head and rig the worm Texas style.
I felt that fishing with this 3X finesse worm on riprap would be the best pattern for me to use on this lake at this time, at least to start out on the first day. I made that decision because I’d caught bass from too short to measure up to about 3 pounders, however, I’d also taken one, 5-pound largemouth on a rock pile, which was the biggest bass I’d caught in pre-practice. So, even though I fished the spinner bait and the shaky head worm in pre-practice, the biggest fish had come off the worm. That’s what I planned to go with on opening day. I like the 3X finesse worm because it’s so buoyant, and it floats up off the bottom. Even with the shaky head, this worm will stand up off the bottom. I believe if you put the shaky head finesse worm in front of a bass, that fish can’t help but eat it.
The other pattern that I had confidence in was slow-rolling the spinner bait in the timber and pockets of the lake. I had caught some fish on the Strike King Premier Elite tandem blade spinner bait. What I learned from fishing the spinner bait was that the only way the fish would take the bait was to reel it in slowly. The water was pretty stained, and apparently the bass wanted a very-slow presentation. Because of the large number of shad in the area, the bass really didn’t want to chase the spinner bait when there were so many other baits available. I was using the gizzard shad color to better imitate the baitfish on which the bass were feeding. I was catching non-keepers up to about 3-pound bass on the 1/2-ounce double willowleaf blade spinner bait.
One of the problems that I recognized was that just about every place that I fished there were a lot of other competitors fishing those same areas. Since most of the Top 50 anglers specialize in fishing fast, I decided that my best chance to win this tournament was going to be to fish extremely slowly on the riprap down by the dam with the finesse worm, because regardless of how many boats were fishing this same area I had confidence that I could catch fish by using this tactic and this worm. I was really concerned about trying to catch a keeper bass and particularly a whole limit of keepers in this tournament.
Contents:
- Part 1: Game Plan of a Champion
- Part 2: A Day to Remember Forever
- Part 3: My Luck Still Held
- Part 4: From Hero to Zero
- Part 5: I Didn't Really Do That
