Entry 252-2

Fishing the Most-Difficult Conditions with Kevin VanDam at Clark’s Hill Lake

Part 2: The First Day of the Tournament

Question: Kevin, what was your game plan the night before the tournament?

VanDam The weather forecast called for a calm day and sunny skies, so I planned to run the same points I’d fished during practice. I couldn’t depend on one particular point to win the tournament, and I’d have to fish a lot of points each day to determine on which points bass were holding on that day, under those weather conditions. I’d have to find and catch the majority of my bass before 9:00 am, while bass were still schooling. After 9:00 am, fishing would get tough. Unless I got it done early, I probably wouldn’t win. To have a chance in this tournament, I wanted to reach my best point and catch as many fish as I could as soon as possible. So, that’s what I did.

Question: How many points had bass on them?

VanDam I had 30 or 40 points marked with my GPS where I thought I could catch bass. Out of these, there were only two points I had a lot of confidence in to produce a number of bass.

Question: What flight were you in the first day of the tournament?

VanDam I was probably in the first two flights.

Question: What happened on the first day?

VanDam On the first day, I ran to my best point. Two other competitors were running with me, and all three of us shutdown our big engines at about the same time. But I had the key spot, which was about the size of my boat, where the bass were concentrating. I caught a 2-pound-keeper bass on my very first cast with the King Shad. Tim Horton was fishing next to me, and Kevin Short was 50-yards away. All that commotion spooked the fish, and the bass didn’t school. We all fished about 10 minutes and didn’t get a bite. Finally, I switched to the Football Jig, got a bite, set the hook and lost a 6-pound largemouth.

Question: What do you think caused you to lose the bass?

VanDam I don’t know for certain. I probably just hooked it in the bony part of its mouth. Losing fish just happens. You won’t catch every fish that takes your bait every day, even though that’s what you’d like. So, I tried to get over it and continue my day of fishing. When I finally left that point, I went to another point where I caught a limit of bass very quickly on the Red Eye Shad. In five casts, I finished out my limit and culled one bass.

Question: Why did you decide to use the Red Eye Shad when you fished that point and caught other fish on the King Shad?

VanDam I noticed bass on this point were feeding on small shad, and the Red Eye Shad was about the same size as the shad the bass were eating. In this tournament, I could cast the Red Eye Shad out far. If I spotted bass coming to the surface and schooling, I’d cast the Red Eye Shad 60 yards. Having a 60-yard range all around the boat and bait the same size as the fish the bass were eating was an advantage. The Red Eye Shad gave me the best advantage to fish the way I needed to on these points. Plus, it had swimming action when you killed the bait that no other bait had. I’d cast the bait out, and as soon as it hit the bottom at 2-feet deep water, I’d reel it quickly, kill the bait and let it fall. Ninety percent of my strikes came when I killed bait.

Question: What color Red Eye Shad did you use?

VanDam Blue-gizzard shad.

Question: What pound-test line did you fish?

VanDam I used 17-pound-test fluorocarbon line with a cranking rod.

Question: Did you have competition on the spot where you caught bass?

VanDam No, I had the point all to myself.

Question: What characteristics made that point so special?

VanDam This point was no different from any other point on the lake, except it had bass holding on it.

Question: After you caught your limit of bass and culled one fish, what did you do for the rest of the first day?

VanDam I just kept running points and trying to cull-up my bag of bass. I caught a few more bass using the same pattern, but after 9:00 am, the bite got really tough. I fished the same pattern I’d used with the Red Eye Shad and changed baits, but I didn’t really improve my stringer weight.

Question: How big was the biggest bass you caught on the first day?

VanDam It weighed 3-1/2-pounds. When I went to the weigh-in, I had 13.5 pounds and was in 22nd place. That’s not bad when you’re fishing against 108 of the best bass fisherman in nation. But, I was really hoping to do better than that.

Question: On the second day of competition, the field would be cut to 50. Did you feel like you’d made the 50-cut?

VanDam Yes.

Next: The Second Day of the Tournament

Contents:

• Part 1: What I Knew and What I Learned
• Part 2: The First Day of the Tournament
• Part 3: The Second Day of the Tournament
• Part 4: Third Day of the Tournament
• Part 5: Final Day of Competition