Entry 253-1

Denny Brauer Bass Fishing on Clarks Hill Lake

Part 1: Before the Clarks Hill Lake Tournament Started

Question: Denny, what did you know about Clarks Hill before you started to fish this tournament?

Brauer: I had fished three or four tournaments on this reservoir before, so I had a little knowledge of the lake and the bass in it.

Question: What was your game plan when you arrived at the lake?

Brauer: I figured there would be quite a few bass still spawning and on the beds, so I wanted to eliminate that technique, because all the other fishermen would probably be fishing that tactic and putting a lot of pressure on those spawning fish. For that reason, I decided to concentrate on post-spawn fish. The first day of practice I went up the river to an area that I thought would hold spawned-out fish. However, I’d forgotten that on the upper end of the river, cold water comes into this reservoir from Lake Russell. Therefore, some of the coldest water in the lake was at the upper end.

That first day of practice I had about 15 bites on the Strike King Football Head Jig, and I only set the hook on two of those bites. One of the fish was a 5-pound largemouth, and the other fish was a 2-pound largemouth. I felt like I could get some quality bites on this end of the lake, and I thought the lower end of the lake would be where most of the competitors were fishing, because that’s where I believed most of the spawning bass would be holding on the beds.

On the second day of practice, I decided to check the lower end of the lake just to see what I could find. Although I didn’t get a lot of bites at the lower end, I caught a 3-pound bass, a 4-pound bass, a 5-pound bass and some small keepers as well. Now I was torn between fishing those two places. I had a place upriver where I thought no fishermen would be fishing, and I had a place downriver where I thought the most fishermen would be fishing. I really had no clue what I was going to do, so the third practice day I went back upriver to make sure I could catch bass up there. I found a few more regions where I caught some fish, so I decided this was where I would fish for the tournament.

Question: Denny, when you get ready to fish a tournament, do you determine what pattern most fishermen will be fishing, and then decide to do something different from them?

Brauer: Yes, I do. I don’t focus on trying to get points to win the Angler-of-the-Year title, or attempt to place well in the tournament, or try and make as much money as I possibly can. I go to a tournament to win, not to place, not to show, but to win. When you fish to win, you fish much differently than when you just fish to get points for Angler-of-the-Year, or if you’re trying to get as big a paycheck as you can get. Often when you fish to win, it’s an all-or-nothing type of deal. At this point in my career, all I really care about is trying to win. I really believe that if you don’t take that approach to tournament fishing, you waste a lot of chances that you may have seized if you’re an all-or-nothing kind of fisherman.

I always consider how the other competitors will be fishing. Winning a tournament if you have to fish in a crowd is tough, as is fishing in waters everyone else is fishing. Therefore, I’ve fished enough tournaments to know where the bass are supposed to be at that time of the year, and under the water and weather conditions that we’ll face. I know which baits the bass should bite based on those conditions, and that’s what all the other fishermen know as well. Therefore, I try to identify a tactic, a pattern and a lure that doesn’t fit in with what everyone knows, but that still will produce bass where everyone isn’t fishing.

I also feel that I’ve got to do the things that other fishermen won’t do. The upper part of the lake is a farther run in the boat than the lower part of the lake is. If I run to the upper part of the lake, I’ll have to spend more money on gas than the fishermen do in the lower part of the lake. Spending money on gas is a primary consideration of most tournament fishermen. So by burning more gas, I’m eliminating part of the field that has to fish more conservatively. In the Clarks Hill tournament, the five competitors who made the decision to fish upriver all finished really high in the tournament, and one of those fishermen won the tournament. So, I’d figured out a winning pattern by going upriver while other competitors went downriver.

Remember that the best pattern for any tournament is not always the winning pattern. The best pattern is what most fishermen will be doing. They’ll all be fishing the same pattern. If you can develop a pattern to find fish, get fish to bite and catch fish that the other competitors aren’t using, you’ll be fishing for bass that are less pressured, and you have a better chance of catching them. If you can find an area to put that pattern together, in a place other fishermen aren’t fishing, then you drastically increase your odds for winning the tournament.

This same philosophy is true for weekend fishermen. If you’re fishing the grassy shoreline like all the other fishermen on Saturday, you can bet that every shoreline you hit has already been fished. And, if everyone is fishing that grass with a rubber frog or a plastic worm, you can also bet that all the fish in the grass beds have already seen a rubber frog or plastic worm.

But if you decide to fish clay banks where nobody is fishing, you know those clay banks probably haven’t been pressured by fishermen. And if you’re running a crankbait, while everyone else is fishing soft plastics, there’s a very-good chance that those fish haven’t seen a crankbait in the last day or two. Although there may not be as many bass holding in the clay bank as in the grass, the ones that are there you have a better chance of catching, and more than likely, they’ll often be bigger than the grassy bank where everyone else is fishing.

Kenyon Hill, who won the tournament, was fishing a point upriver that no one else was fishing. That point was his primary place to fish, and I’d found fish at that same point, which was my secondary place to fish. One point that was a minor spot for him was a major spot for me. We shared that point a little bit together.

Question: Denny, what baits were you using in practice?

Brauer: I was using a top-water walking bait, the Spit-N-King, a jig, and a Series 3 crankbait – all Strike King lures.

Next: First Day of the Clarks Hill Lake Tournament

Contents:

• Part 1: Before the Clarks Hill Lake Tournament Started
• Part 2: First Day of the Clarks Hill Lake Tournament
• Part 3: Second Day of the Clarks Hill Lake Tournament
• Part 4: Third Day of the Clarks Hill Lake Tournament
• Part 5: The Final Day of the Clarks Hill Lake Tournament