Entry 253-3
Denny Brauer Bass Fishing on Clarks Hill Lake
Editor’s Note: Dealing with problems at tournaments, suffering with illnesses and winning even when you lose is a part of the tournament fisherman’s world. In the Bassmaster Elite Series at Clarks Hill Lake, near Augusta, Georgia, on May 1 – May 4, 2008, Denny Brauer had to overcome many obstacles to finish 10th. But in doing, Brauer of Camdenton, Missouri, earned as much money as 3rd place. Now how do you finish 10th in a tournament and win as much as the person who finished 3rd? This week you’ll learn that and plenty more from this Strike King veteran.
Part 3: Second Day of the Clarks Hill Lake Tournament
Question: What did you do on the morning of the second day of the tournament, Denny?
Brauer: I ran back to the areas that I had fished the previous day. I immediately caught a couple of keepers, but then the area went totally dead. I couldn’t even imagine a bite.
Question: What made this region go dead, Denny?
Brauer: That’s one question you’ll never be able to answer. There could have been little, subtle changes in the weather that we couldn’t see or understand. At this time of the year, the bass were in transition moving from spawning grounds to their deep-water summer-holding spots. Because of that factor, they moved around a lot. They could be in one place in one day, and not be there the next day. You always hoped that if they weren’t there the day you were fishing for them, and they weren’t biting, that maybe they’d move on to those sites sometime later that day. Another factor that impacted our fishing were the numbers of local anglers fishing that area that day. Fishing pressure might have had something to do with why the bass didn’t bite.
After I ran to several spots where I had caught fish the day before and didn’t catch any, I was forced to go to my backup spots – areas I had fished during practice but hadn’t fished during the tournament. The first backup region I pulled into, I caught three keeper bass in the first five minutes I fished there, and I had my limit.
One of those fish was about a 3-1/2-pounder, but the other two were just legal keepers. I had a small limit that weighed 9 pounds and some change, and I dropped from 1st place to 3rd place.
Question: Denny, did you catch all the bass on the jig that day, or did you catch any on the Series 5 crankbait in the sexy shad color?
Brauer: I caught two of the fish that I weighed-in on the Series 5 crankbait in the sexy shad color.
Question: Denny, what kind of retrieve were you using?
Brauer: I was just casting the bait out and reeling it in to my boat.
Question: You weren’t casting the bait out, pausing it, twitching it and moving it around then?
Brauer: Nope, I was just throwing it out and reeling it. Sometimes the bait would dig the bottom, but as far doing a stop-and-go retrieve or doing tricks with it, I didn’t. That’s one good thing about Strike King lures; you don’t have to be a professional fisherman to catch bass with them. Sometimes we think we have to do all kinds of fancy things with lures, rather than just using a crankbait as it’s been designed to be used – throwing it out and reeling it. And that’s exactly what I did. So, don’t forget that you can catch fish with Strike King lures by just throwing them out and reeling them in, and Kevin VanDam has proven that the sexy shad color can catch bass.
Question: Denny, why did you go to the Strike King Series 5 in the sexy shad color when you weren’t catching any fish?
Brauer: I had confidence with it because I had caught bass with it in practice. This was a backup pattern I had designed when I wasn’t catching fish in practice. 
That’s why I always have more than one plan. Don’t ever bet on one pattern or one lure, because even though you have a lure that’s really hot, and the bass are biting, when they quit biting that lure, you have to have another lure that you’re confident will work for you.
Question: Denny, how do you keep from panicking when you have a day of fishing like you had on the second day of the tournament? You knew where the fish were, but you couldn’t get the bass to bite. How do you keep from panicking in a situation like that?
Brauer: I’ve been in that situation many times over my career and from the number of years I’ve tournament fished, I’ve learned that there are some factors in bass fishing that you have absolutely no control over, regardless of how well you fish, how much you know, and how much confidence you have in your lures. Some days, you just can’t get the bass to bite. It may be because they’ve left the area, or that they’ve fed heavily before you’ve arrived, or perhaps there’s a lot of fishing pressure on them before you’ve started fishing for them, or they may just not be where they’ve been the previous day. However, none of that really matters. You have to remember that sometimes you just can’t make a bass bite.
The real secret for consistent bass fishing is to work hard every day and make good decisions the entire time you’re on the water. 
If that works out, you win; if it doesn’t, you try and salvage the day or the tournament and make it as good as you can. Even though I led the tournament on the first day, I didn’t have the numbers or the sizes of bass in the areas that I was fishing to duplicate that catch every day in that tournament. I have to admit that I caught a lot more bass on that first day than I was expecting.
Question: Denny, since you dropped to 3rd place after the weigh-in, what did you think you’d have to do to win the tournament after the weigh-in on the second day?
Brauer: I knew I would have to change my pattern. I knew I was really fortunate to still be in 3rd place, and I felt like I was going to have to run some new water and develop some new tactics.
