Entry 254-3

Tournament Fishing at Lake Murray with Kevin VanDam and the New Strike King Shadalicious

Part 3: The Second Day of the Tournament

Question: Kevin, how did you start the morning of the second day of the tournament?

VanDam: I was the 20th boat to leave the launch site instead of the 98th boat as I’d been on the previous day. So, I ran to an area with two or three points, and they all had good schools of bass holding on them. The first point already had a competitor fishing it, so I ran to my second point and quickly caught a 3 and a 4 pounder. Catching two good fish early in the morning gave me a lot of confidence. Besides the two bass, I caught four or five stripers that would weigh from 5- to 10-pounds each.

I was getting a lot of bites, even though they weren’t all from bass, which increased my confidence that I’d picked the right lure when I chose to fish the Shadalicious. That’s the thing about the Shadalicious – it doesn’t discriminate. It will catch stripers as well as largemouth. Stripers are a little harder to trick and get to bite, but the Shadalicious is such a realistic-looking bait that those stripers just have to bite it.

Question: So, what did you do after you caught those first two bass off that first point?

VanDam: I ran to three or four other points and had a good limit of bass before 9:00 am. I had about 13 pounds in the live well, which was a pretty-decent stringer. I continued to run my point pattern and caught about 10 keepers that day. Getting that good, early start helped me relax and fish much-more confidently.

Later in the day, there wasn’t much wind, and I saw one point with a little ripple on it. I fished it with the Shadalicious and caught a 4 pounder. My final weight on day two was 14 pounds, 10 ounces. Too, on this day, I reeled in a 2 pounder that had two, 4 pounders following it. I knew I was fishing places that held quality bass. I felt confident I’d make the 50-cut and would be able to fish the third day of competition. If I could make the 50-cut and have 50-less boats on the water to compete with, I’d have a pretty-good chance to do well in this tournament.

Question: Kevin, why didn’t you cast back with a different lure to try and catch the bass following the one you caught on the Shadalicious?

VanDam: I tried everything in the tackle box, but my confidence bait was the Shadalicious. I threw a Red Eye Shad, a Shaky Head, a drop shot, a Football Jig and a Spit-N-King. I caught several bass in the tournament after fishing many different lures. I caught a few on the Shaky Head and the Spit-N-King, and one on the Red Eye Shad. In the spots where I caught large concentrations of bass, I presented every lure in my tackle box to those bass. Occasionally, a different lure would pay-off and produce a bass for me. Although I caught and weighed-in one bass on the Shaky Head and another one on the Red Eye Shad, most of the fish I weighed-in at the tournament were caught with the Shadalicious.

Next: Day Three of the Tournament

Contents:

• Part 1: What I learned in Practice
• Part 2: The First Day of the Tournament
• Part 3: The Second Day of the Tournament
• Part 4: Day Three of the Tournament
• Part 5: The Final Day of the Tournament