The Last Buffalo Hunt in Las Vegas
An Epic Documentary of the 2004 US Open
September 13-15, 2004 - Some say the U.S. Open is the toughest
tournament in the world. It takes place in one of the harshest
angling environments you could ever face on scorching Lake Mead,
Las Vegas, Nevada. Burning desert heat peaks over 110 degrees
during the US Open, and places a tremendous strain on anglers,
not only physical but mental. By the end of the day, you're not
fishing any more. You're merely hanging on. Your casts are off.
Your concentration to keep lure contact with the deep bottom is
wasted. By weigh-in, the intolerable sun has torn you down to a
tattered fraction of the angler you started the day as in the
cool desert dawn.
Lake Mead doesn't give up its highly-pressured bass easily
either. It's as much a desert under water as above. Bass, like
roaming caravans of green-finned camels, tirelessly wander the
featureless clearwater desert. If you intercept the route of
these nomads one day, the bass can vanish without a trace the
next.
Like every sporting game in Vegas town, it's easy to get in
the US Open. All you have to do is show up with high hopes, put
big money down on the table - and you're in. But in the US Open
(as in any game in Vegas), you're not likely to go home a winner.
The house is stacked against you. Aaron Martens, John Murray,
Gary Dobyns, Mike Folkestad, Tim Klinger, Mark Kile, Dean Rojas,
Byron Velvick, Dave Gliebe, Art Berry, Ish Monroe, Dean Rojas and
many dozens more of the West's best players fill the US Open
field. Make no mistake, guys like these are superstars in the
fishing world today. They're highly-trained professional athletes
you're going up against. This is what they have prepared
themselves mentally and physically to perform daily. They're
physically fit for fishing all day every day. Strong for the
sport, as the saying goes. The desert heat won't bother them like
it will bother you. They're not going to stop to eat. What they
tie on their rods in the parking lot when they launch will still
be tied on when they come back in. They won't snag or retie or
change lures or rummage through their tackle box. They won't miss
a beat nor a bass. Their first cast is going to be as perfect as
their last, and every flawless cast in between. This is what they
do for a living, not what you do. The U.S. Open is their arena -
not yours. For 22 years, the U.S. Open has been the biggest money
tournament west of the Mississippi River - and the pros who fish
it have every reason to expect your money to go home in their
pockets.
With that being said, there are few other sports events in the
USA today where an ordinary everyday fellow can walk in off the
street, pay up and have a go against a field filled with so many
top professionals. That's the allure of the U.S. Open. It's the
richest tournament west of the Mississippi - and the most
difficult.
This year's U.S. Open was made bittersweet by the prospect it
may be the last time it is held in Las Vegas. After 22 years in
Vegas, the U.S. Open may move to the much easier angling
environment of Clear Lake, California in 2005. So I made a point
to be at this (my first) and possibly the last U.S. Open in
Vegas. Before it disappeared forever, I wanted to document what
it was like to fish the toughest tournament in the world, to
witness what may be the last buffalo hunt, the last stand, the
final shoot-out before the U.S. Open shimmered away into the
harsh glare of the sandy Vegas desert heat, never to be seen
there again.
Here are first-hand accounts of a few of the victors. A
documentary of how the hunt went down for them, where they made
their stands, how they brought down the herd of hopefuls. You may
have read lots of tournament result reports before, but never one
like this. Please enjoy
AARON MARTENS ~ 1ST PLACE
(Note: Many of his top-ranking peers
regard Aaron Martens as the most innovative bass angler in the
world today.)
Bassdozer: Aaron, in the past 2-1/2
months you've won $300,000 (2nd at the CITGO Bassmaster Classic
on Lake Wylie, 2nd at the FLW Pro Tour on Lake Champlain and
first at the US Open on Lake Mead) and you have over one million
career earnings. Most impressive is, what you do, Aaron, your
methods, no one else even uses them. Here at the US Open, you
fished a worm slower than most die-hard wormers have ever fished
a worm in their life. At the CITGO Bassmaster Classic, you came
in second using a spinnerjig, something most bass anglers have
never used. One year ago, you finished second at the CITGO
Bassmaster Classic using a white hair jig. Not many anglers use
white hair jigs, but you almost won the Classic with one. That's
crazy. You practically single-handedly popularized dropshot
fishing in the USA, Aaron. Hardly no one knew what dropshot was,
meanwhile you were racking up a fortune with it. Many people are
saying you are rewriting the bass fishing book, opening up
anglers views to new ways to catch bass. How have you, a young
man only 32, risen to the top of bass fishing, Aaron? Where do
you get your angling ideas from and who do you get them from,
Aaron? What I mean is, many pros often credit another pro as a
mentor or figure they looked up to and tried to study or copy
their fishing styles. Are there any pros you tried to pattern
yourself after at any point?
Aaron: For the most part, my methods, what and how I fish are
based on growing up fishing with my mom, Carol. I never modeled
myself after any pros nor did I ever try to adhere to any
conventional wisdom found in the last 15 years back issues of
bass magazines. That would have mentally restricted me. I never
have held any preconceived notions of how I was supposed to fish.
My mom and I were fortunate to be able to fish the right lakes
(highly-pressured big bass lakes) in California. Instead of
partying and going to the beach and surfing, I'd go fishing with
my mom most every day. It was great. I learned my techniques from
her and just grew up doing them. I can't say we really followed
anyone else or that we tried to do what other people were doing.
The lakes I grew up on, we targeted the 2-1/2, 3, 4 pounds and
better fish. We didn't go after the smaller bass at all. So the
techniques we evolved were geared to bigger fish and that is what
I still do. These techniques don't always hold up well. You get
far fewer bites but bigger fish. Lakes I grew up on - Castaic,
Pyramid, Casitas - they're really pressured. When it comes to
fishing on the pro tours, it really helps to have learned on such
highly-pressured lakes. Living in Alabama now, and fishing the
BASS and FLW lakes, I really do not get to fish this way any
more. I call it "old school" and don't do it very often
now, maybe only 4, 5, 6 times a year. So it was nice to do
something at the US Open like I used to do with my mom. It was
great to fish "old school" again.
Bassdozer: By the end of the second
practice day on Lake Mead, wiping down boats in the parking lot,
word was already spreading that you were on 15 pounds a day using
jigs, and that you were going to win the US Open, Aaron. By the
end of the third practice day, rumor had changed to that you were
shaking brass 'n glass with worms. You were crowned the winner in
the parking lot before the tournament even started.
Aaron: I love it! That's too funny how the word gets out like
that. I guess I am always amazed at how that parking lot
scuttlebutt gets started. I really wonder how that happened since
I did not tell too many people at all what I was doing.
Bassdozer: I know by now you probably
were shaking worms and dropshotting, that you did not win with
jigs. Did you use, as rumored in the parking lot, brass (bullet
sinker) and glass (bead)?
Aaron: Those rumors are so funny! To shake a worm, I just use
Tungsten by itself. The Tungsten weight is so heavy that it
creates a lot of potent energy. Shakes causes a sharp fast
vibration and commotion. Brass doesn't have the power to shake
like tungsten does to cause all that sound and commotion. I don't
use beads because you just don't need one with tungsten. Tungsten
makes enough noise by itself. Plus the tungsten hits a bead so
sharply, it's so hard it can crack a glass bead and cut the line
on you. Noise and vibration is best using tungsten. At the US
Open, I was shaking the tungsten pretty slowly, real subtle, but
it was still more than enough power and vibration to attract
bass.
Bassdozer: One of the camera boats that
covered you on day two, the talk back at the parking lot was the
camera crew saw you make antagonizing slow retrieves, up to
twenty minutes per retrieve was what they were saying...
Aaron: That's really funny how those stories get to be that
way. I didn't time my retrieves, but I'd say I was spending more
like 4-5 minutes per retrieve.
Bassdozer: That's still a torturously
slow retrieve, Aaron. Most guys probably have never spent 4-5
minutes on one retrieve. Was there anything you discovered on
Lake Mead that caused you to slow down and take so long?
Aaron: Nothing new. It was just the old school Lake Mead. It's
just how I fish there. In 1993, Lake Mead was way down (low water
level) like it is now. I won a tournament in 1993 doing this
exact same thing. I just fished Mead the same way I won that
event in 1993.
My need to fish slow was based on where I was fishing. I was
within minutes of the weigh-in marina. These are highly-pressured
fish. They've probably been caught within the last week. They're
smarter, more aware of and used to dodging normal lures and
typical retrieves. Equally important, I fished deeper than most
guys would feel comfortable to fish all day, and deeper than the
experts with reaction baits could get to my fish. So the bass
down there were not seeing a lot of lures go by them at my level.
Bassdozer: A lot of anglers reported
that bass were working stripers like they were rented mules. Were
you using striped bass as part of your pattern or in any way to
help you locate and catch bass, Aaron?
Aaron: Stripers are all over Lake Mead and they were present
in the spots I was fishing. However I wasn't on a striper
pattern. I was on a bluegill and shad pattern.
Bassdozer: Do you think the bass you
were catching were eating bluegill, Aaron?
Aaron: They always eat bluegill on Lake Mead.
Bassdozer: How do you think a bass
relates a skinny worm like you were using to a bluegill? A worm
is thin-bodied but a bluegill is thick-bodied?
Aaron: It's more in the color and the way you move it. Most of
the bluegill bass eat are really small and thin at that size.
This size of bluegill can't really swim well or fast, and because
of this, they spend a lot of time quietly hiding under rocks -
hardly moving at all. Bass can't really get at them easily and
because of that, a lot of the bluegill get hit or injured but not
eaten. That's what I am trying to imitate with the colors and the
ways I move a worm - a small bluegill that's not a good or fast
swimmer to begin with - and that's been injured by a bass. On day
one, I'd say I used more plum colors and more Berkley worms. Day
two and three I fished more Roboworms. I rotated through about
five colors, mostly purples, greens and browns. I don't think any
one color was more effective. They were all solid bluegill
patterns.
Bassdozer: Did you learn anything new on
Lake Mead? Anything you felt was interesting or is going to help
you win the next time you return to Lake Mead, Aaron?
Aaron: I really didn't learn anything new this time. It was a
matter of finding enough spots that had big fish on them. I felt
I almost did not find enough. After the practice ended, I said to
my wife Lesley that I was going to be one day short on fish. I
almost was.
Bassdozer: One last question, Aaron.
Several anglers reported seeing you running figure-eights and
donuts over your fishing spots. They speculated that you were
doing this in order to stir up bait schools, to get the food
chain going, to get the bass feeding. Other anglers were waiting
for the striper pushes to make these bait movements happen. Were
you using your boat to move the bait balls, the way other anglers
were waiting on stripers to do that?
Aaron: No, I was just making the most of my time by graphing
my areas quickly, looking for what was down there at the time -
shad, tiny stripers, baby bass schools - and deciding whether
there was enough bait present to fish a particular spot right
then. If there wasn't any bait, I'd blast over and graph the next
spot and the next spot. I wanted to fish right when I saw the
bait on a spot, which was unpredictable. It was a matter of
finding enough spots that had bait on them at the same time I
was.
Bassdozer: Aaron, I kept tabs on what
guys were doing to avoid the debilitating desert heat. More than
most, you were dressed "desert style" and you did not
seem as stressed by the heat as much as some of the other
anglers. What did you do to prepare for the extreme desert
conditions at Mead?
Aaron: First thing as soon as I woke up every morning before I
did anything else, I drank 32 ounces of water. On the drive to
the launch ramp, I drank constantly. I drank about 2 gallons of
water, Gatorade and V8 juice daily during the competition. In
order to remain hydrated, I drank about every fifteen minutes. It
took a little bit to get used to the heat at first - about two
days. I think it's wise to use the full three day practice. Your
body needs that long to acclimate, plus Sunday (a no fish day) to
rest and recover. Still, I never got totally used to it - I was
never truly comfortable. The clothing I wore helped a lot. A big
full-brimmed hat, loose clothing, and a lightweight long sleeve
shirt.
STAN VANDERBURG ~ 4TH PLACE
(Note: Stan Vanderburg is co-host of
California's Rod & Reel Radio fishing talk show.)
I could only break away for two practice days, and I lost the
first day due to engine trouble. After idling out past the
no-wake buoys, we got up on plane for about 100 yards and my
motor quit. All kinds of bells and whistles were going off. I had
to turn tail, take it to a mechanic or two, and one who finally
diagnosed it as water in the fuel. Seems I had tanked up with 52
gallons of watery gas I got from a station on the way out. So I
ended the first day of practice draining 52 gallons of gas that
was diluted with water.
Left with only one practice day then, as we were pulling in
one area, a group of fish were chasing shad down the bank.
Throwing reaction baits, we were getting as many or more stripers
than bass, so I said to my partner to throw something stripers
won't eat - a brown or green jig or tube - and we started
whacking bass almost exclusively. That was the entire practice
for me.
The evening before competition, I wracked my brain wondering
what to do, whether I should go back there? Would the bait stay
there? Would the bass stay there? I didn't know. So the first
day, I ran up there see if they were still pushing shad. I moved
around the point and marked some shad, so we slid in there,
started working our way down the bank deeper into the cove, when
suddenly we saw shad pushed up far back in one pocket getting
hammered. That flurry didn't last long.
We moved out toward the outside point, and once again the
Lowrance lit up with shad spread out under the boat. As I
watched, the shad balled up on the screen and I could see
gamefish streaks lunging in at them from the main lake side. I
watched the shad ball flushing in toward the point. I said to my
partner, "Give it a minute and they'll be up on the
bank!" We both threw up on the bank and started working
downhill back out toward what I was seeing on the graph.
This became the pattern over the next three days, just reading
the Lowrance. I tell you, I became one with that Lowrance unit.
Every time I saw streaks pushing shad, it was usually stripers
pushing shad in from out on the main lake. Stripers would push
the shad up on the rocky points. I'd watch these pushes happening
on the meter, then we'd throw in at the place they were heading
toward on the bank, and catch one or two bass. Once the striper
push hit the bank, the whole thing would just break up and
disappear off the screen. Then we'd go to the next point where we
could mark shad spread out, and wait until we saw the stripers
push up. Sure enough, we'd see the shad ball up on the screen,
streaks start hammering them and push them up on the point. We'd
catch 1-2 bass out of each of the pushes as they hit the bank,
and then we'd move to the next point.
Every morning, we just hit this same 1/4 mile that had about
eight points. We'd meter through all eight points, catch what we
could, then circle back to the first point and meter through all
the points again. By nine every morning had a limit. The pushes
would always come from main body, mostly little stripers pushing
shad. I assume there were some bass underneath somewhere, coming
in with the stripers. As soon as the stripers got to the bank,
they'd roll out deep again and disappear. I guess the bass coming
in with them would linger longer on the bank, which is when we'd
pick up 1 or 2, sometimes more.
After that, we'd spin the boat back around, move out and meter
across the point between 30-40 feet deep. If we could see shad
all over the place, it was important to see which way they were
moving, swinging the bow back and forth to see which way they
went on the meter, and keeping the boat moving in that direction.
Sometimes the pushes went down one side of the point, sometimes
the other side. These were long extended points with deep
drop-offs. There was no way you could tell what was going on,
except on the Lowrance. There's no way to explain it except to
say my Lowrance and I became one for those three days. I don't
know how else I could have done it. Sometimes they'd push from
the main point but miss the bank until a secondary point, then
they'd get pushed back out to main point again. It seemed there
were some bass hanging off the insides of the secondary points
where it was 25-30 feet deep, hanging on deep weed edges
extending out of the coves. So if the stripers got to push the
shad in that far, then these bass would push them back out again.
Once in a while, they just splattered the bait all the way into
the sandy, grassy backs.
We did get some bass on the watermelon with red flake (color
208) 3/8 oz Yamamoto Hula jigs, but the majority came on oxblood
with red flake Roboworms on a dropshot or Texas rig. We really
had to slow down. After the morning bite put a good limit in the
livewell, we'd upsize to the same worms in the 7-inch size,
either oxblood or green, on a Texas rig.
We did not get a reaction bite going, but second place
finisher Brent Ehler was also in our water. We swapped spots and
conversation, and he finished second on reaction baits. I had a
whole deck of reaction baits out the whole time, and I had Brent
Ehlers (2nd place), Andre Moore (3rd place), Gary Dobyns (9th
place) throwing reaction baits all around me, but I never had to
use them.
As the biggest tournament in the West, the U.S. Open is
usually nerve-wracking for me. Usually I spend the whole
tournament tormenting myself, "Am I on them?" This
year, my answer was, "Yes, I am." I don't think a lot
of other guys discovered how to fish these areas effectively like
I was, and I believe we caught more fish than most guys. We
caught over 20 bass daily. They were not all keepers or not all
helped to cull, but it was just a great time. We had one good
fish in three pound range each day, two good fish like that the
third day, and the rest of our limits were all good solid fish
too.
I had a good limit by nine every morning, and my demeanor
remained pretty calm. It was a pleasant feeling. I was tickled to
come from behind after losing a practice day, having the engine
screwed up like that by bad gas. I just had this little pattern,
I stuck to it and it stayed solid for three days.
JOHN MURRAY ~ 6TH PLACE
(Note: John Murray has won over one
million in tournament cash and prizes. John is a 2-time U.S. Open
Champion.)
My strategy was to locate the biggest schools of 2" to
4" stripers that I could find. In my case, I really did not
locate any serious shad schools, but there were a few places
where schools of these tiny stripers would almost black out the
graph. The best schools of largemouth I found were in these few
places where the tiny stripers were thick. I felt these
meal-sized stripers took the place of shad. I can't say for sure
the bass were eating the tiny stripers. I did not see the bass
spit any up. They're kind of thorny and probably wouldn't get
spit up easily anyway. Nevertheless, the largemouth in these
locations were real fat, and there was not much else for them to
eat except these plentiful baby stripers. Regardless of whether
they were eating the stripers, the only good bass I found were in
these few places where the tiny stripers were packed in solid.
During practice, I caught a lot of bass with a Rico popper with a
striper pattern paint job. However, the bass didn't react well to
topwater for me during the tournament. Instead I went to
cinnamon-colored Yamamoto Kut-Tails and Roboworms. A long cast
was necessary, and I would just let the bait hit the bottom, then
not move it. I was fishing the worms more like a drop bait, not
working them back to the boat. I'd just wait after the initial
drop, then wind in and make another long cast. One key to getting
bit was the wind. If the areas I was in slicked off, so did the
action. When it was slick, all I would get were little ticks and
taps. Then I would take off to locate a breeze blowing in another
spot. If I was fishing in the breeze where I wanted to be, most
hits from the bass were solid takes.
TED ROPER - 7TH PLACE
(Note: Ted Roper is a successful
local tournament competitor on Lake Mead and nearby desert
lakes.)
My pattern was to fish around some type of baitfish, small
stripers or smallmouth bass fry. We'd know we were around them
when dozens of these would chase our reaction baits or worms back
to the boat. We fished the same 3/4 mile stretch all three days.
It was a series of small coves in the Overton Arm. Lots of
different type of structure was in this stretch - long drawn-out
points, rocky bluffs and sandy, grassy coves. Two wolf packs of
bass were roaming this stretch. They would pop up, unpredictably
at random. We would catch one out of the wolf pack then they
would disappear. We wouldn't see them again for an hour or two.
Between chance encounters with the two wolf packs, we'd fish for
singles - solitary bass buried in the grass or a lone bass poised
off a point. So we were fishing two patterns. First, the normal
way to go for singles like we always do. These singles tended to
be in the textbook spots - you know, shady side of a rock, pointy
edge or indentation on a ledge. You'd cast where they were
supposed to be according to the textbook - and once in a while,
they were. The second pattern, coming across the wolf packs at
different times throughout the three days. Whereas the singles
were in grass or predictable ambush points, the wolf packs would
come at us from out of nowhere, from the open water, suddenly by
there, then disappear.
Stripers were in the area, but not a lot of big schools of
stripers. Seemed a single striper or two were running with the
bass wolf packs. It was not the other way around where you expect
a bass or two to run with a striper school. Time of day was
important. One day we did not have a keeper until 1:30 PM. It was
a late bite every day. Flat calm were the best conditions. Purple
Berkley Power worms, dropshot, Rio Rico topwaters produced, but
especially a crankbait from Japan called a "Power Dunk"
that was given to me by a friend from Washington. It runs about
eight feet deep, and it was just about the same size and same
brown color as the smallmouth fingerlings bass were feeding on in
this area.
I liked the faster format for the pre-tournament meetings this
year. Mike Kennedy got us in and out, and the weigh-in was better
organized and quicker than ever. It was the best sponsor row
ever. We all got a lot of great tackle samples from the sponsors
this year. I am so glad they dropped the meal break between
meetings too. That used to make for a long drawn-out meeting day
- and the meal wasn't that good anyway.
The greatest thing about the U.S. Open is that it can turn an
ordinary angler like me into a bass pro. This is my sixth U.S.
Open and my best finish (seventh). It's something to be proud of.
I found these fish on this stretch in May. I checked them again
and spent time getting to understand their movements and habits
in August. I checked there again one practice day just to make
sure they were still there. Throughout the season, I was
fortunate to have made a relationship with and an understanding
of these fish and this area - and it paid off big time.
GARY DOBYNS ~ 9TH PLACE
(Note: Western tournament dominator
Gary Dobyns has creeled over one million in career cash and
prizes.)
Practice days for me were either really good or really bad.
When the stripers were pushing bait hard, I found a lot of bass
inside the backs of coves. Other days, the stripers were way out
on rock reefs and extended points toward the outside of the
coves. It took a few hours every day to figure it out. It wasn't
easy. Just when I felt I got it figured, the stripers would
flip-flop on me, move out of the backs onto the points - or vice
versa. During practice, the morning were good, the afternoons
were a struggle. Come the first two days of competition, the
afternoons proved best once the stripers started feeding. Day
three, the bite was really good in the morning. Both my partner
and I lost a few key fish that morning, but we had four bass on
board. So I was not at first overly concerned about dumping a few
good fish. In the afternoon, I felt, the bass would again get
active when the bait got moved around by the stripers just like
the first two afternoons. That third afternoon striper push never
happened for me, and we never added that fifth keeper. In
hindsight, I should have picked up a worm, because any fifth
keeper would have moved me up into the top five and any worm fish
would have been worth $4,000 to me. However, I was stubborn. I
was in third place day one and day two. I wanted to win it all on
day three. I did not want to settle for placing in the top five.
I did not throw a worm. I stayed with the topwater bite, I wanted
to win the U.S. Open fishing aggressively in my style, not with
worms.
I did not find tons of shad in my areas, but even still, the
shad were so much bigger and more plentiful that previous US
Opens. Some schools of shad were over the 4" mark. The
striper population was large - bigger and healthier than prior
seasons. The striper schools I was using to move bait were mixed
sizes, mostly 2-3 lb. stripers with some larger stripers mixed
in. There were more bass than normal and they look healthier than
recent years. The bass were fat.
I lived and died with the topwater bite. I had three topwaters
tied on. When there wasn't much moving, I'd throw the Super Spook
with a really slow action - doosh... doosh... doosh.... real
slow. On the other hand, I'd pick up a big Sammy working it
really fast around active fish. I also threw a Reaction
Innovation's Vixen (a new topwater) but not as much as I used the
Super Spook and Sammy. I'd wet the Vixen when I felt I had
overused the other two and needed to mix it up on the fish. What
hurt me really bad was there was no wind during the event. I
stayed bullheaded and threw the topwaters non-stop. I had to make
do without any wind to help the reaction bite. When there's no
wind, I just fish my exact same reaction baits - except much
faster - about as fast as I can move the bait and the boat. I was
finding bass both in schools and singles. It seemed they were
more schools earlier on in the event, and more single fish toward
the end of the event. The deal with topwater is you are always
going to lose some fish. They're jumping just to hit a topwater
and they just love to stay on top and jump some more. Lake Mead
is an awesome topwater lake. You have so many shad and such clear
water. You're just going to lose a percentage of fish like that.
Other lures, you can find 5-6 fish a day and maybe do well,
boating them all. With topwater, you need to locate a few extra
fish each day just because you will lose a percentage of them. So
you have to locate a couple of extra fish each day in order to
compensate for that loss factor on topwaters. Exactly what
percentage of fish you will lose on topwater, that is a tough
question. When there is foul or windy weather, the bass are going
to commit to hitting topwaters solidly. When there are flat
conditions, they don't commit as well. They hit halfheartedly,
and you will lose more. That's what happened to me the third day.
I had a poor third day, losing a few key fish. Overall, I didn't
feel very good about my performance.
NICK GREBB ~ 12TH PLACE
(Note: Nick Grebb is a veteran
Western tournament pro, cashing a check more often than not.)
I had a sweet little deal going on but just didn't realize
early enough just how good it really was. I was impressed by this
spot during practice, but I really didn't figure it out until
during the tournament on the end of the second day. In hindsight,
had I known what this spot was holding, I could have pulled a
solid 10 to 12 pounds out of it every day. Maybe even won the US
Open.
I was moving all over the lake during practice, making those
long runs. I got an early draw on day one of competition so I
decided to make the long run. That was only good for 7.33 lbs. I
started the second day doing the same thing and only had three
fish by 3 PM. Desperate now, I blasted out of there and floored
it 30 miles to this little spot I am talking about. First cast,
bam, a good fish. Then bam again, I landed two keepers using two
Lucky Craft topwaters rigged one ahead of the other. There's our
limit! I exclaimed to my partner, "Throw in there with the
dropshot!" First cast, yes sir, he pulls out a two plus and
now we've culled our littlest fish. We caught a couple of others
keepers that didn't help - and it was time to go weigh.
Morning of day three, I made a beeline straight back to this
sweet little spot and we have 10-1/2 pounds in the livewell in 15
minutes. It's the final day so I have no reason to save any fish,
so we really lit them up. The next two hours, we boated 15 more
two-pounders. It was just a little stretch of sand no longer than
my truck and trailer. This was a main channel location with lots
of boat traffic whizzing by. Most of the channel was clear water,
but this one little spot was kicked up and cloudy. I could not
see any grass there, but throw in a crankbait and you'd grab a
ton of grass. The cloudy water was loaded with shad and lots of
little stripers. Mostly 8 to 10 inch stripers plus a few to 1-1/2
pounds. I found out if I kept the boat in close and threw out,
mostly stripers were caught on the outside perimeter of the spot.
But if I stayed out and threw right up on the sand, there were
bass in close. I felt they had the shad sandwiched in between
them - between the stripers and the bass - and they weren't
letting the shad get out of there at all. The shad were bigger
(about 2" to 2-1/2") than most shad I had seen other
places and there were just tons of shad locked in there thick. It
was kind of an intense little situation. What really surprised me
too was that the livewell was loaded with spit up crawdad pieces.
When I saw all the craws spit-up again on day three, I tossed a
watermelon tube out there, and they were just crushing it. So
there was just a whole food chain being jet-fueled in this one
small spot here. I really did not know what I had there. No sir.
Had I realized what was going on during practice, I could have
come out on top of the U.S. Open - or real, real close. I feel
these bass were holding there all day - at least whenever I
stopped there. After catching a whole load of 2 pound clones
there the morning of the third day, we went searching for a
kicker, but couldn't get one. We returned to this little spot
toward the end of the day, and the bass, the stripers the whole
food chain was still locked in there like they had never left. It
was just a little pocket, and I mean little, off the main channel
that was dirtied up a little more than the rest of the area. I
never saw another boat in there although half the field had to
pass it on the way out and on the way back in to weigh.
TIM KLINGER ~ 14TH PLACE
(Note: Tim Klinger won $200,000 at
the 2004 FLW event on Beaver Lake.)
The US Open started kind of funny for me. I had a really bad
practice and only caught three keepers over the three practice
days. Although I live there (Lake Mead), I was on the road
fishing the FLW tour all season. I had only spent 7-8 days on
Mead this year. My luck turned when my roommate gave me a
dropshot bait which was working well for him. It was a custom
hand-pour in a purple color. This bait looked somewhat like a
Slug-go. On day one, right away, I metered a school of bait, put
the dropshot bait under them and started pulling fish. I metered
around, finding bait in 4-5 other areas close by and pulled more
fish out from under the bait clouds with the dropshot. Then that
just kind of shut down. I switched to a 3/8 oz. Yamamoto Hula jig
in 221 (cinnamon with purple) and caught 3-4 more bass on that.
This was all around Middle Point.
I believe the bait balls on the meter were shad, baby bass and
tiny stripers. I felt the bass were eating a little of each -
whatever was wounded, falling out of the bait schools in front of
their faces making an easy meal. Unlike some of the other
anglers, I did not get into a situation where stripers were
pushing bait into the bass. I did rely on the wind however.
Whenever a little bit of wind arose, it would push the bait in
closer toward the shoreline and the bass would react to that, go
on the feed.
On day two, I started throwing the same Yamamoto hula jig and
dropshot bait in the morning. This was around Temple Bar. My
partner landed three good fish on topwater. I switched to
topwater too, but wasn't getting any bites. There was a lot of
bait around the backs of coves in the grass and also around the
outside points. We were catching single bass. Just one bass here
and there. We never encountered any wolf packs of schooling bass.
We ended day two close to the weigh-in marina with only a little
time left, fishing a sunken boat wreck. We culled two fish there
in the last five minutes. I felt the bass were just using the
sunken boat as a shady place to rest when they were not out
chasing bait clusters in the area. I had other bites there just
before we had to go weigh.
Day three, I started the morning on the same wreck, but no
luck. I boated back up to Middle Point again, and by 11:30, we
were back at Temple Bar where we put the first keeper in the
boat. After that, we went to the back of Gregg Basin where there
were some thick grass coves. First cast with a crankbait, I
landed a bass. Second cast, a bass hurled itself out of the water
to hit the crankbait in mid-air before it even landed. The bass
was looking up and had seen it coming on the cast. That told me
to go to topwater, and I hit a few on a Spook (a bone white Super
Spook Jr.). A breeze came up, wiping out the topwater action so
we switched to spinnerbaits just under the surface during the
breeze. The spinnerbaits were 1/2 oz white w/purple pearl accents
in the skirt with a small gold Colorado and silver willow blades.
All told, we boated 8-9 bass in an hour back in Gregg Basin. We
peeled back to Temple Bar. We had 5-6 blow-ups on topwater but
never landed any of them. They were swirling on it and even
jumping over the topwaters but not committing to taking hold of
them. Although the Yamamoto hulas worked the first day and a
half, I never really went back to using them after that. With
fifteen minutes left on day three, we culled out our last small
bass on a Texas-rigged Zipper worm.
Overall, I fished what I would normally do at this time of
year on Lake Mead. I basically kept my baits in the water and
covered a lot of country miles. I covered miles with the big
motor, hitting many far apart spots, and miles with my foot on
the trolling motor. What surprised me was to hear how guys were
catching schooling fish so well. As for me, I never saw a wolf
pack of bass during practice or during the event. I was also
surprised - no, shocked - to see how many quality bass were
caught this year at the U.S. Open. The bass fishery here is
great, better than it has been in a while, and there's no reason
why it won't be even better next year. There's been some talk to
move the U.S. Open away from Mead. I don't think that is a good
idea. I don't want to see the U.S. Open move, and I don't think
the move will get a lot of support from the anglers who fish it.
The U.S. Open is Vegas. The anglers have a lot of fun. There are
lots of places to get together, to eat, to party. Fishing will
always be fun wherever you go, but the atmosphere of the U.S.
Open would be gone if it moves somewhere else. Somewhere else,
there's not going to be too many good places to go out, not too
many good restaurants to eat at. It would still be fishing, but
it wouldn't be the U.S. Open. That's how I think of it.
The 2004 U.S. Open is over. It has shimmered away and
vanished into the harsh glare of the desert heat. After 22 years,
it may not return next year. There's no trace to be left of it,
no way to know what it was like to be in the hunt, to be in the
world's toughest tournament, except for this story. - Russ
Bassdozer |
