How a Bass Legend Tackles Tough Conditions

A look at his chunky fish told Nixon that the spotted bass had yet to spawn, though he suspected the largemouths might be in all phases surrounding their reproductive cycle. His surmise was verified in late morning, when his tube fooled a 4-pound largemouth that was dropping eggs as he hauled her across the gunnels. This fish was in a patch of flooded grass in a foot of water, and he had another big largemouth swirl on the tube at the base of a hickory tree nearby.

He also caught a 4-pounder and had another strike while working a spinnerbait along a bluff with an underwater ledge, a key feature at this time of year. To work the ledges, he alternated between short, perpendicular casts to the bank and long ones parallel to shore and above the ledge. He retrieved rapidly to keep the lure inches below the surface.

This action buoyed his spirits, and he said his dock pattern for suspended spots, combined with bluff areas on the main lake where he found largemouth, should provide him enough sizeable bass to do well in the tournament.

Still, he persisted in checking massive brushy flats, just to make certain he was not missing anything. He also showed a knack for emphasizing the positive. When many prime-looking docks failed to produce a strike, he rejoiced that this bite wasn’t strong today, saying, “It’ll keep other anglers from discovering this pattern.”

As we fished, it was clear that years of professional fishing had honed his abilities to quickly analyze lake structure and characteristics. “Beaver has always been a time-of-the-day lake,” he noted, meaning certain spots tend to produce only at certain times. At last year’s FLW event here, for example, he caught most of his bass during the first two hours in the morning. He told me later that one shallow cove with brush, grass, and docks we visited fruitlessly was fished the following afternoon by his traveling companion, Tommy Martin of Texas, who scored some fine bass.

As Nixon worked along the inside of a main-lake cove, he also noted that a little wind would enhance this shoreline. Though Beaver’s water was murky, he’d found on previous days that wind or shade helped his spinnerbait bite. Sure enough, once he reached the mouth of the pocket and some light chop reached the bank, he hauled a 21⁄2-pound spot aboard. Shortly thereafter, at 3:30, he called it quits.

While he readied his tackle for the ride to the dock, he reflected on his day, concluding that while the dock bite was not as strong as it had been on May 10 and 11, he’d learned that shallow docks were holding bass just as well as deeper ones. He’d have to fish all docks in a chosen stretch, since it seemed impossible to determine which ones would yield a spotted bass.

On his last practice day, Nixon hoped to further refine his dock pattern. He felt that if the weather remained unstable, docks would produce for the entire week. And he expressed relief that most competitors were avoiding the murky sections of the lake where he’d fished, spending their time instead in confined sections of clear water near the dam. He’d have plenty of areas to himself. He noted that he was ready for the tournament to start, and in fact, wished it had begun that day, as his pair of 4-pounders would have placed him high on the leaderboard.

Postscript

To Nixon’s chagrin, his 2-day total was 10 bass weighing only 19 pounds 15 ounces, excluding him from the last two days of competition and placing him 28th for an $11,500 payout. His Day One limit was just shy of 12 pounds, but he could manage just small spots on Day Two, weighing 8 pounds.

His primary pattern of spinnerbaiting docks and bluff banks held up, but his secondary plan to pitch a tube in flooded grass and brush failed, and he never managed a 3-pound largemouth. His buddy, George Cochran of Arkansas, finished in second place. In the final rounds, Nixon joined a crowd of spectators to watch him fish.

He noted that Cochran ran a pattern similar to his own, also observing that his spinnerbait presentation around docks was extremely precise and methodical. Cochran spent fully 20 minutes on one such structure, accurately casting, pitching, and even flipping the lure into every nook and cranny. After watching his mastery, Nixon concluded that proper presentation made the difference between his 28th-place finish and Cochran’s runner-up position.

*Field Editor Ned Kehde, Lawrence, Kansas, is a longtime contributor to ­In-Fisherman on a variety of topics. His detailed accounts of the angling tactics of experts are widely acclaimed.