Beaver Lake Angler Tallies Three Tournament Wins In A Row

Mike White of Garfield is batting a thousand. He's three-for-three, having won the first three Beaver Lake Competitive Series bass tournaments of 2014.

That's a whale of an achievement, but there's more. White has won the big bass prize in all three events by catching the largest bass of the tournament. He's done it by fishing water most anglers ignore.

Instead of working cover along the shoreline, White likes to prowl open water far off shore. Schools of bait fish live in this deep-water world. Game fish, such as largemouth bass, follow the bait schools to pick off an easy meal. Open water is where White did much of his fishing to score the trifecta of victories.

His most recent lunker came at the Beaver Lake Competitive Series tournament on May 24. White's big bass of that event was a 6-pound, 2-ounce largemouth he caught between the Arkansas 12 bridge and Bear Island. The water was 70 feet deep, but the bait fish he'd located were shallower.

Traffic zoomed by on the busy bridge that day while White worked a Zara Spook top-water lure over the bait school. That big 'un sealed victory No. 3.

Beaver Lake Competitive Series tournaments attract the best bass anglers in the area. The competition level is as high as it gets, said Chris Johnson, a series competitor and long-time tournament angler.

"For a guy to win three in a row is almost unheard of in any tournament circuit," Johnson said. "And to get big bass in all of them, too. That's a heck of an accomplishment."

Anglers fish solo in competitive series tournaments. It's not a two-person team event. That's what makes it so competitive, Johnson said. It's every angler for himself, using his own instincts without a teammate to add advice.

In any tournament, it's unusual for an angler to fish out in the middle of the lake, Johnson said.

"Fishing that open water has always been part of Mike's game. He's fishing untapped fish, but it can be feast or famine. You could win a tournament or not catch any."

White knows that fact well. He's come up empty many times, but his three victories show the tactic can pay big.

Down Deep

White relies on his boat's depth finder to locate schools of bait fish in open water. It's almost guaranteed that largemouth bass and other game fish are nearby.

"You never know what you'll catch. It might be a striper or a walleye. It's not always bass," White said while fishing at Beaver Lake Friday, May 30.

Here we were, fishing in the same area where White caught his 6-pounder in the May 24 tournament. Again, his depth finder showed a school of bait. They're usually threadfin shad, which all game fish at Beaver Lake eat. As he did a week earlier, White worked a Zara Spook top-water lure over the school. A 2-pound largemouth nailed it on the first cast in water nearly 100 feet deep.

White caught most of his bass May 24 within sight of the bridge.

"You can do this without a depth finder," the angler coached. "You can watch for the bait fish making little splashes on the surface. That could mean there's a school below."

White admired the healthy-looking bass and tossed it back. "In a tournament, if you weigh five bass like that it'll give you 10 pounds, but not enough to win," he said. Anglers may weigh five bass in most events.

"With tournaments, it's all about getting that one big fish. If you can add a 6-pounder with four of these 2-pounders, that'll bump you up to 16 pounds or better, which might be enough to win."

Tips Of The Trade

White likes to tinker with his fishing lures. The angler has come up with a couple of innovations that put bass in his livewell.

Spinner baits are one of his favorite lures. White adds a soft-plastic jerk bait, such as a Zoom Fluke, to the spinner-bait hook so the Fluke swims behind the spinner bait. That makes the lure larger to attract big bass. "It's almost like it's a double lure," White said.

Soft jerk baits like the Fluke are fine on their own, White said, but bass sometimes bite them and don't get hooked on the lure's large, single hook. To prevent this, White adds a small stinger treble hook to the main hook. A few of the bass White caught last Friday were hooked with the treble.

White caught another bass over the school of bait, then idled over to the bridge's pilings. "In the summer there's usually fish hanging around these," he said.

We could have stayed at the bridge all morning following bait fish and bass, but White wanted to show another proven tactic that relies on deep-diving crank baits.

White put the hammer down and before you could say "Wiggle Wart" we were at Hickory Creek park, on the south end of the lake. A bluff covered in gorgeous yellow wildflowers had White's attention, but not for the blossoms. The ends of bluffs, especially where they meet an underwater flat of gravel or rock, are excellent places to work deep-diving crank baits.

His preference is a Norman DD-22 crank bait in yellow or chartreuse with a blue back. As the name implies, it can dive 20 feet or deeper.

White wrangled one bass off the flat before we called it a morning.

Lifetime Fisherman

Another reason White does so well at Beaver Lake is experience. He's been fishing the lake since he was 5. That's when his dad, Larry White, began taking Mike fishing. Mike is 46 now. The father and son still fish together for recreation and in tournaments. The two won the annual Polar Bear bass tournament on Jan. 1 at Beaver Lake this year.

White said tournament fishing is mostly skill, with a smidgen of luck.

"A person has to know where to fish, how to fish and what to fish with at different times of year. The only luck comes in the size of the fish you catch. You can't control the size."

This year, size has been on White's side.

Outdoors on 06/05/2014