Knight time

Unconventional tactic worked for Forrest Wood Cup

Brad Knight of Lancing, Tenn., said the area he mostly fished last weekend on Lake Ouachita during the Forrest Wood Cup likely had not been under much fishing pressure for months. “It may have been April since these fish have been cast to,” he said.
Brad Knight of Lancing, Tenn., said the area he mostly fished last weekend on Lake Ouachita during the Forrest Wood Cup likely had not been under much fishing pressure for months. “It may have been April since these fish have been cast to,” he said.

One of the great revelations from the Forrest Wood Cup, held last weekend on Lake Ouachita, was the effectiveness of the drop shot in shallow, muddy water.

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A drop-shot consists of a bell-type sinker on the main line with a dropper line tied to the main line above the sinker. This allows the bait to hover above the bottom. The presentation was essential to Brad Knight winning the Forrest Wood Cup last weekend on Lake Ouachita.

It often happens in major tournaments that a non-local surprises the local bass fishing community with an unconventional tactic that sideswipes even the other pros. That's how Brad Knight of Lancing, Tenn., bested the 50 best anglers in the FLW organization to lock down a $500,000 payday.

A drop-shot rig employs a small bell sinker attached to the end of the main line. A second line, or dropper line, is tied to the main line some distance up from the sinker. The dropper line holds the bait and makes the bait independent from the sinker, which acts as an anchor while the bait suspends above the bottom.

The drop-shot is a staple for provoking strikes from inactive or wary bass that won't react to more aggressive presentations. It's also useful for catching suspended bass. Aaron Martens has mastered it to an art, but Knight gave it a fresh twist on Lake Ouachita.

He fished in the back of Blakely Creek, a shallow inlet with a lot of wood cover in the form of fallen trees. The lake bottom is heavily silted, which makes it difficult to fish traditional inline presentations like jigs and soft plastic baits on Texas and Carolina rigs. They sink into the mud, and Knight said bass are reluctant to root around in the mud.

Two other anglers that made the top 10, Brandon Cobb and Mark Daniels, fished the same area and often fished the same trees. Unlike them, Knight figured out a way to overcome the silt. As a result, he caught a lot more bass, and bigger bass.

The straight-tail worm on a drop-shot was the solution. It worked, Knight said, because his weight sunk into the silt, but the dropper line kept the bait hovering over the bottom where it appealed more to bass. He also pitched the drop-shot, which is certainly an unconventional presentation.

Knight's said local anglers have ignored this area for months, so bass haven't been conditioned to fishing pressure.

"Back home, people fish creek run-ins," Knight said. "They are unpressured fish because everybody is out doing the summer deal. It may have been April since these fish have been cast to."

By "summer deal," Knight meant that bass in big reservoirs are largely preying on spawning bluegills near the bank. Many of the FLW anglers, including Ish Monroe, keyed on the bluegill pattern. It worked, but not well enough for anyone to separate from the rest of the pack.

Knight's drop shot alone wasn't good enough to provide any separation, either. Its main advantage was that nobody else used it, so he essentially caught fish nobody else could catch.

That allowed him to catch a limit for the first three days, but he separated from the pack by upgrading the quality of some of his fish with other lures.

Ironically, the shallow pattern didn't work at all for Knight during practice. It was so bad he considered abandoning it and fishing in grass.

"I really thought I would have to fish the grass," Knight said. "I thought a frog could be a big deal here, or a heavy sinker punching the mats. That's the way I like to fish, and I thought that could be a big player here."

Knight didn't catch fish from grass when the tournament started, nor did he catch fish from brush piles. The only thing left was the back of Blakely Creek.

"I started pitching a drop shot around those laydowns, and I had a limit early," Knight said. "It was about 11-12 pounds. I culled everything I had on a buzzbait the first day in the main part of the main creek channel flat."

Knight said he believed that would be a dependable pattern. But like the rest of the field, he learned nothing was consistent from one day to the next. Only the drop-shot bite was steady.

"The second day, I had a limit in the first hour," Knight said. "I caught a couple big ones early, but I culled one time with the buzzbait. It never did pan out really well."

Jacob Wheeler appeared to be in position to run away with the tournament after the third day, but Knight had figured out the puzzle to make a fourth-quarter run.

"I would see a log projecting out of water, what I call pole timber," Knight said. "Everybody was fishing stuff you could see, but there are two parts to a tree. There's the part where there are branches, I call it the 'fluffy' part, and the root wad."

The root wad might be submerged 30-40 feet away from the fluff. Knight marked root wads with his graph. When he caught a fish, he punched in a waypoint so he could return to the same spots over and over again and catch fish that replaced the ones he caught. That slight margin in inches was the difference between first place and ninth place, or about $480,000.

"Mark [Daniels] and I were casting to the same places, but my advantage was that I knew where the bass were sitting," Knight said.

Knight opened the fourth day by using a flippin' stick and a Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver on a laydown. He caught his next four on the drop-shot, but four days of pounding from three efficient anglers, along with all the camera boats and spectator boats, shut down the bite. Also, the weather changed, prompting Knight to make his final and most critical adjustment.

"When the wind changed directions and started blowing into the creek, it dirtied the water up," Knight said. "The fish got really shallow. I got out a homemade square-bill crankbait."

With that, Knight got to do something comfortable, at a time when it mattered most.

"All week I wanted to catch them cranking on wood because that's what we do back home," Knight said. "It was the right situation for it. I caught a really good one off the first little tree that sticks off bank, and I culled two or three times."

Sports on 08/30/2015

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