Skeet’s Beat – Little Rock, Big River

We had a lot of water to cover during the Arkansas River tournament. I’m happy to say that it felt good to catch ‘em a little bit better than I had for most of the season.

Not that I killed ‘em; I had some missed opportunities, but after a bad first day, I recovered and caught a pretty good bag which moved me from 82nd place after day one, up to 36th. I managed another limit on day three and moved into 24th place.

I spent the first day in pool 8; the top pool that we could fish, and I shared a backwater with Mark Davis; neither one of us did well. The area started kicking out small fish, when it looked like it would give up at least 12 pounds a day.

On the second day, I ended up only going up one pool, into pool 7, and that’s where I caught my 12-pound bag to move into the cut. My first keeper was one that was close to five pounds, so that made me feel a little bit better about the way things could go.

On day three, I actually stayed in the Little Rock pool; pool 6, but I decided to lock back up to pool 7 at around 11:00; Edwin Evers did the same thing.
I got into the pool, figuring I’d give it about an hour. I went to the area that I caught them in on day two; which had little isolated pad clumps that I was Flipping. I flipped my Berkley Havoc Pit Boss in to one of the clumps and heard a voice ask me if I was a bass fisherman.

When I looked up, I saw a little old lady sitting there fishing. She asked me if I’d be able to help her get her cork; I guess she lost her bobber, and when I looked back, my line was swimming out of the pads under the boat. I set the hook, and a 2-1/2 pounder jumped and came off. I was so pissed at myself for getting distracted with my bait in the water.

I flipped into the next clump and caught a two pounder, then flipped a clump of pads next to a metal pipe and set the hook. When I did, the fish; which looked like a pretty good one, wrapped me around the pipe and sawed me off.
I let myself get distracted and it cost me two fish that would have helped me, and if I capitalized on everything this week, I probably could have been in the top 12. Oh well, I’ll take an improvement at this point as a very positive thing.

I caught my fish on two baits this week; a Lucky Craft LC 1.5 crankbait in Chartreuse Copper Shad and a black / blue flake Berkley Havoc Pit Boss. I threw the crankbait on my Wright & McGill Co. signature Tessera S-Glass cranking rod, 20-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon and one of my Victory 621 reels. I was also using prototype TroKar treble hooks, and they worked really well.

The Pit Boss was rigged on a 5/0 TroKar TK130 Flippin’ Hook, a ¼-ounce Eagle Claw Tungsten weight, 25-pound-test Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, my 8-foot Flippin / Pitchin Rod and a 701 Victory Reel.

Now I’m in Decatur, Ala. getting ready for the last tournament of the season. I have to fish to win for a chance to make the Classic; we’ll just see how it goes when practice starts.

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