Top 10 Baits from Beaver Lake
April 18, 2016 by Jody White and Garrick Dixon
Beaver Lake was a little dirtier than usual this year at the Walmart FLW Tour presented by Jack Link’s, and that allowed pros to tempt bass with a wider range of baits and techniques. If you’re fishing an Ozark impoundment with a little color to it sometime in the spring, you may want to give these baits a chance.
1. Scott Canterbury earned the win with a trio of jigs. One was a 3/8-ounce Dirty Jigs Luke Clausen Signature Series Casting Jig(Canterbury craw) teamed with a NetBait Paca Slim (green pumpkin). The other two were 1/2- and 5/8-ounce Dirty Jigs Scott Canterbury Signature Series Flippin’ Jigs (Canterbury craw and chocolate thunder) trimmed with various chunks and trailers including a NetBait Paca Chunk. He fished the casting jig on 15-pound P-Line Ultimate Fluorocarbon and the other two on 20- and 25-pound-test. For all of them, the Quaker State pro used a 7-6, heavy power Halo Twilite Series II casting rod and a 7.3:1 gear ratio Ardent Apex Grand reel.
2. As usual, Darrel Robertson kept is simple, catching most of his fish on a wacky-rigged Yamamoto Senko early in the tournament and then transitioning to a 1/2-ounce jig made especially for him by Clifford Pirch.
3. Keystone Light pro Jeff Sprague caught the vast majority of his fish with a custom-painted Lucky Craft RC 1.5 squarebill. He says he also caught some on a 1/2-ounce V&M Flippin’ Jig tipped with a V&M Wild Thang Craw. For the squarebill, Sprague relied on a 7-2, moderate action, Reel Time Rod Bushido cranking rod and 12-pound-test HI-SEAS 100% Fluorocarbon.
4. Scott Martin truly used a little of everything this week. From a drop-shot to a crankbait to a ChatterBait to a swimbait, he caught fish on different tackle nearly every day. The one common line was liberal use of his signature Okuma TCS rods.
5. Finally getting a little revenge on Beaver Lake, JT Kenney primarily flipped and cranked. When flipping, he used either a Gambler MegaDaddy or Burner Craw on the back of a 3/8-ounce, JT’s the best color ever-colored Nichols Lures Impact Flipping Jig. On the cranking side, Kenney used a blue-truese-colored 6th Sense Crush 250 MD. He fished both baits on Halo rods and used 16-pound-test Sunline Shooter Fluorocarbon for the jig and 10-pound-test for the crank.
6. Andy Morgan caught ‘em on a good selection of baits, but his two primary weapons were a 1/2-ounce, sexy shad-colored, double willow War Eagle spinnerbait and a War Eagle Flipping Jig in the 1/2-ounce model and a prototype 5/8-ounce size. For a little more glide, Morgan tipped the jig with a Zoom Big Salty Chunk. Using Lew’s reels and 16-pound-test Gamma Edge Fluorocarbon throughout, the G.O.A.T. paired his spinnerbait with a 7-foot, heavy-action iRod Genesis II casting rod and used his signature Andy’s Light Flip/Junk Rod model for the jig.
7. Using the same stuff he used at Grand Lake last week, Quaker State pro Matt Arey caught most of his fish on a homemade jig and a Lunkerhunt Revealer Tube with chartreuse in the tentacles. For tackle, Arey used Okuma Helios rods – a 7-6, heavy-action rod for the jig and a 7-3, heavy-action rod for the tube – with an 8.1:1 gear ratio Okuma Helios TCS reel and 20-pound-test P-Line Ultimate Fluorocarbon.
8. For the first FLW Tour top 10 of his career, Chris Whitson tossed a pretty eclectic combo. An orange, 1/2-ounce Showboat Lures spinnerbait and blue shad-colored War Eagle spinnerbait got the call some of the time, as well as a white Z-Man ChatterBait and a Showboat Lures flipping jig with a Zoom Big Salty Chunk. He fished all of it with 15-pound-test Vicious Fluorocarbon.
9. For ninth, Livingston Lures pro Stetson Blaylock mostly relied on a Livingston Lures Primetyme CB 2.0 fished on a 7-1 13 Fishing Envy Black Crankbait Rod with 15-pound-test Seaguar InvizX and a 13 Fishing Concept E reel.
10. Finally, Andrew Upshaw reports catching fish off beds with a Texas-rigged Gene Larew Biffle Bug Jr., casting a Ned rig with half of a Gene Larew Salt Flick’R as well as catching some on a Bill Lewis Echo 1.75 Squarebill.
