A very big part of my Classic win came back before the pre-practice time before
January 1st when I could be on the water I went down and spent a couple of days
on Fort Loudoun one day on Tellico looking at MEGA Imaging on that body of
water. I've fished here my whole life but it had honestly been quite a while
back since I had spent much time down there. I realized then that it had really
been since I had side imaging much less MEGA Imaging like what I have
now to combine that with LakeMaster mapping so I spent a few days down there
on Fort Loudoun really getting re-familiarized and looking at stuff with
side imaging. I already knew how I wanted to fish, the depth I wanted to fish, the
types of places, but I was able to look at places that I know are good see what
they look like on LakeMaster and then go side image them and make those
waypoints so when it came time for official practice I didn't have to spend
any time actually graphing then. I'd pull up on a place where I've got a
waypoint marked. I'd drop my Ultrex and immediately that puts my 360 in the
water and that thing starts spinning. I can see exactly what's going on
underneath that water and make targeted casts to any of those isolated rock piles
individual stumps, anything else that was out there underneath the water where
those fish were holding. When I'm looking for areas where I'm expecting bass to be
staging up prespawn, I'm looking for places that have some pockets that have
some protected areas back here into them but also that have some little high
spots, some ridges, some points that stick out you know out towards you've got you
can see we've got a main river channel right out here extremely deep water then
it comes right up on a shallow outside ridge and then you've got a couple kind
of levels inside you've got you know a couple places for those fish to go while
they're working their way back into the back where they're gonna spawn you know
later on into these back pockets and stuff but one thing great on LakeMaster
it's got a great detail I mean the the one foot contour lines but you've also
got where it shows roadbed shows old house foundations now I've got the water
level pulled down right now because on the Tennessee River system where the
Bassmaster Classic was the water was about four feet low being at winter pool
and then for me I've got my depth highlight I've got my shallow water set
to four feet and then I've got my highlight
range from six and then I've got a two foot either direction so two foot
plus or minus those are just some of the cool features that are built into that
mapping but for me most of my fish came you can see where a lot of these
waypoints are marked they were either in that highlight range or they were
actually right on the edge of the shallow water range where it met the
green so most of my fish came from that three to four foot two to four foot
range where most of my bites came from down here but with LakeMaster I was
able to break those areas down where those fish were using coming from out
here at the main channel and then these prespawn staging areas that those fish
were pulled up on I was picking them off of there with a lipless crankbait. The
great part with mapping for me it's a patterning tool. I'm able to set that
highlight range or set the depth range once I figure out where those fish are
and I can go all over the whole lake all over the whole system and really pattern
those fish extremely well. I waste less time and I'm always fishing exactly
where I need to be just based off of my mapping and where I've gotten bites I
can adjust that, and hay, if it changes throughout the day it's very easy to
adjust those ranges that I've got highlights just to click a couple
buttons and it's changed so I'm gonna hit menu twice go over to HB chart come
down depth highlight range I want my highlight let's just say the
fish moved out deeper, I'm gonna move that out to eight-foot. I still want to only carry
two foot either direction so I'm gonna leave that there so I'm covering six to
ten foot now leave my shallow water highlight at four just to keep myself
safe as I'm motoring around. The lake is still about three foot low. There you
go. You can see how this area was green now that has slid out a little bit more
highlighted that saddle those saddles in there, just makes it look a
little bit different by changing that depth just two feet but then once it's
time for the fun to begin when I drop my trolling motor put that 360 in the water
that's when I really start breaking it down and actually trying to catch a fish
when you look at that screen you need to orient yourself as being the boat and
I've got it lined up to where I know straight ahead of the boat is
straight ahead on that screen so I know if something shows up dead ahead of the
boat just like that piece of wood that I can see
above the water right there it's gonna be straight ahead of me on the screen
and I can make a cast straight out 12 o'clock off the bow. If it shows up over
here I will actually do that I will kind of look at look at
that screen and do this number and then make a cast exactly to where I see
something on that screen so once you've got that everything in line just imagine
that being a compass heading in whichever direction that that is I'll
just turn my body to it and I'll point there I'll immediately hit that target
whatever it may be that I'm trying to fish for. One other thing with it is that
with those range rings it gets to where I've developed a great feel I've run it
on a hundred foot most of the time I'll occasionally drop back to 80 for my
range so my range rings are either 20 or 25 feet and I can see something out
there and it's in between the second and third range ring so I know it's between
50 and 75 feet out I know just how long to make my cast to get beyond that
target and it doesn't matter what position it is whether it's 9 o'clock
over here 3 o'clock over there straight in front of me I see all directions all
the time regardless of where my trolling motor is pointing plus I have that
history on that screen so it doesn't immediately go away. I don't have to
stare at it all the time to see what's going on and
I keep that history long enough to be able to just adjust, make the cast, hit that
target every single time. These areas that I fished during the Classic a lot
of them were shallow offshore and the deal with the way the fish were set up
they weren't big schools of fish so you weren't gonna pull up on a place you
know Talon down or spot lock in catch five or six but you might catch two or
three and so it would be very important as I was working my way around the point
determined on whether the wind was blowing in in my face or if I was going
with the wind or with the current was my determining factor for whether I
would spot lock or if I would put my Talon down so in a situation like this
where I've got a little bit of headwind coming at me if I caught the fish right
here got a bite I actually hit spot lock to hold my position here but now if I was
being pushed along with the wind being pushed up onto what I was trying to fish
in that situation is when I would deploy my Talon. I was rarely sitting
deeper than six or seven feet and I run ten foot Talons so I'd be able to Talon
down pretty well anywhere I was fishing so those were the determining
factors whether I had a headwind or I had a tailwind whether I spot locked on
the front or I Taloned down on the back