Story by Hunter Sales | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
Coming into this event, I expected the shallow bite to be strong, but not for it to compete with the historical deep bite that typically wins in late May. The rising water, cooler weather, debris from Hurricane Helene, cicada hatch, shad spawn, and the plentiful amount of bluegill up shallow certainly held more fish than normal on the bank. I caught some quality fish up shallow in practice, but was concerned about the pattern lasting for three days with so many competitors fishing the same areas. I ended practice with roughly 15 schools of fish and felt that I had a daily weight ceiling around 16 pounds with a floor of 12 pounds. I opted to start Day 1 on a shad spawn as I felt that was the best way to catch a 4-plus pounder.
Day 1 started according to plan, catching a 3 1/2 pounder and four other keepers on the first dock I fished. I then moved immediately to one of my better schools and caught a 3 pounder very quickly. The rest of the day was a struggle to upgrade, as I caught endless 2 1/4-pound fish on a crankbait out deep. The key here was to use the appropriate line size to get the bait to dive to your desired depth. I had one bait rigged with 12-pound-test Seaguar Tatsu and one with 10-pound Tatsu. Using line this light with a deep-diving crankbait requires you to keep an eye on it for frays, but it’s essential to get bites. I fished shallow for the last hour of the day, throwing a frog and flipping, but never upgraded.
On Day 2, I once again opted to start on a shad spawn but was unable to get bit. I think the later boat number shortened the bite window substantially for me. Upon returning offshore, I caught four of the five that I weighed-in within the next hour. While the crankbait was the heavy lifter on Day 1, I noticed quickly that the schools I had busted up on Day 1 would eat a flutter spoon better on Day 2. They were positioned really good as the current was flowing all day. What really surprised me on this second day was how few anglers were fishing for these deep schools considering how well they were biting. This is a testament to how well the shallow fish were biting.
Day 3 brought unique challenges as the Memorial Day crowd hit the lake. After failing to catch much size on my starting hole, the next few schools that I visited were occupied by local anglers. While frustrating, I was lucky to have enough schools to make do. Despite knowing where these schools were, a lot of them had already been fished for that morning. I ended up catching a few getting reaction bites on a magnum spoon, but did my heavy lifting on a 3/32 Neko worm fished on 15-pound-test Seaguar Flash Green braid and an 8-pound Seaguar Tatsu leader.
All in all, I was happy with my execution and decision making in this home-lake event. My knowledge of the deep game on Douglas certainly helped me, but the rising water leveled the playing field for everyone. I got to do what I love, utilizing my Humminbird electronics to find and reel in a pile of fish offshore on varying techniques each day.
Hunter Sales – Angler Profile
