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Wal-Mart FLW Tour Stop #5 Ft. Loudoun – Tellico Lakes, Lenior City, TN By Duke Jenkel
Ft. Loudoun – Tellico Lakes were the fifth stop of the 2008 FLW Tour. Ft. Loudoun is part of the Tennessee River chain, having spent a fair amount of time on other impoundments of the Tennessee; I was looking forward to this tournament. Practice Practice started with a trip up Tellico Lake, this lake is pretty interesting. I had fished a BFL regional here last fall, so when Jasper Engines and Transmissions Pro Chad Morgenthaler said we were going to start on Tellico I was ready. Tellico presents a lot more boat docks than Ft. Loudoun. The only problem seems to be that the fish on Ft. Loudoun seem to cooperate better than the fish on Tellico. As we practiced that day, getting bites was not difficult, getting bites from keeper sized fish, that was another story. The day began somewhat overcast, with a light breeze. Most of the fish we caught were off shore. We spent the better part of the day looking at off-shore structure on the main lake, and in the major tributaries. We ended the day with 5 keepers, nothing extraordinary, with the exception of one nice 4lb fish that bit a Lunker Lure rattlin’ football jig. On day two we went to Ft. Loudoun and immediately started catching fish, not only were we getting more bites, most of them were keeper fish. We began the day by fishing off-shore, but around mid-morning, we moved up shallow to fish docks. As we went shallow, I threw a Reaction Innovations Vixen; this is a “spook” type bait that is by far the best “walking” bait I have thrown. This bait will walk the dog, easier than any spook or Sammy I have ever used. With that being said, two distinct patterns emerged from fishing shallow. One of those being fishing the docks with a jig and fishing the overhanging shaded banks with the Vixen. When fishing the Vixen, it did seem to help if the bank was rip-rap. The largest contributing factor that kept the bass shallow, instead of moving out to the off-shore ledges was the fact that a major bluegill spawn was taking place during practice and the tournament. This is where the jig bite came in. The jig I chose to use was a Lunker Lure 3/8 oz ball head jig in cumberland craw, tipped with a green pumpkin Paca chunk trailer. I also dyed the tips of the trailer chartreuse. This jig combination generated a lot of bites throughout practice. We were also able to locate several schools of fish out deep on the few ledges that Ft. Loudoun had to offer. I got bit throwing a Lunker Lure Rattlin’ Football jig and a Zoom Ol’ Monster 10.5” worm. I The remaining days of practice were spent on Ft. Loudon, where Chad traveled up river and was able to find several key stretches of bank that were located on the main river. The key ingredients that were present on all of the productive stretches were, a) quick depth transition, b) the bank made a shelf around 10ft, c) the 10ft shelf then fell off into the river channel, and last but not least, d) wood cover. It was looking like this tournament was shaping up to be a good tournament to be a co-angler. If you drew a partner that was fishing deep, you were definitely going to be in the hunt, I felt the experience I’ve gained fishing ledges on Kentucky Lake was going to be invaluable for this tournament. As I got ready to rig my rods, I took the opportunity to rig a rod with a bait I don’t always get to use, but knowing I was going to have to catch fish behind my partner, I put a new spin on an FLW Tour staple…the shaky head, or as I call it the “Magnum” shaky head. So as I prepared my rods for the tournament, Here’s the list: 1 GLoomis 6’10” Shaky Head rod model # SHR822S rod spooled with 8lb Maxima Fluorocarbon line and rigged with a 5/16 ounce Lunker Lure Ball Head Jig (Magnum shaky head) and a Zoom Trick worm – Bama Bug color 1 GLoomis 7’0” GLX rod model # BCR 854 rod spooled with 12lb Maxima Fluorocarbon Line and rigged with a ½ oz Penetrater Tungsten weight, 4/0 Gamakatsu EWG Hook and a Plum colored Zoom Ol’ Monster worm. 1 GLoomis 7’0” GLX rod model # BCR 853 rod spooled with 12lb Maxima Fluorocarbon Line and rigged with a ½ oz Lunker Lure Rattlin’ Football Jig, tipped with a Bama Bug colored Paca Craw Trailer. 1 GLoomis 7’0” GLX rod model # MBR844 spooled with 20lb Maxima Fluorocarbon, rigged with a Carolina rig with a 3/4 ounce weight and a 2’ 10lb Maxima fluorocarbon leader, 2/0 Gamakatsu EWG Hook and a green pumpkin Zoom Baby Brush hog. 1 GLoomis 7’0” GLX rod model # CBR 843 rod spooled with 12lb Maxima Ultra-green monofilament and rigged with a 100 sized Sammy in Chartreuse Shad. Tournament Day 1 Finally Tournament day is here. I was paired with Yamaha/Ranger pro Dan Schoonveld from Texas. Dan is in his first year on tour and was in 57th place in the points race going into this tourney, not bad for his first year. Dan informed me we would be fishing deep all day, I couldn’t have asked for a better draw. As we began the day, Dan caught the first keeper off of his first stop and I quickly boated my first keeper on the Zoom big worm. On each of the next two stops I was able to boat keepers on the Lunker Lure Football jig, one of them being a chunky 2.5 lber. I was already feeling good about the day, knowing I needed to have a good finish in this tournament, especially after the last two bombs I had dropped at Norman and Beaver. As the day continued the number of keeper biters began to diminish, at around noon we pulled out onto a long underwater point at the mouth of a large tributary. Knowing that things had gotten a little bit tougher, I reached for old reliable, that’s right, the shaky head. We had been fishing around the 14ft mark all day and this point was no different. So I felt like the “magnum” shaky head would do the trick. In less than 15 minutes, I had boated two more keepers on the shaky head and had filled my limit. At this point, I told my pro partner I was going to add freshwater to the livewell, more ice and also some Rejuvenade, to allow him to fish by himself, in hopes he too could finish his limit. As I finished the livewell duty, I sat back had a PB&J sandwich (Hmmm, funny my sandwich matched my jig) and netted the remaining fish for my partner’s limit. When Dan finished his limit, he told me to get up and fish. On my first cast, I boated another keeper on the football jig and culled out a small fish. We then began to look for new water for Dan to fish on day two. I ended the first day in 13th place with 8lbs and 11 ounces, I was blessed to be able and get a good sack of fish when I needed them. Tournament Day 2 My day two partner was Alvin Shaw from North Carolina. Alvin runs the FLW sponsor “Cheez-it” boat. I was pretty excited to hear Alvin say he too was fishing deep. We were boat 27 on day two, a far cry from boat 173 on day one. So without a doubt we were able to get on Alvin’s number one deep spot. We arrived first and immediately began to get company on our area. This is the one thing that bothers me a little bit about 200 boat fields on lakes that fish small. It is extremely difficult to get an area all to yourself. For the most part, the other boats gave us a little room, not a lot, but a little. Alvin was fishing a road bed that was positioned next to a hump that fell off into the main river channel, text book off-shore stuff. As Alvin, positioned the boat to protect his area and also allow himself room to fish, I picked up the big shaky head and began to throw out into the river channel and drag my bait up the hill to the road bed. In twenty minutes I had put two keeper fish in the box, I knew at that time a couple more bites and I was going to make a serious run at making the top ten cut. After another twenty minutes of no bites, Alvin abandoned his deep area and went shallow to fish the docks. I had two more bites shallow throwing a 100 Sammy (Chad wouldn’t give up one of his two Vixens…can’t really blame him for that, he had a lot more at stake than I did.) one fish was an 1/8th of an inch short and the other I failed to hook. Alvin spent the entire day fishing docks, minus the first hour. It became apparent around mid-day that we were fishing a lot of used water. By that I mean we got in a bad rotation on the docks, the docks we were choosing to fish, were already fished by someone just ahead of us. Not that you couldn’t catch any fish behind someone, the dock fish were aggressive, and anyone with an understanding of how these fish were relating to the docks, could easily catch the one or two fish using that dock and move on ahead of you, without you even knowing it. Alvin managed to catch one fish on that day. I ended the day with two fish for 3lbs 4oz Tournament Notes: I finished the tournament in 31st place, I feel very fortunate to have drawn two guys who at least for a little bit fished deep. This gave me the opportunity to put a few fish in the boat and have a good tournament. I was in the position to ruin my chances for qualifying for the Forrest Wood Cup going into this tournament, but with this 31st place finish I was able to move up from 43rd to 30th in the points. I’ve researched the points standings from the last five years and it looks like I need to have 735 points to make the championship, I currently have 657, so a finish at Detroit of 122nd place or better should put me where I need to be. Lord willing that will happen and a trip to Murray, SC will be in order.
Good Luck and Good Fishin’, Duke Jenkel |
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