Top 5 Patterns from Lake Eufaula Day 2

Fishing pressure is starting to affect the brush pile bite

Troy Morrow took over the lead on the second day of the Walmart FLW Tour event presented by Quaker State on Lake Eufaula. Morrow did most of his damage late in the day once other pros in earlier flights had checked in. He’s working a milk run of brush piles, as are many of the top pros, but the continued fishing pressure is starting to really affect the bite.

Here’s how the rest of the top five is dealing with the pressure.

2. Clent Davis – Montevallo, Ala. – 38 pounds, 5 ounces

While Morrow felt like being in the last flight helped alleviate fishing pressure and improve his bite late in the day, Clent Davis says that getting to his first two stops early before anyone else fished them was the key to his success. Both anglers agree that fishing pressure is playing a big role on the fragile Eufaula brush piles.

Davis, who led on day one, is now in second place after sacking 15 pounds, 12 ounces today for a two-day total of 38-05. He’s 1-04 behind Morrow.

“The first spot I stopped on, I caught a limit,” Davis says. “After I put five in the box, I headed to my second place and caught a big one immediately. After those two stops, I fished behind other people the rest of the day and never caught another fish that would help me. I figure fishing pressure is the culprit.”

Davis says a lot of the fish he is catching are suspended high in the water column, above the brush piles.

“It’s like they are up high and out away from the piles,” Davis says. “I guess that’s because of fishing pressure. It essentially pushes them out of the piles, but they don’t want to get too far from the cover.”

Davis is still not revealing his go-to bait.

“All I’ll say is that I have a lot of confidence in what I’m throwing,” Davis adds. “Maybe too much confidence in it; I’m keeping it in my hand the whole day.”

3. Randy Haynes – Counce, Tenn. – 36 pounds, 7 ounces

Randy Haynes is in good shape to successfully defend his 2013 Lake Eufaula title after moving into third place on day two. He caught 17 pounds, 10 ounces today and is 3-02 back of Morrow.

Amazingly, Haynes is fishing some of the same areas where he won before. He’s even lining up to make some of the exact casts he made two years ago. For Haynes, it’s becoming a case of deja vu all over again

“During one of my flurries today, I looked up and recognized one of the exact lineups I used here before,” he says. “It’s so funny because I kept trying to find the shoreline trees that I used [to line up] for this one cast. I was fishing in the area back and forth, caught two or three pretty quick, and when I looked up, there was the exact lineup – it all came back to me.”

Haynes says he is not exactly sure what is down there that holds the fish – maybe a little rock vein, he guesses – but getting fish to bite certainly requires “the cast.”

“If you land 5 feet to the right or 5 feet to the left, you’re wasting your time,” he says. “It’s got to be dead on.”

Haynes says that the fish are set up a little differently than they were before.

“I’m using some different baits this time around,” he adds. “But one thing is for certain: You have got to be ready when they fire up. I had two flurries today, and they each lasted just a few minutes. I caught maybe four in one of the flurries and six in the other. And that was it. A whole day of fishing basically boils down to six or seven minutes, so you’ve got to be ready when it happens.”

4. Jeff Gustafson – Keewatin, Ontario – 35 pounds, 11 ounces

If you are tired of reading about offshore fishing and brush piles, get ready. Jeff Gustafson, better known as Gussy, is the only pro in the top five working a shallow-water topwater pattern. He’s had catches of 18-12 and 16-15 to hold down the fourth-place spot with 35-11.

Gussy is not concerned with running bunches of waypoints or brush pile pressure as he fishes down the banks chucking a surface bait.

“There are a few bream bedding up shallow right now, and some of these bass are feeding on them,” he says. “It’s just a matter of covering a lot of water to find the key areas where that bedding activity is happening. If I find an active bedding area, I’ll revisit it a couple of times during the day. Other than that, I just keep covering water until one blows up on my lure.”

5. Zack Birge – Blanchard, Okla. – 35 pounds, 6 ounces

Rounding out the top five is Zack Birge, who is running the brush pile pattern.

“I got a lot fewer bites today,” Birge says. “It seemed to me that the fish were a lot more scattered. Instead of being in the piles, they were more around the outsides. Either the fishing pressure or the clouds – or both – seems to be positioning the fish more on the outsides.”

With that in mind, Birge says he spent about an hour of his day side-scanning around his best brush piles, looking for more subtle, scattered stuff.

“I really don’t have that many brush piles, so I marked new ones in hopes of using them tomorrow,” he says. “Several of the fish I caught today came by fan-casting out around the main piles, and I need more of that kind of stuff to fish tomorrow, so maybe it will pay off.”