The general’s pattern

Larry Nixon fell back on First and Second creeks to secure his second FLW Tour victory

Larry Nixon shook his head in disappointment when he handed three little bass to Wal-Mart FLW Tour weigh-master Charlie Evans on day three at Wheeler Lake in Florence, Ala.

“Five pounds, 15 ounces,” announced Evans, pointing to the microphone for an explanation from Nixon.

“I don’t think it’s going to be enough to make the top 10, Charlie. I sure would like to go out there and try them again,” Nixon lamented. “I think I could do well.”

It was a surprising statement from the usually humble Chevy pro staffer. A catch of 5 pounds, 15 ounces was anything but convincing that Nixon was onto a strong pattern.

After all, it was Yamaha pro Alton Jones of Waco, Texas, who had scorched the field for three days. Weights of 16 pounds, 10 ounces; 19 pounds, 3 ounces; and 12 pounds, 9 ounces had given Jones unequivocal rights to the pole position going into the final day of competition.

While the limelight danced around Jones, a glimmer of hope broke Nixon’s spell of disappointment. His paltry weight actually tied him for 10th place, and an FLW Tour rule stating that ties on days three and four are resolved by day-two standings intervened on his behalf. Nixon advanced to the final round by the slimmest of margins.

Not only did Nixon’s 5 pounds, 15 ounces allow him to advance, it also tipped him off to an old bass tournament theorem: When one pattern ends, another begins.

Wheeler Lake Conditions

Wheeler Lake delivered typical winter conditions to the 350 FLW Tour anglers who tested its waters. Nighttime air temperatures in the 20s drove water temperatures into the 45- to 50-degree range.

Wheeler was near normal pool during practice, but began to fall heavily during the tournament. The Tennessee Valley Authority lowered the water about 18 inches per day during the two-day opening round. On day three, the lake began to rise again.

Many anglers focused their efforts in Decatur Flats, an expansive shallow area near Decatur, Ala. Decatur Flats has long been recognized as the primary largemouth bass hot spot on Wheeler Lake. The area features miles of 2- to 6-foot flats lined with stump fields, grass beds, humps and winding ditches.

A handful of anglers sought out Wheeler’s elusive population of smallmouth on main lake bluffs, while others pursued spotted bass.

On day one, Jones wasted no time in proving he was dialed in on the largemouth population. His first day stringer weighing 16 pounds, 10 ounces took the lead.

On day two, anglers cited receding water as a key factor in their better catches. The falling water positioned fish better and allowed anglers to see underwater stumps. Yamaha pro Dean Rojas of Lake Havasu City, Ariz., landed 16 pounds, 12 ounces. Nixon caught 14 pounds, 4 ounces. And Kellogg’s pro Clark Wendlandt of Cedar Park, Texas, brought in some quality smallmouth weighing 14 pounds, 11ounces.

But the day-two story once again revolved around Jones, who dominated with 19 pounds, 3 ounces. On day three, however, conditions began to change. The TVA plugged the lake back up, and the water started to rise. A steady breeze also started to blow, and clouds hid the sun for most of the day. By day four, the lake was really on the rise and northwest winds of 15 mph battered Decatur Flats.

5th Place: Keith Williams

Williams demonstrated that he has definitely picked up a few good angling lessons from his father, Wal-Mart FLW Tour pro Jerry Williams, over the years.

Originally, Williams planned on a “run-and-gun” approach for Wheeler. But at his first stop of the tournament, a creek just above Wheeler’s I-65 bridge, Williams promptly caught a 5-pound largemouth. That convinced him to stay put. Once committed, he hammered out 10 pounds, 6 ounces by flipping shallow wood with a jig.

When he returned to the creek on day two, the water had fallen and his jig bite was dead. While fishing his way out of the area, his partner, eventual co-angler champion Doug Caldwell of Kane, Pa., caught a single spotted bass on a crankbait.

“After that, I ran up towards the dam (Guntersville) and used up my trolling motor batteries in the extreme current,” Williams said. “At 1:30 p.m., I only had two bass, so I decided to run back to that spot in the creek where Doug caught his fish. My batteries were dead, and I did not know where else to go.”

When Williams returned to the spot, he found a load of bass piled up in a small hole where a feeder creek dumped into the main creek. Both anglers finished their limits in the small spot.

Williams camped on the feeder creek junction to catch limits of 8 pounds, 3 ounces on day three and 7 pounds, 10 ounces on day four. His crankbait was a Norman Deep Little N tied to 15-pound test line fished on an All Star Brent Chapman Series cranking rod and an Abu Garcia reel.

4th place: Scott Martin

Like Williams, Team Stanley angler Scott Martin of Clewiston, Fla., comes from a strong fishing lineage. Like Williams, he also keyed off of a single fish caught by his co-angler to make the cut.

Martin caught his bass using a Carolina rig on day one, but his limit only weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce. When he returned to his Carolina rig hole near Decatur Flats on day two, his co-angler caught a good bass on a Rat-L-Trap. The fish prompted Martin to tie on a Matzuo Shallow Seeker crankbait. Another pass down the bank produced 12 pounds, 3 ounces.

“I guess they were feeding on shad,” Martin said. “When my partner caught that good one on a trap, I figured the bigger bass wanted something fast. I fished the shallow-running Matzuo fast and erratic, ripping and pausing it like a Rat-L-Trap, and they just ate it up.”

Martin was forced to adapt again when his newly discovered crankbait bite dwindled on day three.

“I did not have a fish at 11 a.m., so I packed up, ran all the way up the Elk River and began flipping,” Martin said. “I am pretty proud of that move because it was a gamble that paid off.”

Martin caught a couple of fish in the upper portions of the Elk River in practice. He returned there late on day three and flipped a watermelon-red Zoom Baby Brush Hog into laydowns. He quickly bagged four fish that weighed 7 pounds, 3 ounces to make the final cut.

On day four, Martin started on his crankbait area near Decatur.

“It is a ledge on a flat that drops from 2 to 4 feet,” Martin said.

He caught two fish on the crankbait and then three more on a Matzuo Prism Shad jerkbait. Once he had his limit, Martin again ran up the Elk River to improve his catch, but was unsuccessful.

“The 8 pounds, 8 ounces I weighed in came from Decatur,” Martin said. “I never got big bites in the Elk.”

3rd Place: Alton Jones

Jones performed a “how-to-catch-wintertime-bass” show during the first three days of competition. Using a technique he called “a textbook wintertime pattern,” Jones dominated the preliminary rounds.

He targeted creek channels in Decatur Flats with a 1/4-ounce Riverside Jig (black/blue and pumpkinseed) and a color matched Riverside Beavertail chunk. Jones said the flats were 4- to 6-feet deep where he was fishing and the creek ditches running through them were 8- to 10-feet deep. He was casting the jig in open water on a 6-foot, 6-inch, medium-heavy action Fenwick Techna AV rod. He used a Berkley Vanish 20-pound test leader tied to 30-pound test Spider Wire braided line.

Jones keyed on specific creek channel bends that featured stump beds up on the flats. He would cast his jig up onto the flat and crawl it into the stump-laden bends.

“The key was to fish slow,” Jones said. “I used a 1/4-ounce jig to really force myself to slow down. The Riverside Jig has a rattle in it. I would crawl the jig along the bottom until I felt a stump and then shake it to entice a strike.”

Jones’ pattern was so strong that when he began expanding it into new areas, which he had not even fished, he caught a whopping 19 pounds, 3 ounces. His day-two co-angler, Armil Morgan of Mineral Springs, Ark., caught four bass that weighed 16 pounds.

Unrelenting, Jones led the competition again on day three with 12 pounds, 9 ounces.

In the end, however, Jones was robbed of his first Wal-Mart FLW Tour title on the final day when strong northwest winds of 15 to 20 mph churned up 2- to 3-foot swells in his area.

Despite the conditions, Jones contends that the bass did not leave the area.

“The fish were still there, I just could not fish for them effectively in the wind. I could not present my jig the way I needed to,” he said. “With the water temperatures so low, they would not bite faster-moving baits that I might have fished in the wind.”

Jones said that the wind did let up for about one hour on the last day. During that time, he proved that his fish were still there by catching three bass that weighed 8 pounds, 9 ounces.

Jones does not feel that his dominating performance was abridged by the Wal-Mart FLW Tour’s cut format.

“The cut format makes for an exciting tournament. Larry knew he could not go back to his fish (Decatur Flats) and win. He changed and did a great job catching a big stringer. I had a great area and a strong pattern. I was not going to give it up to try something else,” Jones said. “If I had it to do over, I would not change a thing. I never lost a fish all week. I fished a perfect tournament, and that feels pretty good.”

2nd Place: Aaron Martens

No spotted bass is safe when Aaron Martens of Castaic, Calif., comes to town. Martens’ ability to catch big spotted bass from deep water on a drop-shot rig is ineffable. He once again proved his drop-shot prowess at Wheeler by reeling in chunky spotted bass from 30-foot depths to take second place.

On day one, Martens brought in a limit of spots that weighed 12 pounds, 10 ounces. He easily qualified for the semifinal round by bringing in 8 pounds, 10 ounces on day two.

After making the cut, Martens was stricken with deja vu. Last season at Lake Martin, Martens’ steady drop-shot pattern for spotted bass was pilfered by weight cuts and largemouth bass. Despite having the highest cumulative weight for four days in that tournament, Martens fell to third place.

So on day three at Wheeler, Martens fished for largemouth.

“I knew it was going to be won with largemouth,” he said. “So I gambled on a largemouth bite.”

By noon, however, Martens did not have a single fish in his livewell. With only a few hours left, he made a blazing 60-mile run to Guntersville Dam and quickly caught five spotted bass on the drop-shot, salvaging a berth in the final round.

“When I saw how tough it was on day three, I began to think that maybe I could win it on the drop-shot,” Martens said. “So I committed to the dam all day.”

Martens caught all his fish on a drop-shot rigged with a 3/16-ounce tungsten weight and a Robo Worm in a color called Aaron’s Magic. His specialty rod was a Megabass Destroyer F-2.

Champion: Larry Nixon

Just seven months after Nixon claimed his first Wal-Mart FLW Tour victory on Lake St. Clair, the “general” of bass fishing mounted a surprise attack on his competition at Lake Wheeler, putting another victory notch in his belt.

His come-from-behind attack began on Decatur Flats where he ground out a top 10 berth with a 1/4-ounce Strike King Diamond Shad lipless crankbait and Berkley Power Craw. He fished the two baits in stump beds.

Nixon soon learned, however, that he was sharing his key area in the flats with Mark Rose, another top 10 finalist. Additionally, uncooperative weather and rising water were negating his flats pattern on day three when he brought in just 5 pounds, 15 ounces.

“I decided to let Mark have the flat,” Nixon said. “There was no way either one of us was going to win splitting those fish.”

Other factors that played into Nixon’s final-day strategy were weather, water and time.

“The water was rising, and that usually scatters fish on flats,” he said. “The wind was supposed to blow hard, and that is no help, either. But what really made up my mind to fish close was the time factor. With a one o’clock check-in, Saturday would be the shortest day of the tournament.”

With those factors in mind, Nixon decided to stay close and maximize his fishing time in First and Second creeks. From his past experience on Wheeler, he knew that the two creeks were excellent fish producers in the wintertime.

“When one pattern ends, another begins,” Nixon said after his victory. “First and Second Creek are great areas. Fishing Wheeler over the years, I know the banks in those creeks pretty well. The problem is that during practice and during the first two days of the tournament, every point has a boat on it and you can’t move around. Once you get the boats out of there and the fish set back up on those drops, then it is just a matter of finding the depth of the strike zone.”

Nixon caught his stunning limit weighing 16 pounds, 9 ounces on a 1/2-ounce Strike King Premier Elite jig teamed with a Bo-Hawg Sr. Pork chunk, both black/blue. He was using a 6-foot-6-inch Fenwick Techna AV rod with a medium-heavy action and an Abu Garcia T3000 reel. Nixon tied his jig to 14-pound test Berkley Vanish Fluorocarbon line and fished in depths of 10 to 15 feet.