Top 5 Patterns From Lake Dardanelle Day 2
Arkansas pro Jason Lieblong held on to the top spot in Rayovac FLW Series Central Division action on Lake Dardanelle with 34 pounds, 1 ounce. Flipping plastics and a jig produced all of his fish.
Click here to read about Lieblong’s leading pattern. As for the rest of the top five, here are the details.
2nd Place — Kerry Milner — 33 pounds, 3 ounces
The past BFL All-American winner from Bono, Ark., improved his position with the day’s second-largest bag — a limit of 17-5. Milner says he probably could have gotten the job done earlier in the day if his key spots had been available.
“I’m just fishing community holes and I spent a lot of time in practice dialing in on the sweet spots,” he notes. “A lot of guys aren’t fishing them right and I had to wait for these guys to get out of the way so I can set up on them and catch fish.”
Milner defined his sweet spots as shell bars scattered amid the brush piles that others have been targeting.
“I think they’ve pounded these brush piles so much the fish have relocated,” he says. “In a lot of cases, the fish are under the boat when guys are fishing brush piles. I literally have to wait for them to leave so I can fish the spots [correctly].”
Milner adds that he’s fishing the shell beds with a combination of moving baits and bottom-dragging presentations.
“In this lake, the fish can be in a foot and an hour later you can catch the fish out in 10 feet,” Milner says. “They move back and forth.”
Time of day is one of the factors influencing fish movement.
“All through practice, it seemed like they bit better in the afternoon,” Milner says. “The sun would get up and when it would get hot, the gizzard shad would gather up. The bass would start herding the gizzard shad and that was really key to the bite.”
3rd Place — Josh Hilton — 29 pounds, 11 ounces
Slowing down and focusing on a manageable level of targets proved a wise course for the Clarksville, Ark., pro who caught the day’s largest bag, 18-5, and made the largest jump in the standings — a 39-spot improvement from 42nd to third.
“I’m from this area, so I know too much,” Hilton says. “Yesterday, I fished with my Mercury more than I did my trolling motor. I ran around, looked for spots and never could get settled down.
“So today, I told myself I’m going to go try and catch my first three or four and then settle in where I thought I could catch a big fish and that’s exactly what I did — I fished the last five hours in the same spot and culled two of my fish.”
Hilton fished upriver for his limit and came back down to look for his bigger bites. He caught four of his keepers on a frog and one on a Texas-rigged plastic.
“I knew I needed a good bag today and usually on this pond, if you keep a frog in your hand, when you get a bite it’s going to be a decent bite,” Hilton says.
4th Place — Spencer Grace — 27 pounds, 7 ounces
A good start on day one provided the local pro a cushion to absorb a slower day two. Grace placed sixth yesterday and even though his productivity slid to 11-1 in the second round, he still moved up two notches.
“Today, I couldn’t find anywhere to fish,” he explains. “I had a late boat number so I had to run around and try to find somewhere to fish. I didn’t have a keeper until 10:30 this morning.”
Grace fished deeper drops on day one, but when he couldn’t get back on his offshore spots, he had to move to the bank and flip shallow cover. His bait was a Texas-rigged Missile Baits Baby D-Bomb in green pumpkin red.
5th Place — Austin Brown — 27 pounds, 4 ounces
Adding 11-10 to his day-one weight of 15-10 allowed the Benton, Ky., pro to move up three spots to fifth.
“Yesterday I had two big bites, I had two 4 1/2-pounders and today I didn’t have any big bites,” Brown says. “My goal coming into this thing was just to catch a limit every day and anything over that, I’d be tickled to death.”
Using a mix of finesse baits and moving baits, Brown started in the lake and then moved upriver later in the morning. In both scenarios, he used a mix of finesse and moving baits around rocks with current breaks.
“It makes it easier to catch a decent fish in the lake and then go upriver because I’m mostly catching smaller fish in the river,” Brown concludes.
6th — Barry Wilson, Birmingham, Ala. — 27 pounds, 3 ounces
7th — Scott Suggs, Alexander, Ark. — 27 pounds
8th — Jeff Keene, Vinita, Ok. — 26 pounds, 10 ounces
9th — Wells Kaiser, Cuba City, Wisc. — 26 pounds, 8 ounces
10th — Michael Stetich, Ankeny, Iowas — 26 pounds, 4 ounces