Top 10 Baits from Lake Texoma
What worked on the Red River reservoir in late summer
Smallmouths chasing shad and largemouths in a variety of late-summer, early-fall patterns were the stories of the tournament at the final stop of the Costa FLW Series Southwestern Division presented by Frabill at Lake Texoma. Here are the lures that the top 10 used to make the cut.
Jeff Reynolds’ winning pattern
1. Tournament winner Jeff Reynolds caught his fish by targeting smallmouths feeding up shallow around shad schools with a Heddon One Knocker Spook and then working a Texas-rigged Zoom Trick Worm around brush piles for largemouths.
2. Don McFarlin caught his fish with a Strike King 2.5 square-bill crankbait and a Texas-rigged Berkley PowerBait Power Worm.
3. Finishing third, T.R. Andreas fished a green pumpkin finesse worm on a 1/8-ounce shaky head and flipped a Strike King Rage Bug on a 3/0 Owner straight-shank hook with a 5/16-ounce pegged sinker.
4. A 1/2-ounce spinnerbait with silver and red willow-leaf blades and a white skirt earned every bite for Alton Wilhoit.
5. Among Kevin Gressett’s fifth-place baits, a Texas-rigged green pumpkin Yamamoto Senko yielded most of his bites. He also fished a Carolina-rigged Berkley PowerBait Power Worm and a Fish Head Spin with a Culprit Incredi Swim Swimbait.
6. Hayden Burkett flipped laydowns with a black/red Berkley PowerBait Chigger Craw on a 3/0 VMC heavy-duty flipping hook with a 1/2-ounce pegged tungsten weight, and he also fished a chartreuse spinnerbait with a silver willow-leaf blade and a gold Colorado blade.
7. Jeff Sprague, who finished seventh, targeted bait schools with a 6th Sense Crush Dogma topwater and a 6-inch Gene Larew TattleTail Worm on a drop-shot.
8. Dicky Newberry threw a shad-pattern Bill Lewis Echo square-bill and a Texas-rigged 7-inch Berkley PowerBait Power Worm in blue fleck.
9. Cranking a Strike King 5XD and Carolina rigging a Zoom Baby Brush Hog on a 5/0 hook with a 3/4-ounce weight produced for ninth-place pro Brandon Mosley.
10. Ricci Head caught all of his fish on his homemade bladed jig that he calls the Head Shed Wiggler. He paired this 3/8-ounce bait with a Yamamoto Zako swimbait.