Top 10 Baits from Lake Havasu
Hair was a big player on the Colorado River impoundment
Lake Havasu proved tricky for the competitors in the Costa FLW Series presented by Ranger, and a lot of the top finishers turned to finesse as a result. Hair jigs played at an unusually high rate along with the usual soft-plastic morsels and a handful of baits geared toward power-fishing.
1. For the win, Shaun Bailey alternated between power and finesse. Fishing between a 1/8- and ¼-ounce weight on a light Carolina rig, Bailey varied between either an oxblood light red flake-colored 4.5-inch Roboworm Curly Tail Worm or a matching Roboworm Straight Tail Worm. For his crankbaits, Bailey says he used an Evergreen CR in the 8 and 16 sizes in fire craw and olive craw as well as and a shallower running Evergreen Spin Craft crankbait.
2. David Valdivia moved up the leaderboard each day and nearly won the whole thing. He tossed a drop-shot with a Roboworm Straight Tail Worm and a few other baits, but his money maker was a SPRO Phat Fly he fished extremely slowly.
3. Moving up from 10th to third with 19 pounds on the final day, Justin Kerr did his big damage with an Evergreen CR 16 in either ayu or olive crawdad. Kerr also used a drop-shot with a 4.5-inch Roboworm Straight Tail Worm (pro-staff peoples worm color) and a green pumpkin 3/8-ounce Picasso Fantasy Football Jig.
4. Chris Kinley couldn’t connect with quality on the final day and fell to fourth. His primary bait was a 1/8-ounce SPRO Phat Fly.
5. Fishing a whole variety of areas, Michael Caruso's key baits were a 5.8-inch Megabass DOT Crawler, a 5-inch Yamamoto Senko and a ¼-ounce drop-shot with a 4.5-inch M.M. III Roboworm Straight Tail Worm.
6. Tom Leedom slung a trio of finesse options: an Outkast Tackle Feider Fly, a weightless Daiwa Yamamoto Neko Fat Worm and a 4.5-inch prizm kraw Roboworm Straight Tail Worm on a drop-shot.
7. Smashing them on day two, Sean Minderman tossed a weightless Yamamoto Senko and flipped a light Texas-rigged tube from Clearwater Custom Tackle.
8. Joe Uribe Jr. didn’t win again, but he still had a pretty excellent tournament. Though the past champion caught some fish on his swim jig/swimbait combo, he ended up doing a lot of work with a coppertreuse-colored Z-Man Finesse TRD on a custom 3/32-ounce head and a 6-inch oxblood light red flake-colored Roboworm Straight Tail Worm on a drop-shot.
9. Jason Milligan did his smallmouth fishing with a 3-inch Megabass Spark Shad on a 3/16-ounce jig head and utilized a ¾-ounce swim jig with a 4.8-inch Keitech Swing Impact FAT for largemouths on days one and two.
10. Dropping to 10th with only one keeper on the final day, Jay Wright mostly used an oxblood light red flake-colored Roboworm Straight Tail Worm on a drop-shot, a homemade green pumpkin jig trailered with a Berkley PowerBait Fight’n Bug, a nail-weighted Jackall Crosstail Shad and a Duo Realis Vibration lipless crankbait.