Huff Has Early Lead on Table Rock
Allison leads co-angler side
You gotta love it when a plan comes together. For Cody Huff, that plan worked so well that he was able to start planning for day two en route to leading day one of the Costa FLW Series event presented by Lowrance on Table Rock with 19 pounds, 10 ounces.
Running far up the James River, the Ava, Mo., pro returned to a pattern he had established during practice for the Central Division opener. He left the morning takeoff expecting to run right to a good number of prespawn staging fish and upon his arrival, he found them exactly where he had left them.
“I got to my area this morning and got them pretty quickly,” says Huff, who was boat 155 on day one. “I have a couple of schools up there that are working pretty good.”
How good? Good enough to pull back on the throttle well before sandwich-thirty.
“I left my area today around 10 o’clock and laid off of them,” Huff says. “I’ll try to get back up there tomorrow and do it again.
“I had a couple of schools found in practice, so I rolled up to my first spot this morning and caught two big ones. I went to my second spot and caught two 5-pounders.”
Huff says the river fishing is more a necessity than a first choice, as the main lake fishing has not treated him kindly of late.
“I like catching them however they bite, but I can’t catch them in the clearer water this week,” he says. “I live an hour from here and I have not caught a fish on anything I’ve caught them off of before this week.
“It’s all the cold fronts we’ve had lately. The lake is so far behind this year.”
Essential to Huff’s success has been leveraging the river’s more protected environment. He’s catching his fish in less than four feet of water, in areas with a foot of visibility.
“I found one little area of the lake where the water’s a little warmer and they’re doing what they’re supposed to do,” he says. “Everything just sets up perfectly right now. It’s the warmest water around, it’s not getting pressured and nobody’s messing with them.”
Huff opted to keep his bait selection confidential, but he does tell us that he’s using a trio of different baits. Essential to his plan is moving through his areas quickly to cover water and find the fish.
“I’m just flying around and fishing real fast,” he says.
Top 10 pros
1. Cody Huff – Ava, Mo. – 19-10 (5)
2. Mike McClelland – Bentonville, Ark. – 16-12 (5)
2. Hensley Powell – Whitwell, Tenn. – 16-12 (5)
4. Cody Hahner – Wausau, Wis. – 16-8 (5)
5. Glenn Harrison – Arma, Kan. – 16-1 (5)
6. Keith Amerson – Bethel Springs, Tenn. – 16-0 (5)
7. Jimmy Mize – Ben Lomond, Ark. – 15-15 (5)
8. Josh Shirley – Cabot, Ark. – 15-10 (5)
9. Matt Wood – Jessieville, Ark. – 15-7 (5)
10. Kelly Readhimer – Beech Bluff, Tenn. – 15-2 (5)
Allison leads co-angler side
Success off the back of the boat generally requires presentations that vary from what the pro is doing. Chad Allison made sure he did that with a variety of baits that led him to the co-angler division lead with 15 pounds, 7 ounces.
“I threw a swimbait, drug a jig, fished a jerkbait and a spinnerbait and just tried to keep something fresh going,” says Allison, who fished behind Peter Wenners on day one. “It just depended on where my pro was fishing.
“I’ve been fishing a couple of team tournaments down here and had a little deal that was working behind my pro today. I think the fish were holding deeper, toward the bottom, so I fished baits I could keep down there.”
Allison says he caught his fish in 8-10 feet and sacked up his weight by 11:30 in the morning.