Williams All the Way
Carolina pro never looks back en route to first Tour win
David Williams has dreamed of this moment all his life, but even he couldn’t have dreamed how well his first major victory would come together.
While many anglers struggled to cull, the Maiden, N.C., pro was catching more than 25 bass a day and upward of 50 on some days. Best of all, he was doing it on one of his favorite patterns from back home – skipping a swim jig around docks to capitalize on a shad spawn.
The end result rarely seemed in question after day one, as he sacked up a tournament-leading 18-11 by 10 a.m. and never looked back. He extended his lead by roughly 2 pounds each of the next two days, and then simply shut the door with a 13-13 limit on day four to win the FLW Tour event presented by T-H Marine on Smith Lake with 64-9 total. For the win, Williams takes home $102,700.
“It’s been a long time coming,” says Williams of his first major win. “I’m glad people didn’t give up on me.”
Williams’ dream week actually didn’t get off to the best start.
He began practice with the mindset of fishing toward his strength: targeting largemouths up shallow. The recent rains had raised the lake up to create miles of flooded cover and trash piles far up the various creek arms. Plus, with the full moon and water temps, there was still a chance to find fish on beds. That seemed to line up perfectly for what Williams wanted to do.
After looking at the map for areas he felt would offer the most flooded cover, he began looking for water with just the right amount of color. The best combination was in White Oak Creek, but while everything looked perfect, bites were hard to come by as the water may have come up too much. Still, it was his best bet going into day one. Little did he know everything would change Thursday morning.
“I was fishing some bushes when I started seeing shad swimming around them,” says Williams. “Once I saw that I knew the shad spawn would be the deal.”
Immediately, Williams picked up a swim jig – a white Queen Tackle Swim Jig with either a Bizz Baits Cutter Craw or Zoom Speed Craw trailer – and began skipping it around and under any floating docks nearby.
“I went from nothing to all my first-day weight by 10 a.m.,” says Williams. “We fish a lot of docks in the Carolinas, and I’ve made a lot of money off the shad spawn. So it was right up my alley.”
As for which docks produced better, there was no rhyme or reason to it. Williams simply had to hit as many docks as possible in White Oak Creek. Eventually, he expanded his pattern to nearby Crooked Creek and a stretch of docks farther up Rock Creek, with the one constant being just the right water color.
While he often re-hit the same docks each day, Williams says he was never worried about his areas running out of fish. The shad spawn at night, which causes more largemouths to move up each and every night to eat them. Then he’d just pick off the ones still hanging out first thing in the morning.
Williams figures he was catching more than 20 keepers each morning off the docks, and if that wasn’t ideal enough, Williams also did a little flipping with a TrueSouth Shimmy Jig and threw a TrueSouth V-Twin buzzbait some around flooded cover in between docks. That accounted for at least another few key bites each day. On day three, he even picked up a frog, and he pitched a spinnerbait around docks on day four.
While Williams says his adrenaline might have been running a little higher this morning, it sure didn’t change his outcome. He quickly sacked up his limit and his calm, even-keeled demeanor returned, with him even joking with our on-the-water crew about going back to the dock to order some pizza and wait for everyone else to get back.
Considering Williams has been fishing T-H Marine FLW Bass Fishing League (BFL) events since 1995, Costa FLW Series-level events since 1998 and top-level events since 2009 on the Bassmaster Elite Series, you can understand him basking in knowing he was going to finally get that elusive win.
“The good Lord blessed me to be able to do this,” says Williams. “It [to finally get a win] is a good feeling.”
Top 10 pros
1. David Williams – Maiden, N.C. – 64-9 (20) – $102,700
2. John Cox – DeBary, Fla. – 59-12 (20) – $30,000
3. Cody Meyer – Auburn, Calif. – 59-2 (20) – $25,000
4. Matt Arey – Shelby, N.C. – 57-6 (20) – $20,100
5. Jordan Osborne – Longview, Texas – 54-10 (20) – $19,000
6. Jason Reyes – Huffman, Texas – 54-8 (20) – $18,000
7. Clent Davis – Montevallo, Ala. – 52-2 (20) – $17,000
8. Matt Becker – Finleyville, Penn. – 51-12 (20) – $16,000
9. Todd Auten – Lake Wylie, S.C. – 50-9 (20) – $15,000
10. Jimmy Reese – Witter Springs, Calif. – 50-5 (20) – $14,000