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Mike "Cowboy" Foree Sr. in Top 10 of FLW Stren Series at Norfork Lake |
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| March 07, 2008 @ 04:57pm CST |
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Dodson delivers despite dealing with high water
Cloud cover helps Horne secure co-angler lead
By David A. Brown - 06.Mar.2008
MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. – Recent rains and melting snow may have raised Lake Norfork’s water level, but Harrison, Ark. pro Robbie Dodson managed to locate his fish and secure the top spot at the Stren Series Central Division event in Mountain Home, Ark.
Working between Henderson Point and the Norfork Dam, Dodson targeted buck bushes, ledges and pockets in 2-15 feet. Throwing ½-ounce green pumpkin jigs and suspending baits, he boated a quartet of bass weighing 10 pounds, 12 ounces. His 4-9 won the day’s biggest bass honors.
“My bites were spread out – just one here, one there,” Dodson said. “I didn’t have a fish until 10 this morning, but there wasn’t anything I could do but keep fishing. I just tried to hit as many places as I could.”
The challenge for Dodson was that higher water had covered the shoreline features that he had come to recognize during his 25 years of fishing Lake Norfork. Persistently working areas in which he knew productive features were submerged, the top pro picked his way into a leading stringer.
“I stuck to the places that I’ve always fished and didn’t go crazy trying to fish unfamiliar places,” Dodson said. “I have four or five areas that I always fish and I just kept running them.”
Landing in second place, Wes Endicott of Joplin, Mo. bagged a limit weighing 10 pounds, 1 ounce. Crawling an avocado grub on a 3/16-ounce jig proved most effective for him.
“The fish are not aggressive at all,” Endicott said. “You have to put the bait right in front of them. Sooner or later one of them will bite it.”
Ledges with gravel in 12 feet of water were his targeted structure. Spots in the backs of pockets with steep banks yielded the best action.
Mike “Cowboy” Foree of Osage Beach, Mo. threw jerkbaits all day and boated a third place limit weighing 8-14. Sticking with the same color that he’d been throwing in practice, Foree kept his cards low on the details but said this: “It’s the ugliest color you’ve ever seen. You can throw 100 other colors and the fish won’t eat them, but you throw this one color at them and for some reason, they seem to like it.”
Fishing the Pigeon Creek area, Foree keyed on windy, muddy banks where the fish felt more comfortable in shallow water. The lake’s high water level forced him to spend more time searching for his spots, so catches came late in the day. “At 1:30 I caught my first keeper. It was my smallest fish, but I was so happy I was about to do a cartwheel.”
Finishing fourth was Forsyth, Mo. pro Tim Fleetwood who caught four fish weighing 8-11. Mark Rose of Marion, Ark. placed fifth with 8-1.
Best of the rest
Rounding out the top-10 pro leaders at the Stren Series Lake Norfork event:
6th: Preston Havens of Mountain Home, 7-15
7th: Cary Bever of Rhinelander, Wisc., 7-10
8th: Steve Ruff of Wentzville, Mo. 7-9
9th: Jeremy Lawler of Sarcoxie, Mo., 7-1
10th: Rick Pierce of Mountain Home, 6-8
Horne jigs his way into co-angler lead
Paired with pro Jim Young, Horne worked rock structure in about 30 feet of water and caught his fish by pitching a brown jig with a brown chunk into shallow areas of four to five feet. His three fish weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce.
“My bites were really spread out,” Horne said. “I caught two of my fish early and then one around one o’clock.”
Horne attributes his success to slow, patient presentations. Overcast skies also helped. “I liked the clouds – if it had been sunny, it really would have been tough,”
Robert Prebeck of Norwood, Mo. trails in second with 5-5, while Todd McCoy of Mountain Home took third with 4-9. Andy Bylander of New Richmond, Wisc. placed fourth with 4-6 and Randy Fraser of New Florence, Mo. was fifth at 3-15.
Best of the rest
Rounding out the top-10 co-angler leaders at the Stren Series Lake Norfork event:
6th: Rick Russell of Crystal City, Mo., 3-14
7th: Kurt Evans of Hardy, Ark., 3-9
8th: Peter Kauth of Mountain Home, 3-2
9th: Brad Baldwin of Dayton, Ohio, 2-14
10th: Steve McFarland of Mountain Home, Ark., 2-14.
Evans also had the biggest bass on the co-angler side.
Day two of Stren Series action on Lake Norfork continues at Friday’s takeoff, scheduled to take place at 8:00 a.m. (CT) at Henderson Point Park, off Highway 62 East in Henderson.
MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. – Mother Nature came close to stealing a second day from the Stren Series Central Division event on Norfork Lake, but dawn found safe road conditions allowing anglers a final qualifying day – this one set against a backdrop of wintry frosting.
When heavy snowfall earlier in the week kept several competitors from reaching the event site in Mountain Home, Ark., tournament officials decided to postpone registration from Tuesday night to Wednesday night. This shortened the tournament from four days to three, and many feared another cancellation when a second snow storm made its way toward Northern Arkansas Wednesday afternoon.
Snow flurries taunted the day one weigh-ins and by nightfall, a solid layer of white covered trees, roofs, trucks, boats and John Deere tractors. Tournament director Ron Lappin said that angler safety was paramount, but depriving competitors of another qualifying day was an option to avoid if at all possible.
Tournament staff rose early Thursday morning and checked driving conditions on roads leading to the launch ramps at and near Henderson Point Park. Fortunately, the judgment was favorable and by daybreak the sounds of splashing trailers, cranking outboards, and the check-out bullhorn played a symphony of optimism.
A day two cancellation probably would not have offended Thursday’s top 10 finishers, but those still looking to make the cut appreciated a second qualifying day. Wayne Hauser of Winston-Salem, N.C. caught only undersized fish on Thursday, but hopes his day two game plan of fishing crankbaits around rock bluffs close to Henderson Point will help him gain ground in the standings.
“I’m going to fish stained water with 1-3 feet of visibility because this makes the fish come up shallower and makes them more susceptible to the crankbait,” he said.
Hauser said that water quality would play a big role in his success. “I was on a really good bite earlier in the week and I was catching 10-11 pounds a day. That disappeared when the color changed dramatically in the backs of the creeks. It went from a nice stain to a dark mud.
“I ran around a little bit yesterday and found some water that wasn’t just chocolate in the back of a little creek near (the boat ramp). I actually caught a couple of my fish back there yesterday late in the afternoon, so I’m feeling more comfortable today that I’ll be able to catch some (keepers).”
Entering day two in third place, Mike “Cowboy” Foree of Osage Beach, Mo. knows he’ll need to pad his 8-pound, 4-ounce stringer if he’s to reach Saturday’s top-10 finale. Foree will start with a conservative approach and then shift to a more aggressive strategy.
“I’m going to try to get five bites and then pull off the fish I’m fishing and go to where I’ve been catching some bigger fish to try and get a kicker to move up,” he said.
Foree said he expects better fishing conditions than he found on day one. “I think the bite’s going to continue to get better. We had a couple of days earlier in the week when it was slow and yesterday was pretty slow, but it started picking up. The fish are starting to acclimate themselves better (to the weather.)”
With relatively low weights on day one, there’s plenty of room for anglers to greatly improve their position with a strong day two performance. Tenth place is 6 pounds, 8 ounces, so the door is wide open for significant shuffling.
Logistics
The Stren Series event, which runs March 6-8, is the first of four regular-season Central Division events. Hosted by the Mountain Home Area Chamber of Commerce, the Lake Norfork tournament offers a total purse of $275,225. The winning pro could earn as much as $65,000 in cash and prizes if contingencies are met, and the winning co-angler could earn as much as $35,000.
Anglers will take off from Henderson Point Park, located off Highway 62 East in Henderson, at 8 a.m. Saturday. Weigh-ins also will be held at the marina beginning at 3 p.m. Friday. Saturday’s weigh-in will be held at the Wal-Mart store located at 65 Wal-Mart Drive in Mountain Home, Ark., beginning at 4 p.m.
The full field will compete Friday and the top 10 pros and 10 co-anglers advance to Saturday’s final round. Winners will be determined Saturday by the heaviest accumulated weight from three days of competition.
Friday’s conditions
Sunrise: 6:32 a.m.
Temperature at takeoff: 32
Expected high temperature: 34
Water temperature: 42
Wind: N 10-13 mph
Humidity: 61
Day’s outlook: Overcast with afternoon snow showers
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