Rethinking Top Bags

Randall Tharp, Day 1 leader, Forrest Wood Cup, FLW photo

During the morning's takeoff show, Randall Tharp was asked about finding another kicker, and he pointed out that the biggest fish in his 18-8 bag on Day 1 of the Forrest Wood Cup weighed five and change. His smallest was around three pounds. While it's true a really good kicker could put any pro in the mix and was the missing element for many anglers in the field, Tharp's bag actually consisted of five quality fish, suggesting that he might have been onto something a little different -- yesterday at least. And early word from the @FLWfishing Twitter feed says that he already has a couple of good fish in the box.

Considering Tharp's catch more fully made me look closer at Bryan Thrift's bag and do a little math. Thrift's catch obviously was aided by a 7 1/2-pound bass, which he caught on a shaky head and by his own admission did not expect to find. Still, if you take 7 1/2 pounds off his total and divide the remaining weight by four, his other fish averaged close to three pounds. Make the fifth fish a 3-pounder and he'd still be around 14 pound, and still in second place. Oh, and he also has a 3 1/2-pounder aboard already today.

While I'm talking about backing yesterday's catch, it's worth noting, that Adrian Avena (4th yesterday) was already culling by 8:00 a.m. today, and Mark Rose (5th) has a 4-pounder in the box. I'm not saying the leaderboard won't shift. It may shift a lot, and specific kicker fish might play a huge part. I just realized I had been shortchanging the total efforts of Tharp and Thrift by only talking about kickers and wanted to clarify a bit.

Day 1 Themes - Kickers & Change

Day 1 Forrest Wood Cup Leader, Randall Tharp

"I'm catching a ton of fish. I just didn't ever find the big one that I needed."

That quote remains unattributed because it came from a bunch of different pros, with only slight variances in wording. Kicker fish, or a lack there of, was one of a couple of themes I heard repeated again and again as Forrest Wood Cup competitors crossed the stage during the Day 1 weigh-in. The leaders had a big fish or two and were very thankful for them. Virtually everyone else who commented on their catch spoke about lacking that big-fish element.

Every pro except two caught a limit, and nearly 2/3 of the field weighed between 8 and 12 pounds. Four anglers -- Randall Tharp, Bryan Thrift, Larry Nixon and Adrian Avena -- weighed in 13 pounds or more, with Tharp and Thrift catching 18-8 and 18-7, respectively, for first and second place. Tomorrow will be very telling as we see whether any of the same guys bring in the biggest bags or whether three or four different anglers come across the kickers that produce really big bags.

Another thing I heard about quite a bit was that some condition had changed enough since Tuesday's final practice day to alter the way a specific group of fish behaved. In a couple of cases, pros who really caught them in practice failed to get the same bites from the same fish and believed it was attributable to a 10-degree drop in the water temperature. Others talked about changes in positioning of floating weeds. David Fritts spoke of some "little stuff" floating on top in one of his best areas, which altered the way he was able to fish. Change, of course, goes with river fishing, so it's not impossible that we'll here about much more stuff that has changed tomorrow.

Tomorrow the full field fishes again. After tomorrow, only the top 20 remain, and only the top 10 get to fish for the championship on Sunday.




Not About the Spot. Well, Sort of

Adrian Avena finishing out an early limit.

Popular pre-tourney word from the field of the Forrest Wood Cup was that this tournament won't be about a spot. And after spending a few hours watching from the water today, to a degree I think that's true. I don't think anyone will find that amazing replenishing sort of single location that he can ride for four days, and from what I gathered from my boat driver, Eddie, there aren't necessarily spots where you go after big fish in the Red River this time of year.

That said, this year's Cup is very much about spots in another sense. I saw virtually no one just fishing their way down a shore loaded with similar-looking cover, keeping the trolling motor down and searching for fish. Instead virtually everyone fished a fairly specific spot, whether for 10 minutes or for hours. And when they finished they picked up the trolling motor and moved to another specific spot. A spot could be a 50-yard long rockpile or section of bank, but in many cases the boat wasn't moving at all.

The Red River fishery is vast, and with it's abundance of timber and vegetation, it looks like bass could be anywhere. They aren't just everywhere, though. They instead congregate in mouths of cuts, around sunken jetties, in ditches, over grass points and in other places where some a little something makes a spot distinctive from what is around it. Current controls some of that, and when there is less flow, as is the case right now, those places that have even a little current become especially important.

I saw at least half a dozen different anglers putting fish in the box in the few hours I was out, and their spots had little in common. They were spread among the main river and backwaters, and included rock, wood and vegetation as the primary cover. All boats were basically stationary when the angers' set hooks, though, and in each case, Eddie could tell me something specific about that spot that caused it to hold fish.

The real key might be having enough spots to catch fish well today, tomorrow, the next day and the day after that. How many spots that will that take? Only time will tell.