Snowden's Tournament Journal - Bassmaster American

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Event: Bassmaster American

When: May 14-20

Where: High Rock Lake/Townsend, NC

Finish: 2nd

Winnings: $38,000.00

The first two days of practice I spent my mornings covering water quickly with buzzbaits and spinnerbaits along rocky shorelines where the shad were spawning. Unfortunately I was unable to find any aggressively feeding bass in these areas. Later in the day I concentrated on shallow docks with a 3/8 oz. jig in a green pumpkin with orange color with an avocado Super Chunk. This produced 8-10 bites a day with one of them being over five pounds. The final day of practice was short, but it was the most beneficial day for me. I tried the shad spawning pattern one more time in the morning with no success. This prompted me to try some shallow water cover, mainly willows and buckbrush. This move lead me to the most productive pattern I had found on High Rock. Within two hours I had caught five or six keepers and had 10-15 more bites while pitching a ¼ oz., Texas rigged, black and red or black and blue Super Hog.

The first day of the tournament started out with a bang! I was so excited to catch a limit weighing over eighteen pounds within the first 45 minutes of fishing. You know you are going to have a good day of fishing when it starts out this way! These fish were all taken on shallow willow trees with 20 pound, Vicious Fluorocarbon Line, using a ¼ oz. weight on a Texas rigged Super Hog in black sapphire. I then switched to flipping the docks coming up with several more keepers. The second day of the event started out a little slower with a 4 ½ and 3 ½ taken by seven o’clock, but I didn’t get any other bites until after 9:30. The action picked up considerably around ten o’clock catching fifteen keepers by noon. I finished the day with five fish weighing 21.9 pounds and was in first place with just over 40 pounds of fish.

The field was cut to twelve, and our weights were zeroed, as we headed to Lake Townsend. The hole courses are always fast and furious. I was able to figure out how to get a few bites fishing a Texas rigged Sinko with a 3/16 oz. weight. I caught the majority of my fish around stumps on shallow, flat points, and my best fish came off of rip-rap rock on a bridge. I was the only angler to weigh-in a limit the first day, but it only weighed nine pounds putting me in second place with over four pounds behind the leader. The final day of the tournament was even more difficult. The field was cut to the top six, and I had a lot of ground to make up. I managed to catch the only limit again, fishing a Texas rigged Sinko around stumps. It was the heavy stringer of the day, but I was unable to make up the ground to take over first place. This ended my tournament in second place. It was a fun event!



 

By Brian Snowden