Top 10 baits from a slugfest on Pickwick

FLORENCE, Ala. – The Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Central Division tournament on Pickwick Lake lived up to the billing as a big-fish event. It took nearly a 20-pound average to cut a check, and the tournament featured many of the best historically and currently on the Tennessee River. Still, while the top-end weights were gaudy, it wasn’t easy to catch bass, and Dylan Nutt stood out from the crowd with his consistency and ability to actually catch decent numbers every day.

Here’s what got it done in the wintertime event.

1. Nutt blasts them three days in a row

Weighing more than 84 pounds for the win with a 30-pound sack on the final day, Nutt ended up running away from the field. Together with his twin brother, Carter, Nutt has been a force on Pickwick in recent years, and this event against the best competition the region has to offer cemented their run.

Fishing offshore for fish on structure and cover, Nutt relied on a Picasso Lures Bait Ball Extreme with 1/8- and 1/4-ounce VMC Boxer Jig Heads and Keitech swimbaits, as well as a 3/8-ounce Scottsboro Tackle Sona Tungsten Screwlock Jig Head with a True Bass FF Minnow.

2. Lawrence shines again on the Tennessee River

One of the hottest anglers going on the Tennessee River these days, Jake Lawrence rolled into town fresh off a Top 10 in the Bass Pro Tour opener and parlayed a limited practice into a near win.

“I wasn’t super dialed when the event started,” Lawrence said. “It was primarily current breaks – anytime you could get the river channel or a bend, where the current wasn’t as strong, was good. And it kind of evolved; I got on a little deal fishing pieces of cover in the back half of the bays. Because of the current, it would never allow the water to actually warm up in the main river; but in the back half of the bays it absolutely would. That last day, there’s no telling how many 5- and 6-pounders got all over and wouldn’t bite. It was very apparent once I got on that deal that they hadn’t been pressured compared to the fish on the main river. That was the deal, it just didn’t happen for me.”

Though Lawrence naturally employed a minnow, his big player was an umbrella rig with 3.7-inch Yamamoto Shad Shape Swimmer swimbaits on 1/8-ounce heads. He used a Dobyns Champions Extreme 745 rod and 20-pound fluorocarbon to present the bait.  

“They were sitting on the bottom; I just couldn’t get enough attention with the minnow,” Lawrence said. “If I kept it low enough, I would get hung a lot. The A-rig, with the small swimmers, you could get bit. I threw big swimmers for a day in practice, and you couldn’t get bit at all.”

3.  Marbut stays hot

Finishing sixth or better in his last four Toyota Series showings, Hayden Marbut is on a heater. In this event, fishing familiar water, he ran a very familiar program.

“I was running main lake and secondary bars, just as much high-percentage stuff as I could,” Marbut said. “Brush, stumps, rough spots on a bar, just about anything I could find. I wasn’t getting many bites at all. The first day I caught seven, the second day I caught 10, and the last day I caught my fifth fish on my last cast. It was crazy, you didn’t really see that many fish. The weights made it look a lot better than it was out there. It was a grind.”

As is usual for the talented angler, a 3/16-ounce Picasso Tungsten Ball Head with several 5-inch minnows was a big player. Marbut also made use of a Nomad Design Shikari jerkbait in aqua ghost.  

4. Shaw banks on the umbrella rig

Continuing his run of success and fishing near where he goes to school at the University of North Alabama, Banks Shaw put together a great tournament despite a slightly off-pace start.

For his umbrella rig,  Shaw chose a Stealth Lures Stealth Rig with 1/8-ounce Picasso Tungsten Ball Heads and Reaction Innovations Little Dippers. To throw it, Shaw used a 7-foot, 6-inch, heavy Joe Burns Custom Rod, a Daiwa Tatula and 20-pound Seaguar Red Label.

“I was targeting points that had bigger bait,” Shaw said. “Crappie and gizzard shad, they were always around stumps or brush piles. The bass were around them. You had to pull up at the right time when the fish were actually catchable.

“I fished a lot of different water and put things together during the tournament,” he said. “It seems like that’s how it goes out there; I just put things together during the tournament, because I have so much stuff to run.”

5. Glide and jerkbait key Lannom’s final day

Wrangling 27 pounds on Day 3, Presley Lannom completed an impressive week in style. Like many, Lannom targeted fish on isolated pieces of cover.

“It changed up throughout the week,” he said. “They were more related to main lake stuff toward the beginning of the tournament. It seemed like fish moved up more toward secondary points and laydowns and brush piles on the points. It seemed like I had to get them to react on the final day; that’s why I swapped over to the jerkbait and the glide on the final day.”

After throwing a 4-inch minnow early in the event, Lannom used a Clutch Darter and Megabass Vision 110 for his big bag on Day 3.  

Considering he was fishing his first Toyota Series event, you could forgive some jitters from the 18-year-old Lannom, but he didn’t have any.

“I would say I was confident, maybe not comfortable,” Lannom said. “You never know what the guys you’re fishing against are going to bring in. But, I felt like I could catch a decent limit every day. The size just came along as the week went along.”

6. Luckey ‘Scopes shallow

Brody Luckey faltered a little on Day 3. But the Virginia angler took advantage of the relatively unmolested banks to ‘Scope up some shallower fish on the first two days.

For baits, he used a 6-inch Deps Sakamata Shad on a 1/8-ounce Keitech Tungsten Super Round Jig Head, a Megabass Vision 110 with No. 5 Gamakatsu G-Finesse Short Shank Trebles and a Megabass Kanata in MB gizzard.

“I had my area pretty much to myself,” Luckey said. “There were fish cruising up and down the bank, very shallow, in 3- to 5-foot of water. I would pitch up ahead of them and work it over their heads and they would pop it. And I would look out and pick several up that were suspending. Some would be suspended only like 2 or 3 feet down in 20 feet of water, and others would be 10 feet down.”

Luckey credited his big-screen NBT Battleship and slow-moving baits for his success.

“They were really lethargic, some of the most lethargic fish I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Using that light jighead and pausing the jerkbait a long time really helped. I think that was one of the reasons other people weren’t catching them on the bank. And having that NBT screen on the front helped, because I  could see those little marks up shallow”

7. Jerkbait puts them in the boat for Falardeau

Dillon Falardeau has basically locked himself in the Top 10 lately no matter where he fishes. So, to see the Tennessee pro sacking them up again in the Central Division was a natural start to the season.

“I used an Alabama rig mostly to draw up the fish, so I could see them and find them,” Falardeau said. “Day 1 and Day 2, they weren’t committing to it – they would run through it and not get a hook. Once I located them, I could throw the jerkbait and work the fish into eating.

“I found schools of fish – I had three different schools I was rotating,” he explained. “On Wheeler, I did the whole hard structure, stump thing, which is what won this tournament. But in practice, I thought that would get played out, and I spent a lot of time scanning and I found one school that probably had 40 fish. I had my limit very early every morning.”

For his umbrella rig, Falardeau used a Hog Farmer BFL Flex Rig with 3.8-inch Keitech Swing Impact FAT Swimbaits on 3/16- and 1/4-ounce Dirty Jigs Tactical Bassin’ Screwed Up Swimbait Heads. For his jerkbait, he used a Shimano Zumverno 115SP MR and a Dobyns Champion XP 705 CB.  

Falardeau said the FLASH BOOST in the jerkbait let him entice a few extra fish every day.

“When they follow it and you run out of room, you can kind of let it sit there and shake your rod tip,” Falardeau said. “That FLASH BOOST will get you an extra bite. That’s the biggest thing about that jerkbait – when you run out of room, you can still get them to eat it.”

8. Parks blasts the biggest bag of Day 2

Catching nearly 29 pounds on Day 2, Logan Parks made a late-day adjustment on Day 1 that turned his tournament around.

“I had a pretty crazy day of practice shaking the minnow at them,” Parks said. “For whatever reason, it seemed like the fish I was fishing for got really smart quickly. I think I got in a bad rotation and was right behind somebody I never saw on Day 1. I finally got in front of one that wanted to bite the minnow, and I got real stubborn. Later in the day, I set down and rigged up a jerkbait and caught a 4 and lost a 6 and had to go to weigh-in.”

New bait in hand, Parks was excited to go out on Day 2.

“I got to my starting spot on Day 2 and I had all that in 30 minutes,” he said. “And they were all 5-pounders on my BUBBA; I had all that without a 6-pounder.”

Fishing isolated cover on creek channel, Parks plied a Berkley Stunna 112 for the most part, thrown with 15-pound-test Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon on a 7-foot, medium, moderate Abu Garcia Veritas. He souped it up with No. 6 Ryugi Pierce trebles. In addition to the jerkbait and minnow, he used a 4-inch Berkley PowerBait Ripple Shad on a 3/16-ounce head.

9. Anderson bucks the trend and goes to the bank

After Day 1, Caz Anderson was in 58th place, having scrounged up 18 pounds. So, he stepped it up with 28 pounds on Day 2 and 26 pounds on Day 3 to roll all the way into the Top 10.

“I had a pretty tough practice,” Anderson said. “I could catch some big ones out there on a minnow like everybody else was doing, but just I didn’t feel as if I could get five of them. So, I went shallow. Literally, it was 1:30 on the last practice day. And I went up there, caught me, like, three line-burner 15-inchers.”

After mixing some shallow keepers and a few offshore fish on Day 1, Anderson planned to swing hard on Day 2 offshore, but only after getting a limit.

“So, I went up there to fill a limit out on this little stretch of bank, and we had a 60-degree night the night before, and I think it pushed those big ones up,” Anderson said. “My first bite on my first cast of the day was a 6-6. And then I caught a 4 1/2, and then it just materialized from there. I mean, it was insane. Like, I would go down the bank and throw my bait up by this rock and catch one off of it. Then I would go down and then come back 10 minutes later and fish the same rock and catch one again. They were moving up by the minute, just waves of fish pulling up as the day went on, and they were all giants.”

Anderson’s key baits included a Berkley Frittside 5 and a 3/8-ounce Berkley Power Blade Spinnerbait. He fished the spinnerbait on a 7-foot, 6-inch, medium-heavy Abu Garcia Fantasista X paired with an Abu Garcia Zenon MG-X and 15-pound line.  

“They were moving up by the second. It was it was nuts. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Anderson said. “A lot of people were fishing too close to the bank. The fish were moving up, but you had to throw it at a 45-degree angle, sit out there in 15-foot and just reel slow and just bump it off the bottom as long as you could out through there, and then it would just feel like somebody cut your line. Just wait ‘til you see the YouTube video.”

10. Umbrella rig does the heavy lifting for Gill

As usual, Drew Gill made the Top 10, staying devilishly consistent every day. Like many, an umbrella rig was a key player for him.

“I was throwing the five wires,” Gill said. “I was reeling it over brush and stumps, either on bars or on main lake flats. I weighed five smallmouth and 10 largemouth.”

Gill’s umbrella setup consisted of 3.5-inch Big Bite Bait Suicide Shad swimmers on 1/8-ounce heads. He threw it on a 7-foot, 1-inch, heavy power, fast action Phenix Recon Elite with an 8:1 reel and 22-pound Seaguar Tatsu.