1st Place- Lake of the Ozarks Tournament- April 2015

Lake of the Ozarks-Hawg Hawlers -Tournament Recap

April 13, 2015

Forrest Outdoors Pro staff- Brian Forrest and Mark Forrest took 1st place with a win at Lake of the Ozarks -Hawg Hawlers Tournament. Total weight for 2 days was 27lbs and 4 oz. Below is a summary of our patterns over the last 4 days and lures used during the tournament.

This weekend was very tough fishing at Lake of the Ozarks. Weathermen were predicting massive storms for Thursday and Friday but did not hit until Sunday afternoon. Because of the anticipated weather- they decided to draw water from the lake and between that and a cold front came Friday night fishing this weekend all over the lake was pretty difficult.

Prefishing/ Lake Conditions

The bite Thursday and Friday was fairly decent. Most of our fish were caught on a Black and Blue Jakked Baits Finesse jig in about 4-8 feet of water on secondary points. However, once the conditions started to change so did the pattern. Thursday we caught about a 5 pound spot and you wouldn’t believe if I didn’t show you this picture. This thing was massive.

We explored several areas of the lake including- Linn Creek, Osage Arm, Big and Little Niangua.

Water temperatures were from the mid 50’s (55 degrees) to as high as mid 60’s (65) with water colors from Muddy to stained in most parts of the lake from recent rains.

Tournament Day

Day 1: Saturday morning our first spot was a main lake point with a channel swing. There we caught 2 right out the gate (3.5lb and a 2lb) once again on a Jakked Baits Finesse Jig- Black and Blue. About an hour later we caught our 3rd fish (2.5 lbs) which came off a pearl square bill about 100 yards back into the cove off the Primary point. My partner and I began running the previous day’s pattern going into secondary points and hitting the back sides of primary points with a jig or plastic. We did catch a few fish but no more keepers for the rest of the day. At around 11- I began throwing a crankbait that ran about 6 to 7 foot deep, which is when is started to get a lot of bites. Unfortunately- with most crankbait bites- you will lose fish from time to time. And on this day we lost 3 of good keepers because they threw the hook or jumped out of the water and came unbuttoned. All other fish were shorts. We finished Day 1 in 3rd pace 3 fish with 8lbs and 4 oz.

Day 2: Sunday was a different story. There was a large tournament entering out the same cove that day so we did not leave the docks until 7am and finally started fishing at 7:30. We hit our primary spot first thing in the morning that worked the day before. However, this time we decided to start on the bluff wall side, 50 yards before the main point and then work our way into the back of the cove…. With air temperatures in the 60’s, water temperatures in the high 50’s (59-59) and overcast skies the bite was on and we found that out within the first 30 minutes as we had 4 keepers in the boat before 8am. At that point we re-established a pattern and ran the lake hitting primary points, chunk rock, with channel swings that hit those areas. In total we caught about 25 fish that day and finished with 19 pounds.

Lures: As I had mentioned- On Thursday and Friday primary bait was a Jakked Bait Jig in Black and Blue.

On Saturday and Sunday there were 2 lures that I would switch back and forth were as follows:

1. Livingston Lures - Howeller Dream Master Classic- Guntersville Craw or XXX Shad

2. Raplala DT6 in Ikes Penguin color or Ikes Demon

Pattern: We were fishing primary points where the channel swing came right up and against them. A detail within the pattern was finding chunk rock in and along those bluff walls or deep drop offs. We were not able to catch any fish if we fished a straight drop bluff wall. The majority of our fish were caught when we could hit rip rap or some chunk rock in and around those primary points. We would parallel our boat to the bank- sitting about 3 feed off the bank and cast our baits parallel against the shore. Allowing us to keep our baits in the strike zone , consistently hitting rocks with our crankbaits, and cover a tremendous amount of water.

Set up: For this particular pattern I was using an Ardent Elite- 5.4.1 gear ratio a 6’6 to 7’ Medium Action Ardent Edge Rod, and Yo-Zuri- Monofilament Line in 10-12 pound test.

Forrest Outdoors Sponsors: Livingston Lures, Line-X Mid Missouri, Ardent Reels, Yo-Zuri Line, Russell Marine Products, Jakked Baits, Tour Tungsten, Lake Ozarks Mobile Marine, Super Bright Led’s, Matzuo America, and Browning Eyewear.

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