Troy Morrow of Toccoa with a Hartwell largemouth that won him big-fish honors in a January 20 pot tournament. The fish weighed 4.4 pounds.
Tournament bass anglers are a serious and dedicated bunch. You’ll find them lined up at first light at boat ramps on most of our Georgia reservoirs, ready to blast off for a day of competition. Winter is no exception. While most of us prefer to sit at home on blustery cold days and sharpen hooks, rearrange tackle boxes or watch fishing shows, these guys are out there striving to win their next event. Rain, snow, high winds, it doesn’t matter; these “tough guys” of fishing brave the elements to move their tournament careers forward.
Troy Morrow of Toccoa is one such tournament fisherman. At 35 years of age, he has already made a name for himself on a couple of the more prestigious trails like BASS and BFL, and he still competes with his buddies in local pot tournaments on his home lake of Hartwell. He qualified and fished the BFL All American last year and was headed out for a BASS event the day after we met.
I caught up with Troy and regular fishing partner Jim Smith at the ramp at Poplar Springs on a Saturday afternoon in mid January. Troy and Jim had a nice sack of fish and were preparing to weigh in for the pot tournament they had fished that day.
It was clear that they had done well, and they seemed confident that they had a good chance to win the 23-boat event. When all was said and done, Troy and Jim captured the first-place check with a 17.17-lb., five-fish string and landed the big-fish pot as well with a chunky 4.4-pounder. All of the fish were largemouth. Not a bad day considering that there had been a substantial amount of rain the previous week and that the morning low that Saturday hovered in the mid- to high-20s.
Troy and Jim started their day in a major mid-lake creek near Portman Shoals. They chose that portion of the lake because the water upstream was dingy and the temperatures were likely to be a little warmer farther downstream. Even so, the surface temperature gauge showed a frigid 44 degrees when they made their first cast. Their first target was a bridge about midway back in the creek, and they focused on the points where the rip-rap met the channel under the span. Troy made long casts with a Blade Runner along the points of the rip-rap, let the bait sink to the bottom and began a slow retrieve keeping the bait in touch with the bottom as long as possible. They had a keeper in the boat right away but then the action slowed, and they moved to their next spot.
 Next, Troy selected a deep-water dock and probed the area in front of it with a Blade Master jig and rubber trailer.
“I like docks that have deep water, 15 feet or so, and plenty of brush in front of them,” Troy said. “I usually work the outside corners first and then move in front of the dock and fish the brush.”
Troy recommends that you fish the jig slowly and work the brush thoroughly. In extremely cold water you have to put the jig right in front of the fish to get it to strike.
After they picked up a couple of fish around the dock, one of which was a keeper, Troy moved to a smaller creek and pulled up over a submerged roadbed that topped out in about 29 feet of water.
“I knew that this roadbed had a small culvert under it and that the upstream side was slightly deeper than the surrounding water,” said Troy. “Sometimes a difference of only three or four feet can cause the bait, and bass, to congregate in an area.”
When they settled over the spot, Troy watched his graph for signs of bait and feeding fish. The water temperature had warmed a couple of degrees from the morning low, and the fish may have been getting more active.
What he saw on the graph got his attention, and he quickly dropped a jigging spoon over the side. There was plenty of bait in the area and he could see it in numerous small patches on the graph.
“When bait is in big thick clouds it is usually an indication that nothing is feeding on them and they are inactive,” said Troy.
When bass or other predators crash into the schools of bait they tend to break it up into smaller pods and move around a lot. It was these small pods that cranked up Troy’s adrenaline. Dropping a 5/8-oz. Hopkins spoon to the bottom, Troy made a couple of quick jerks with the rod and a bass slammed into the bait. When Troy fought the fish to the boat he could see several other fish following it, and he knew he was in for some quick action. Jim played net man and helped Troy get the bait back into the water quickly, and he was hooked up again within a matter of seconds. Before the bite turned off they had their winning string, and it was just 10:30 a.m.
For wintertime success, Troy listed a few basics that he has found to continually be effective. The jigging spoon is one of the all-time favorite mid-winter baits. If you can find a school of fish, it will almost always produce. It is simple to fish and will draw strikes from many different species. In the mid-winter, fish tend to congregate in deeper holes and wait for bait to come by. Slight differences in bottom contour can make a big difference in your fishing success. Look for isolated areas that are slightly different from the surroundings, and you are likely to find fish. Use your electronics religiously. If you don’t see bait in an area, you are less likely to catch fish than in areas where there is a lot of bait holding. Slow down and fish an area thoroughly. Fish are lethargic in the cold water and won’t chase a bait very far. You may have to make multiple casts to the same spot to entice a fish to strike.
 On warm days with a light breeze fish the backs of short windward pockets. Bait will be pushed into the pockets by the wind and stack up, attracting bass to feed.
Since most of the fish they catch in the winter are from deep water the fish “blow up” when they are pulled to the surface due to the reduction in pressure. This can make it difficult to release fish since they are inflated like a balloon and can’t get back down below the surface. While some anglers who practice catch-and-release deflate the fish’s swim bladder with a hypodermic needle, this can be difficult and an angler can harm the fish if they don’t know the proper technique. Troy and Jim have come up with another solution to get the fish down. The rig consists of a heavy weight (three or four ounces) attached to a hook eye with a short piece of line (about 12 to 15 inches). The rig is tied to a rod line at the curve of the hook so that the hook is facing downward, with the weight below it, when suspended from a rod. The fish is hooked on lightly and dropped overboard with the weight pulling the fish to the bottom in about the same depth from which it was taken. Once the fish reaches the required depth, a light jerk of the rod tip will free the hook and release the fish. With the pressure equalized, the fish stays down and swims off. I watched Troy and Jim release several fish with the rig, and I could follow the whole process on the graph. Not one fish came back up. Troy believes this method greatly increases the survival rate of bass released in the winter that were caught in deep water.
Troy says the patterns he and Jim fished in January will work well through February and even into early March if the weather, and water, stays cold. So why don’t you turn off that fishing show and head out to fight the elements like the tournament boys do? You might find out that cold weather angling is more than worth the effort.
Link: http://www.gon.com/article.php?id=1030 |
Russell Find the Bluebacks and Catch Russell Bass
Troy Morrow sticks with four baits and keys on three types of structure to catch Lake Russell bass in May.
By Roy Kellett
Originally published in the May 2006 issue of GON |
Troy Morrow said Russell doesn’t usually give up loads of big bass, but it is chock full of nice, keeper-sized fish like the largemouth and spot above. In May, you can have a ball catching bass by finding big schools of blueback herring around bridges, shoals and windblown pockets.
The older gentleman with the walking stick leaned his foot on the guard rail of the bridge over Allen Creek on Lake Russell and yelled down to Troy Morrow, who was rigging a rod on the deck of his boat. The man, who was taking his morning walk, saw Troy and asked, “You caught anything yet?”
“Nothing big,” Troy answered, lifting a keeper-sized largemouth to show the man.
The man congratulated Troy and asked if he expected to catch any big ones.
“Every cast,” Troy answered, smiling, like any bass fisherman who knows the next cast can mean a lunker fish tugging on the other end of your line.
Troy, a 34-year-old tournament angler from Toccoa, says he has been hooked on bass fishing ever since he can remember, and his positive attitude likely comes from his experience, and his knowledge of catching bass
“I started out fishing some local Friday night stuff and fished with my dad sometimes,” Troy said. “Sometimes I would put my jonboat in the back of his truck when he was going to a tournament, and I would fish the whole time in the pocket where he put his boat in.”
Troy, who has fished competitively since he was 16 years old, has been fishing Lake Russell for most of that time, and in the years he’s spent on the reservoir on the Savannah River, he has learned a few things. Troy will readily tell you that the next few weeks are one of the hottest times of the year on Russell.
Troy says bass anglers can catch both good numbers and good-sized fish by finding big pods of blueback herring, throwing a few key baits and working around particular types of structure.
“This time of year, if you’re not fishing around the herring, you aren’t fishing around the big fish,” Troy said as we started making casts along a stretch of rip-rap at the foot of a bridge.
In May, Troy will stick with big spinnerbaits, a Bladerunner, which is a leadhead with a willowleaf blade that puts off a lot of flash with an albino or pearl Zoom Super Fluke, a clear or bleeding-shad Zara Super Spook, or a Lucky Craft Flash Minnow.
Troy, who is sponsored by Bladerunner Lures and Suddeth Crankbaits, fishes the BFL’s Savannah River Division as well as the Granite Division of the Bassmaster Weekend Series. He has been successful at tournament angling, having qualified to fish in this summer’s BFL All-American by virtue of finishing in the top six of the BFL Regional last year.
When Troy hits the water at Lake Russell in May, like any tournament angler, he’s going to have a plan.
“If I’m fishing a tournament, I’ll look for a bridge bite early, and then I’ll run from shoal to shoal,” Troy said.
Troy’s key concern when he hits the water this month, no matter what kind of area he is fishing, is to find the bluebacks.
“Look for the herring. If you find the herring, you’ll find the quality fish you want.”
When Troy is making his first cast of the day, it is likely going to be on a rip-rap bank, and is almost certainly going to be with a big spinnerbait that will put off a lot of flash. Troy likes a heavy bait, going with 1/2- to 3/4-oz., white models with two big willowleaf blades.
Not only is a spinnerbait a good search bait, hopefully picking off aggressive fish early in the day, it is a tool to tell Troy whether bait is piled up around his favorite bridge. On this day, it was. As Troy’s spinnerbait got back to the boat, he kept watching it come up, intently.
“Look at all the bluebacks following the spinnerbait!” Troy exclaimed. “That’s a great sign.”
On his next cast, Troy inadvertently hooked a herring, but he said having so many of the fish in the area was a great sign. The omen paid dividends within two minutes as Troy drove the point of the spinnerbait’s hook through the jaw of a largemouth.
As Troy unhooked the bass and dropped it in the livewell for pictures, he related his early strategy on Russell.
“I like to find a bridge with bluebacks on it, and I’ll fish all the way around all the rip-rap on both ends, and every bridge piling with the spinnerbait,” Troy said. “If I’m not getting bit, I’ll go to the Bladerunner and run the whole thing again.”
Troy retrieves his spinnerbait at moderate speed early in the day just to see if herring are present. When he sees bluebacks following the blade back to the boat, he rolls the spinnerbait a little slower to get down where the big boys roam.
After fishing the bridge up Allen Creek for a little while longer with only a couple more strikes, Troy put his boat on plane and headed for another bridge.
As Troy dropped the trolling motor and started maneuvering his boat toward the rip-rap bank running to the foot of the bridge, we started off casting into a stiff wind. Troy usually likes to fish with the wind at his back, but he’ll fish into the wind and downwind until he locates some baitfish.
We fished under the bridge and out the other side, working the rip-rap all the way back into a shallow corner that was being pounded by the wind. Eventually, we were off the rip-rap by 25 or 30 yards when Troy pointed out an old roadbed that runs into the lake alongside the currently existing road.
“This thing tops out 12 to 14 feet below the surface, and there’s usually some fish holding over the old bridge,” Troy said right as he set the hook on a nice spotted bass.
As we worked our way up the opposite side of the rip-rap from where we started, a fat largemouth slammed my spinnerbait about halfway between the bank and the boat. While we continued fishing, Troy said he works bridge pilings as closely as possible.
“I like to throw at a piling from every angle, and get my lure as close as I can to the concrete. As I retrieve it past the concrete, I might let it flutter a second and start it again,” Troy allowed. “A lot of times when you stop a spinnerbait and start it again, a bass will kill it.”
If the spinnerbait bite isn’t on, Troy picks up a rod rigged with a Bladerunner. He threads a fluke on the hook to make the lure look like a baitfish. Troy says you should throw the Bladerunner up close to the bridge pilings and let it sink a little before you start your retrieve. He’ll start high in the water column, letting the Bladerunner sink only a little before starting it back to the boat, and on each cast, he lets it sink a little farther until he gets a strike.
After Troy hits a bridge, he’ll go to his backup spots for May bass, Russell’s many shoals, which are marked with warning signs. Troy says that in May, both bridges and shoals will hold herring, and as it gets hotter, the bluebacks are likely to stack up around these offshore shoals.
“I like looking for shoals with clay or gravel on them because that’s where the herring are probably going to be,” Troy said as he made a wide circle around a shoal with the boat.
Troy positions his boat on one side of a shoal, and with his trolling motor, works his way around it in a circle, fan casting with a spinnerbait and then the Bladerunner.
It was still a little bit early for the shoal bite when we fished, but Troy said a Carolina-rigged worm can catch good numbers of fish off these spots even when the spinnerbait bite isn’t producing.
It wasn’t long before Troy had the boat on plane, running back into a pocket. While Troy prefers his bridge-and-shoal pattern in May, he will check some stretches of bank with blowdowns in a normal day of fishing.
As we started down the bank, still casting the big, white spinnerbaits, Troy said, “I wanted to try this spot, I caught a limit of fish out of here pretty easy the other day.”
About halfway back in the pocket, I got a strike, but missed the fish. A couple of casts later, Troy boated a fish that wouldn’t keep, so he unhooked the bass, tossed it back in, and fired his lure back toward the bank.
Though Troy didn’t throw the Super Spook much on the day I fished with him, he said you should always keep it tied on in May. However, Troy said working the Spook on Russell is a little different than on most other lakes.
“If bass are coming up, you have to throw it right where they are, or you’re wasting time,” Troy advised. “The best thing to do is be in position to cast, and as soon as you see fish breaking, throw the Spook where they are and hang on.”
Troy said occasionally, he doesn’t even need to walk the bait back to the boat, because bass will hit it when it is floating still if the herring are in the area.
We were in the midst of a constant, strong wind, and though we had picked up a few fish, Troy went to his final May pattern to see if the action would pick up any. As we headed back toward the Hwy 72 boat ramp, we fished several short, windblown pockets. Troy said when the wind is strong, an unbelievable number of fish are likely to be caught on a jerkbait such as the Flash Minnow.
“They’ll stack up in these pockets, and you wouldn’t believe the number of fish you can sometimes catch in a day, just on this pattern,” Troy said.
We did get bit several times in about a half-hour stretch, but got no fish to show for our efforts, and as the wind whipped the surface of the lake into a wavy froth, Troy and I motored for home, having caught eight or 10 nice bass.
If you head to Lake Russell for the first time this month, be sure to exercise extreme caution when running your boat, and pay special attention to the channel markers going into the timber-filled creeks. Not doing so could mean a shorn prop or mangled lower unit.
Stick with Troy’s advice and you will probably catch plenty of bass. Rig up a heavy spinnerbait, a Bladerunner, a Spook and a jerkbait and start looking for bridges, shoals and windblown pockets, and have fun catching plenty of fat Russell bass.
Link: http://www.gon.com/article.php?id=666 |
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In 2008 he will fish the Wal-Mart BFL and Stren Series as well as the B.A.S.S. Southern Opens putting him on lakes and rivers through the Southeast.
He says the most satisfying thing about fishing is figuring out what the fish are doing and that changes, day to day, hour-by-hour. Ask Troy and he will tell you to “think like a fish!” And the only way to do that is to spend time fishing; developing your instinct. And Troy loves to spend time on the water. He just enjoys everything about fishing
