Troy Morrow featured in
July issue of FLW Outdoors

4PROS, 4SPOTS, FORGOTTEN BY
Jeff Samsel

Visit the boats of a few Walmart FLW Tour pros
on a summer morning before tournament takeoff, and you'll see a lot of the same tools on their rods: crankbaits, jigs, Carolina rigs, spoons, and other popular and productive lures for summer's tried-and-true technique of ledge fishing.

Time has taught such anglers where the most bass spend their summer days, and recent tournaments dominated offshore have confirmed the fact that the deep bite goes the distance in big-money events.

On some days, though, every ledge seems to be taken, and on other days, the classic stuff simply doesn't get it done. So what do the pros do? They dig deeper into the bag of tricks and come out with a few can't-miss summertime tricks that are almost guaranteed to put fish in the livewell. Here are four examples of overlooked spots you can bank on when the offshore pattern burns up in summer.

TROY MORROW FLOATING DOCKS

Pro Troy Morrow of Toccoa, GA., fishes a lot of "blackback lakes," where blackback herring are the preferred bass forage and make or break fishing patterns. He spends his summer days running-and-gunning, using herring-imitating topwater lures over offshore structure and hitting lots of spots. When the offshore bite goes sour, Morrow moves from shallower, either into small pockets off the main lake or into the mouths of creeks, and he looks for floating docks in less than 10 feet of water.

"I know I can always catch some resident fish skipping docks," Morrow says. The most productive docks have plastic foam floats, but those are not permitted for dock construction anymore on the lakes Morrow fishes. That makes them increasingly rare and increasingly attractive to him. If he can't find one, a close second is a dock with plastic floats.

The fish under floating docks typically hold just beneath the surface, lying close to the floating dock supports, where they aren't always easy to reach. "I also look for the docks that are the toughest to get a lure beneath," he says. "Those fish get the least pressure and are the easiest to catch."

Fifth place Forrest Wood Cup:
Troy Morrow of Toccoa, GA

Four-day total: 41 pounds, 13 ounces
FLW Outdoors Bass Edition; October, 2010
Even though Troy Morrow's home lake (Hartwell) is a blueback herring lake as well, he chose to ignore blueback patterns and focus on both brush and deep, isolated trees. Morr's different apporach to Lanier started with homemade brush piles, as he was the only pro in the top six to put out his own brush before cutoff.

"Fresh brush is better than old brush," Morrow says. "Old brush is fine, and I did mix some existing piles and about six standing strees into my daily run of about 40 stops. But fresh brush is thicker and provides more cover for the bait, so I wanted some of that in the mix as well. By tournament's end, I probably caught about 75 percent of my fish off my own piles."

A major key in Morrow's success at Lanier was a MarCum underwater camera that he used extensively during pre-practice and official practice. Morrow notes that the top forage in all the brush on the bottom of Lanier was tiny bluegills, and he knows this thanks to the use of his underwater camera.

"I used the camera to identify several things: bottom composition around the brush, the brush composition and thickness, how much bait (bream) was using the brush and what other species of fish were using the piles," Morrow reveals. "Some of those sonar returns around the brush looked promising, but they were all crappies, stripers or catfish. Others were chock-full of only small bream and spotten bass. Knowing this gave me a tremendous amount of confidence that I was fishing in the right piles."

Another twist Morrow worked into his game was to throw a crankbait, such as the clear chartreuse SPRO Little John DD, on 10-pound-test fruorocarbon over the taller piles that rose up to within 15 to 20 feet of the surface. Just nudging the tops of the brush with the crankbait produced Morrow's biggest bites during the week. He noted that even though he caught more numbers on a drop-shot, nearly half of his weight came off the crankbait.

The primary depth of Morrow's best brush piles was 18 to 35 feet. If the crankbait failed to produce, he would pull up over the pile and drop straight down to it.

"I didn't reel up to the suspended fish to catch them," he adds. "My goal was to drop it on the suspended fish and get him and others to follow it to the bottom. If several fish followed it to the bottom, they would get competitive for it and one would finally bite it."

Fishing Lanier Spots With The All-American

Troy Morrow won the 2010 BFL All-American and recently placed fifth in the FLW Cup on Lake Lanier.

By Don Baldwin, originally published in the November, 2010 issue of GON

Troy Morrow is living his dream. This 38-year-old angler from Toccoa has been fishing most of his life and started competing in local bass tournaments before he could get a driver’s license. 

“I used to throw my jonboat in the back of the truck when Dad was going to Hartwell for pot tournaments,” said Troy. “I’d stay in the cove near the ramp and work it hard for bass.”

That kind of passion and determination has paid off for Troy. He has long been a favorite in club and pot tournaments on Lake Hartwell, his home lake. But last season he broke into the spotlight. 

In May of this year, Troy won the BFL All-American tournament on Arkansas’ DeGray Lake. This was a huge step forward in Troy’s drive to be a full-time professional bass angler. The win netted him $120,000.

The All-American win guaranteed him a spot in the Forrest Wood Cup on Lanier this past August. Fishing against some of the best anglers in the world, Troy finished in fifth place. He added another $50,000 to his earnings. 

As a result of those huge accomplishments, Troy is heading out full-time on the FLW Tour next season. It looks like he’s off and running in hot pursuit of his dream. Troy is spending this fall making financial and logistical preparations for a year on the road.

Troy took a short break from all that activity and took me fishing on Lanier in mid October. Although the pattern would be different than when he had his high finish on the lake in August, Troy spends enough time on Lanier that he could tell GON readers what to expect in November.

“November is a transition month on Lanier,” said Troy. “We usually have some fairly significant temperature changes during the month. As things cool down, the bass begin to move out of their late-summer pattern.”

I met Troy at the Balus Creek Park ramp, just before daylight on a cool, mid October morning, and we headed out toward the main lake. Troy told me the methods we would be fishing would be the same he would be using in early November. 

“Unless there is a major change in the weather, the bait and bass should still be hanging at their late-summer locations on the main lake,” said Troy. “We’ll start on top. The spots are still holding over deep brush, and a noisy bait on the surface will sometimes call them up to feed.”

Pulling up on our first location, Troy handed me a long white rod with lots of tiny guides. Troy said the new rod concept from Duckett Fishing is called Micro Magic. The guides on the rod are much smaller than conventional guides, usually about 4 mm in diameter, and they are spaced closely together. 

“The smaller guides have two advantages,” said Troy. “They reduce overall rod weight and eliminate much of the line vibration on the cast.” 

Troy said this configuration keeps the line from slapping the rod on the cast, reducing drag and allowing much longer casts. After four or five casts, I had to agree.

We were making long casts with big poppers that were tied behind a smaller popper, or Front Runner. We then worked them back to the boat making a lot of commotion on the surface. 

“We may pick up a few fish early,” said Troy. “But this technique usually works best once the sun gets up a little.”

We didn’t get any action on the first spot but could see fish breaking the surface periodically all around the cove. Moving to another brushpile, Troy connected on the second cast and landed a fat 2-lb. spot.

The big trailing plug on the rig was a large Pop-R, but most any chugger or even a Zara Spook will work. The Front Runner was about 2 to 3 feet in front of the big popper. And on one rig Troy substituted a small Pop-R for the front bait. He modified the Pop-R by removing the rear hook and beefing up the front hook to increase chances of hooking bass that strike the front bait. The eye, which originally held the rear hook, was used to tie on the leader for the bigger rear bait. Troy said when the action is good, it isn’t unusual to have two fish on at the same time — one on each bait.

The rig is fished on rods at least 7 feet long and casting reels spooled with 15-lb. test line.

He sets up the boat by stopping short of a brushpile he wants to fish and makes a long cast past it. He then works the bait aggressively back to the boat directly over the brush. Strikes will generally occur in the vicinity of the brushpile.

If he doesn’t get any takers on the surface action, Troy pulls out a deep-diving crankbait and fishes the same areas he’s fishing the topwater lures.

“Ideally you want the crankbait to cross over the brush just above it,” Troy said. “On most of the deep brush I fish, a bait that will dive about 20 feet is just right.” 

His favorite plug is a Spro Little John DD because of its consistent 20-foot depth on the retrieve. Troy recommends dark colors early in the morning and on cloudy days, and he prefers light colors when the sun is bright during the middle of the day. The crankbaits are fished on long casting outfits spooled with 10-lb. test fluorocarbon. The line produces less drag and lets the bait run deeper while still having the strength to manage a hefty bass around brush. 

As an alternative to the crankbait, Troy uses a Fish Head Spin in exactly the same fashion. He sticks with the 1/2-oz. model because he is familiar with the fall rate and can count the bait down effectively to the desired depth. He then uses a steady retrieve so the bait stays at the proper depth and doesn’t rise or fall. Again he tries to get the bait to come across the brush just above the top of the pile. A couple of feet either way and you’ll miss fish or find yourself snagged in the brush. Troy tips the bait with a Zoom Super Fluke Junior in a pearl color. 

“The bait is usually pretty small this time of year, so the smaller Fluke seems to work best,” said Troy. 

Before he leaves a brushpile, Troy moves in close and fishes a drop-shot worm vertically over the brush. This rig consists of a small drop-shot hook about 2 feet above a small sinker at the end of the line. Troy threads a small finesse-style worm on the hook and leaves the hook point exposed for a better hook-up ratio. 

“I think the exposed hook produces much more effectively than a Texas-rig approach,” said Troy. “It’s just easier to get the hook into the fish when you don’t have to set it through the worm.”

There is a downside, though. The exposed hook sets well in brush, too. To combat this, Troy has devised a little “knocker” consisting of a small bell sinker with a snap swivel attached. If he gets hung in the brush, he snaps on the little knocker, lets it drop down the line and almost every time it will knock the hook free.

The drop-shot rig is fished on light spinning tackle, and Troy said that line size is key on Lanier. 

“I use 7-lb. test line,” said Troy. “Six-lb. test will produce more strikes, but you’ll get broken off in the brush often and 8-lb. test is more visible and produces less strikes.”

Troy’s worm selection for the drop-shot rig is a straight Robo Worm in various colors. He likes something white in the worm in most cases, but the morning-dawn color is a favorite.

The technique is to drop the worm to where it is just barely over the top of the brush and shake it lightly in place. Troy keeps an eye on his bow-mounted graph and can often see the bass follow the bait down to take the bait. If you prefer, shaky-head worm rigs also work well. I used one alongside Troy’s drop shot and had good results. The key is to keep hooks, worm and weight small. This is a finesse style of fishing, and heavy terminal tackle or line test just doesn’t cut it.

By the middle of November, the bait should be moving into the pockets, and the bass will follow. When this migration starts, the ditches in the mouths of creeks are great places to look.

“Move slowly into the mouth of the creek, and pay close attention to your electronics,” said Troy. “The bass are keying on bait, and unless you see bait in the area, you chances of catching bass are slim.”

Troy said the bait will usually be near the edges of the creek channel or in the bottom of the creek if a front moves in.

Surface plugs fished over the brush can produce in the pockets, but that action will be less frequent as the water continues to cool. The crankbait and Fish Head Spin are good choices for this creek-ledge approach. When the bass first move into the pockets, 30 feet is a pretty good target depth. Bass may be right on the bottom or suspended, depending on what the bait is doing. Again, electronics will play a key role in your success.

If fish are on the bottom, let the Fish Head Spin sink to the bottom and begin a slow retrieve, keeping the bait down. If the bass are suspended, count the bait down to where they are, and use a steady retrieve to keep the bait in the strike zone. Troy said he will also count down a drop shot or even a jigging spoon to suspended fish in the pockets.

Another favorite is to fish a jig on the bottom in the ditches. Both the jig and Fish Head Spin are likely to attract big fish, according to Troy. So if he has a good limit of keepers in the box, he’ll switch to those baits to go for a big bite.

While Troy spends most of his time on Lanier from Browns Bridge to the dam, he’ll sometimes go up the Chattahoochee arm for largemouth in November.

“On a full moon, largemouth pull on wood and rocks along the bank,” said Troy. “I like to fish a buzzbait around the wood for a reaction strike and a jig around the rocks to imitate crayfish.”

On our mid-October outing, Troy’s techniques were very effective. We boated more than a dozen spots in a morning of fishing. Most of the fish were about 2 pounds, but a chunky spot estimated at 4 pounds popped the line on a drop-shot rig right next to the boat.

Surface action was a little slower than Troy had expected, probably because we had almost no wind. A little chop on the water makes the bass less spooky and more likely to come up to the bait.

November is a great month for bass action on Lanier, so get out and follows Troy’s tactics. Follow the bait as it migrates into the creeks, and you are likely to find bass with the bait.

Troy begins his career as a full-time professional bass fishermen on Lake Okeechobee in February, and the third stop on the FLW Tour is his home lake, Hartwell. We wish him well and hope he has a great year. You can see him in action on Hartwell in late March. Go up and watch the weigh-ins. I’m sure he would appreciate your support.

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Morrow's magical season

All-American champ parlays precise crankbait to stellar 2010
By Brett Carlson - 22.Dec.2010
As the calendar year draws to a close, it's time to reflect on some of the best performances of the season. Some bass-fishing fans will undoubtedly think about Bryan Thrift's dominating Angler of the Year win and his long-awaited FLW Tour victory on Lake Norman. Others will likely point to Brent Ehrler, who won two of the five FLW Tour qualifiers and the FLW Series Western Division Angler of Year. But a weekend angler from Georgia also had a season for the ages. And despite racking up two wins and a fifth-place finish at the Forrest Wood Cup, he's managed to slip under the radar.

That man is Troy Morrow, the winner of the 2010 BFL All-American on DeGray Lake. While the All-American was the first of his 2010 milestones, Morrow's journey started much earlier and without a great deal of fanfare. In fact, it began with a simple two-fish tournament on Clarks Hill Lake, the 2009 season opener in the BFL's Savannah Division.

"If you look back at what led to what, that was where it all started," Morrow said. "I had a good year, a solid BFL season, but there was nothing spectacular that stood out. I had one top-10 during theregular season, and then I finished eighth in the two-day Super Tournament.

"In fact, I've never won a regular divisional BFL, and I've been fishing them since 1997." But that eighth-place finish in the Super Tournament gave him a berth in the 2010 All-American, the second All-American qualification of his career.

DeGray in transition
With the calendar reading late May, Morrow arrived in central Arkansas for his All-American practice figuring there would be a grass bite, something that didn't exactly excite him.

"When I got there, it was void of grass; they must have killed it all," he said. "But the water was pretty high, and it was obvious there was going to be fish up shallow in the bushes. And on that first day of practice, I caught about 20 pounds from the bushes. They were in it, and they were biting."

While on his way to the next set of bushes, he spotted a promising brush pile on his graph that was positioned in about 16 to 20 feet of water.

"I like to fish offshore; that's what I do," Morrow explained. "It's truly one of my strong suits. After I found that pile, I basically rode around with my Lowrance until I had a bunch of piles. And it started to become clear that the bush bite was slowly dying. I also knew it was postspawn and that the water was falling. The bushes were at that point where if they lost any more water, they weren't going to be the deal. That was enough to scare me away. The bushes were drying up, the water was heating up, and the bass were headed back down."

Morrow's best area was a U-shaped ridge located in the river channel at the beginning of the mainlake area. There was one particular hump in the center of the ridge that proved to be the consistent sweet spot.

"There were two islands in the area, a northern one and a southern one. At each end of the island there was a largemouth bite. And the center hump had a good spotted bass bite. The spot was just perfect. I could put my boat in 4 feet of water and throw out into 100 feet. And no matter which way it would blow, I would have wind. And there was current too; the fish would stack up and wait for a school of bait from the main-river channel."

In the morning, Morrow would capitalize on a brief schooling window with a weightless Zoom Super Fluke. But then the fish would gradually migrate toward the brush. At that point he'd pick up a Spro Little John DD and crank away. At the time he didn't realize it, but this proved to be a pivotal point in his entire season. His infatuation with the Little John had begun.

"I'd point at the pile, throw past it and try to clip it. The problem was, I only had a few of those crankbaits in clear chartreuse color. And I lost those two on back-to-back casts. On one I had a 7-pounder that broke me off in the pile. When I changed to chartreuse, I just caught pickerel after pickerel. By the end of the week, I had to scrape the paint off my brighter-colored cranks with a razor blade and some sand paper. Then my friend brought his air brush and repainted them. And that was after Scott Suggs borrowed me some. My biggest mistake was not bringing enough tackle."

On the first day of the tournament, Morrow managed a solid 13-pound, 12-ounce limit. He moved into first place after day two with a 16-pound, 6-ounce sack. On the final day, he calmly caught 8-11 to secure the $120,000 win.

"Going into the final day, I knew I was in good position. Sitting there at the tanks, I was pretty sure I had it. And at that time, I was only thinking about that tournament. Then, afterwards, the emotions kind of overtook me, and I immediately started thinking about the Cup. I guess I even called out Tom Mann Jr. onstage, which could have been a big mistake. Luckily, it all worked out."

Cup bound
Winning the All-American was huge, but the Forrest Wood Cup is the biggest stage in bass fishing. And in 2010, it was

held on the deep, clear waters of Georgia's Lake Lanier, which happens to be a stone's throw away from Morrow's residence in Toccoa, Ga.
"In 40 minutes I can have my boat in the water from my house," Morrow quipped. "But the real benefit to winning the All-American was that I had a head start on practice. The Tour guys still had another tournament left. And most of them hadn't been on the lake or had put in very little time."

When his Cup practice began, Morrow had over 2,500 GPS waypoints stored from years of experience. The next step was tediously going through each one of them to determine its viability. To accomplish that, Morrow would first view the spot on his Lowrance graph and then take a closer look with his Marcum underwater camera. Many were eliminated, and his best 60 spots were flagged on his GPS under the color yellow.

"Needless to say, I did a lot of prepractice for the Cup. I stayed one time for a whole week straight – never left the campground. In total, I put in at least 40 days. I basically lived at Lanier for four months."

Once the Cup commenced, Morrow steadily improved his daily weight and overall standing. He started with 10-14, then climbed to 11-8 and finished the opening round in sixth place with 12-11 and a total weight of 35 pounds, 1 ounce. On the final day, Morrow said he stuck with the drop-shot too long and caught only three keepers that weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces. The 38-year-old finished the Cup fifth and earned $50,000.

"That was my goal coming in: to make the cut. I had the fish to do better too. I didn't have to manage anything, but the quality of the bite went way down. Towards the end of practice, I was averaging almost 15 pounds a day."

Morrow's baits for the Cup were not surprising – a standard drop-shot/finesse-worm combo and the same Spro Little John DD crankbait. In addition, Morrow would spend about a half-hour each day throwing a Brian's Bees Prop Bee (No. 2) in the backs of creeks for a kicker largemouth.

"I probably caught the same number of fish on the drop-shot as I did the crankbait, but the ones that came on the plug were definitely bigger. If I had to do it all over again, I would have started with the crankbait and never put it down. On the final day, all three of my keepers came on the Spro."

New tricks on classic tournament venue
After another relatively nondescript BFL regular season, Morrow finished 2010 with a bang at the three-day Lake Seminole Regional Championship. Known primarily for flipping, Seminole, which straddles the Georgia-Florida border, can be one tough cookie in the fall.

"I used to hate going to Seminole; the bite is always slow, and the fish always seem to be needles in a haystack. In the past I've even gone way up the Flint River in a glass boat just to avoid it."

For no other reason than conventional wisdom told him to, Morrow started his BFL Regional practice by flipping and throwing frogs. After two fruitless days, he had had enough of the grass and again decided to head offshore – this time by targeting ledges.

After two days of searching, Morrow found two defined river ledges on the lower end of the Flint.

"The ledge was as deep as 20 feet, and the top was as shallow as 11 feet. I'd take that same Spro Little John and bounce it off the rock. As soon as that crankbait deflected, I'd get bit. On day one, I caught two just like that on consecutive casts. On the second day, I reversed the rotation of my spots. It was slower at first, but then I got back to my best spot and again caught two big ones on back-to-back casts. A little bit later I caught two more giants and filled out a 20-pound limit."

Morrow finished the event with a three-day total of 44 pounds, 2 ounces. He won the tournament by 5 pounds and earned a Chevy truck and Ranger boat along with yet another berth to the All-American.

"That style of fishing is not normal on Seminole. I think it took a lot of people by surprise, locals included."

Spro factor
Morrow credits much of his 2010 success to the Spro Little John DD. In fact, at the Seminole Regional he didn't weigh a single fish on another lure. He says part of the reason it's so effective is because it's so different than the other deep-divers on the market.

"All of the other baits are so similar. The Spro has a different shape with completely flat sides. And the thing will dive 20 feet every time on every cast. And it has a unique, quieter sound. It's almost like they coat the tungsten ball in rubber. Instead of a rattle, it sounds more like a thud.

"If you think about it, that bait produced in the postspawn (DeGray), summer (Lanier) and fall (Seminole)."

Future plans
Of the three 2010 milestones, Morrow points to the All-American as the most satisfying. "I think you take something different from each one. But the All-American was probably the biggest. The Cup gave me a little taste, and now I want to come back."

And come back he will. In addition to the All-American, Morrow plans to fish all 10 FLW Tour events in 2011. His first tournament is just around the corner at Lake Okeechobee in February, but he's particularly excited for stop No. 3 on Lake Hartwell. Even more so than Lanier, Morrow considers Hartwell home water. In other words, Fantasy Fishing players take note.

"Nobody on Tour fishes Hartwell. They don't have a clue. I'm expecting a big finish at that one. If I don't do well, it will be a major disappointment."

And although he'll be a rookie pro, Morrow has the confidence to compete against the best.

"Other than that crankbait, homework and confidence have been the keys to my success. I wouldn't be out there if I didn't think I could compete."

He also credits the unwavering support of his family.

"I have a wife and two girls at home. My wife, Sara, is very supportive; she's the reason I get to do this."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daughter Isabella (right) holds up sign supporting her daddy.

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All-American champion lined it up

Georgia boater Troy Morrow cashes in on fruitful practice with exceptional tourney execution for $120,000 win 29. May.2010

Boater Troy Morrow of Toccoa, Ga., caught a three-day total of
38 pounds, 13 ounces of bass to win the 2010 BFL All-American on
DeGray Lake and $120,000. (Photo by Patrick Baker)

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Sometimes practice really does make perfect. Just ask boater Troy Morrow, who ran away with the 2010 All-American title with more than 8 pounds to spare by sticking to the successful patterns he found before the BFL championship began this week on DeGray Lake.

Morrow left his home in Toccoa, Ga., in time to allow himself seven practice days on central Arkansas’ DeGray Lake leading up to May 17, the start of the off-limits period ahead of the All-American. After just four and a half days, he had 92 waypoints plugged into his Lowrance GPS unit and enough confidence in both the shallow and deep patterns he had developed that he decided to go home.

“This lake fit me to a T,” he said. “Early in my practice, I could go down the shorelines and get 20 pounds easy – almost for the fun of it.”

Morrow said he loves fishing jigs, but figured by the time the tournament kicked off May 27, it would be a contest won deep. He quickly switched it up and started honing in on a pattern that he applies on his home water of Lake Hartwell, another fishery with blueback herring as a primary baitfish.

“I practiced ahead of what the fish were doing,” he said. “I fished out deeper to find a different pattern.”

What he found was myriad locations with brush piles submerged in anywhere from 18 to 25 feet of water in the midlake area of DeGray. That way he could catch them with a fluke-style topwater bait over the brush in the mornings, and then transition to deeper fishing with crankbaits (Spro Little John DD), which landed most of his kicker fish, or plastic worms (NetBait T-MAC).

“I like to fish jigs, but I could never get them to bite,” he said. “But I love to fish deep, so it all worked out.”

Morrow proved these methods Wednesday during the official practice day and went to work from there. He caught five-bass limits over the first two days of the tournament for 13 pounds, 12 ounces and then 16-6, and he finished up the event Saturday with four bass for 8-11, giving him a three-day total of 38-13, worth the first-place prize of $100,000 plus a $20,000 Ranger bonus.

Morrow – who said he works in construction, tree removal “or whatever it takes to get me to the next tournament” – doesn’t lack confidence, a trait that served him well at the 2010 All-American and his him looking ahead.

“Needless to say, I won’t be working for a while … I just happen to live 35 miles from Lake Lanier (site of the Aug. 5-8 Forrest Wood Cup, for which he qualified via his All-American win),” he said, revealing the widest smile he’d shown onstage all week.

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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 Top of page   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. Top of page   Link: http://www.gon.com/article.php?id=666