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“Boom Boom’s” Arkansas River Pre View
There’s a lot on the line at the Bassmaster Central Open this week on the Arkansas River, make no mistake. Every angler is competing for a coveted spot in the 2015 Bassmaster Classic, and some (Aussie angler Carl Jocumsen comes to mind) have a shot at qualifying for the Bassmaster Elite series for 2015 – so the stakes are high. All that stands in the way of these lofty goals is the Arkansas River – a fickle beast filled with locks, barges, shallow creeks, and decisions, decisions, decisions.
Fred “Boom Boom” Roumbanis grew up fishing the waters of the Arkansas River in his home state of Oklahoma, and there are few better to provide some insight as to what these anglers will be facing this week.
“You know, here’s the deal about the Arkansas River: it’s one of those places you can learn in three days”, says Roumbanis. “And the reason I say that is – yes, there’s channel markers marking the main channel, but there are so many back waters, and being that it’s a river, a SANDY river, and has such extreme weather in Oklahoma, that sandbars are constantly getting moved around, especially in the back waters. With all that, you either have to take a chance and run on plane back there, idle, or trolling motor all the way back into these creeks – it consumes so much time, to get in the back of just one area where the might be some fish. I think that’s gonna be the biggest challenge for these guys – not having that experience on this river. Seeing for the first time and wondering ‘how can I back to that bank’ and ‘is there fishable water back there’.”
Roumbanis also cited the myriad of hidden stumps found throughout the Arkansas River system as a potential tournament delaying issue for the anglers fishing the Open. “I got stuck on a stump yesterday for about five minutes”, joked Roumbanis, “I didn’t really get stuck on it – I kinda got stuck in between stumps. I couldn’t back out, it was weird – it was a like a pinball machine. I got stuck in between ‘em. There’s that much cover in the water, and with that much cover, it gives the fish a lot of room to grow. “
As a result of the multitude of habitat and low fishing pressure, Roumbanis says the bass in the Arkansas river: largemouth, smallmouth, and spotted bass depending on which section you decide to fish, that anglers will have plenty of opportunity to catch decent limits in the tournament – if they can read the river. “They (the fish) don’t get pounded on here like they do a lot of other places we fish. Really, there’s a lot of habitat, a lot of bait. It’s a healthy, healthy fishery.”
While bait selection will be important this week, Roumbanis thinks selecting the right areas to get bigger bites will be key. “These fish, when you find ‘em, will attack just about anything, “ Roumbanis laughs. “I’m not just saying that. It’s not that they’re dumb, but they are very aggressive. The key is obviously to get back where they live. There’s a lot of spots where I’m blowing down the river and I’m thinking there’s gonna be bnoats all over, and then I have to sit an think a minute: they haven’t spent the countless hours I have trying to get back to those spots. They have no clue that you can even get back there. By just having that little bit of extra knowledge, its gonna help any angler (who has a lot of experience on this water).”
Forage species abound, as one would expect, with bream and shad the food of choice for Arkansas River bass. Finding grass, where these forage species thrive, is something that every successful angler will have done in this tournament. “There’s milfoil in certain areas, but it’s predominantly that water willow grass. It’s so healthy right now and usually, come late summer, early fall, that stuff is really dying if and gets real brown. It almost looks like it’s starting to spoil a little bit, and it depletes oxygen, so the fish will pull out of it. Well not this week – the weather must have been mild enough this year because the fish are just about everywhere and there’s tons of bait in that water willow. This is the first tournament this time of year on this river where I think the fishing is really, REALLY good.”
So good in fact that Roumbanis thinks it’s going to take 15 pounds a day to stay in contention. “I think the guy that wins this tournament is going to break a 20 pound bag one day, and probably back it up with a 16 and a 17.”
Roumbanis will be relying on several key baits to do his damage on the Arkansas River. “My key baits will be the Ima Square Bill crank bait, the Gene Larew salt flicker, and the Biffle Bug. With the Biffle Bug, you can do a combination of things. You can rig it Texas rigged and flip it, or you can actually put it on a Biffle head and theres a lot of gravel bars, especially up some of these creeks, and there’s a lot of fish stacked on those as well – so, you know, typical Biffle Bug fishing” laughs Roumbanis. “I’ll also be throwing the Pepper Custom Baits Commando Roumbler – that’s gonna be a key deal on here, as well as my ‘Fred’s Swim Jig’ from Pepper.” Roumbanis cites that both of those baits perform well during changing weather conditions, which are expected during the first day of the tournament.
The last event of the year always bring out the best in top-level anglers, and with so much of the story left to be written in the next three days, the final Bassmaster Central Open of 2015 on the Arkansas River is shaping up to be a dramatic conclusion to a fine year.
Byron Velvick Year In Review: From Hero to Zero to Hero
Looking back on my 2014 season on the Bassmaster Elite Series, I can think of a bunch of different ways to describe it.
From hero to zero to hero.
The best of times, the worst of times, and then the best of times again.
A sandwich with nothing in the middle.
A burger with two great buns and no meat.
I’m joking a little bit, but that pretty accurately describes how I feel about the season: I had a great tournament to start the year, some not-so-great tournaments, and then a great tournament to finish the year. It was an interesting year to say the least, but I came out of it healthy and with two Top 10 finishes. I learned some things and finished on a really positive note, which gives me momentum heading into the off-season and into 2015.
The best of times at Seminole
Coming into the season opener at Lake Seminole back in March, my plan was to try to stay healthy all the way through the year. I’d taken the previous year off on a medical exemption for surgery and rehab on my neck, so I promised myself that I wasn’t going to grind and grind and grind like I’ve done in previous years. My body just wasn’t going to stand up to that.
Instead of hammering day after day in practice, I used the first practice day at Seminole to organize my boat and tackle, and sort of get myself set up as well as I could to fish a four-day Elite tournament for the first time in two years.
It worked like a charm: I finished ninth with 67.6 pounds and could have (or should have) done better. In the course of four days on that fishery, I lost the fish to win it. I’m not saying that I would’ve beaten Brett Hite that week, but I lost enough big fish in that tournament to challenge him. I didn’t fish perfect, and I’ve figured out over the years that when a tournament is 100 percent yours to win, you land those big fish. I didn’t land them.
I finished in the Top 10, though, and that’s all I could’ve asked for.
The Dive Master 14 was key at Seminole
My key bait at Seminole was the Dive Master 14. No, check that: my ONLY bait at Seminole was the DM 14, in plain old Red Craw, a color I call “55 Chevy Red.”
My primary honey hole was a migratory channel that I found the second day in practice. I literally went banging around the wood and stumps in the fog that day and stumbled onto this spot that was just a slight depression on a big flat – you couldn’t see the depression with the naked eye, but I picked up three or four solid bites, and when I graphed the flat, I could see a 2- or 3-foot depression that all of the big females could follow.
Every fish in that depression was a stud, and they were crushing the DM 14. I had guys around me who were also cranking, but they weren’t throwing baits with Electronic Baitfish Sounds technology. EBS was obviously a difference-maker – three days into the tournament, I had guys hitting me up for Red Craw DM 14s.
No meat in the middle
One thing I can say about the blur of tournaments that followed Seminole – the St. John’s River, Table Rock, Toledo Bend, etc. – is that I had a weird “mismatch” of things that went wrong. It wasn’t that I fished terrible and totally sucked at every tournament, but I made some poor decisions, second-guessed myself on some things that I knew were right, and just missed the mark on some calls that I made. I went left when I should’ve gone right, and it cost me.
I knew where the bite was at Dardanelle, I just didn’t adjust quickly enough to it. I fished offshore the first day at Toledo Bend when my gut was telling me different. I didn’t convert some big bites at BASSFest on Lake Chickamauga. I lost a giiiiiiiant the first hour on Day 1 at Toledo Bend. I had been watching that fish the entire week of practice – that fish was almost like a pet fish. I hooked her and literally had my hand under her belly to bring her in, and she somehow flopped out of my hands, over the side of the boat and was gone.
Talk about a momentum changer. That spun me off into a “Dr. Phil moment”, wishing I had a life coach.
The scoretracker doesn’t really reflect it, but I was teased enough throughout the season because I knew I had my shots. I had some opportunities, but I just didn’t convert them.
From zero to hero on the Delaware River
We knew going into the nexxt-to-last regular-season tournament in Philadelphia that the Delaware River was going to be tough. The tides there are crazy: We had a 7-foot high tide, and then it would bottom out. My confidence there was through the roof, though. I had practiced just like I had at Seminole, where I used the first day to organize myself and get set up, and then put it all together on Day 1 of the tournament … except that I only weighed in four fish!
I weighed in 10.5, and lost a 3-pounder at the side of the boat that would’ve put me in second, right behind Mike Iaconelli. At the time, I thought “Oh man, that’s going to cost me.” Another one of those “woulda, shoulda, coulda” moments that I wish I had converted, but I recovered pretty well from that and did well the rest of the tournament.
I threw the old Chevy-red DM 14 at certain parts of the tide, then went to soft plastics the rest of the time because of the wicked tide swing. I finished 10th with 31.8 pounds, had a blast with that great, rowdy Philadelphia crowd and ended the season on a positive note.
I’m taking a little time off to rest up now, and then hitting the off-season hard. We have some phenomenal new Team Livingston baits that we’ll roll out in 2015, and I’m already excited about the Elite Series schedule for next season because it takes us to some fisheries that I’ve always done well on. It should be a great year all the way around.
See the full Livingston line up here.
“FREE FLOATING SPOOL”
Randy Howell and Brent Ehrler tell you about “TWS” and “FREE FLOATING SPOOL”.
Chad Pipkens – 2014 Bassmaster Northern Open Champion
Coming off his first top-12 finish since joining the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2013, Chad Pipkens was feeling pretty good about going back to his home waters for the final stop of the Bassmaster Northern Open series on Lake St. Clair. The truth is, he was on a bit of a mission.
“It feels really good to get some redemption on Lake St. Clair after having one of the most frustrating events of my life last year on Lake Erie with the Elite Series” says Pipkens, “so it was nice to get back out there and have it fall into place.” In 2013, Pipkens finished the Plano Championship Chase on the same body of water in 74th place, finishing with a two-day total of 26.9 pounds. In winning this year’s Open, he nearly matched that total every day, weighing in 67.4 pounds over the three-day event.
Pipkens made a long run to Lake Erie each day, and he was surprised to find his fish in parts of the lake that were shallow. “I found some fish up shallow, and it was just a blast when we found them” says Pipkens, “once we figured out what was going on, it was unreal”. A change in the weather allowed Pipkens to hit his final day spots in Erie in relative calm, a bit of change from the first two days where the wind would move his Skeeter FX20 some 75 yards down a drift after catching a single fish. “On the final day, when we showed up, the water wasn’t muddy, the wind was rippling, there were actually shad busting in places. Smallmouth were jumping, not even on the sweet spots but next to them. We would just cast over there and catch one. I had a 4 and a half pound smallmouth on, and a two and a half pound largemouth ate the crank bait with the smallmouth in the net…it was just unreal. We probably caught 50-60 fish that last day in four hours, and we were literally leaving places because we were only catching 3.75 and 4 pounders…we caught well over 100 pounds of bass. It was a blast.”
Pipkens relied on his Humminbird Side Scan units to pinpoint fish in areas along the north shore of Lake Erie, and was able to catch fish in 8-14 feet of water. “I love drop shotting,” says Pipkens, “ 90% of the fish I weigh out there are on smoke pepper Poor Boy’s Erie Darter. It’s a little slower fishing, but that’s how you have to fish for them a lot of times when they are deeper. But when they are up shallow, they are just eating. Every fish I weighed came on that DC300 “. Pipkens used a Damiki baits DC 300 in “Real Shad” color. “It’s a lot more fun to crank, the way you can chunk and wind, and how they hit the bait.” Pipkens fished the crank bait on a Powell 703 glass rod, one that he chose for its overall balance and soft tip when handling big smallmouth on crank baits. Pipkens used 12 pound Sunline Sniper when fishing the Damiki DC 300.
The bait, which dives between 12-15 feet, was modified by Pipkens during the tournament after seeing the damage voracious smallmouth did to the hooks. “I put a #4 Gamakatsu on the front, and a #5 on the back, a little bigger hooks than they come with. It helps with the hook-up ratio, I think.” Pipkens switched to the non standard hook pairing after observing that some of the larger smallmouth he was catching were actually straightening the treble hooks on his crank bait. “They are big, even with the fish I was fighting, I had two split rings that broke and came off on me. One of them was on a 6 pounder I caught; I caught it on the front hook, and the back one had come off in the fish’s mouth. The split ring had pulled loose.” Even with the change, Pipkens constantly had to check his crank bait hooks for damage caused by large, aggressive smallies that didn’t want to go for a ride in his boat. “On the first day, I changed hooks 3 or 4 times because they just kept bending. Its not pretty when you’re hauling a big one in, and you can see a hook or two straightened out”.
Pipkens backed his crank bait pattern with a drop shot setup, utilizing a Powell 702 light action spinning rod equipped with 8 lb. Sunline Sniper. Pipkens bait of choice? The Poor Boy’s Erie Darter in smoke pepper on a ¼ ounce weight. Pipkens and his co-anglers routinely caught fish following up crank bait bites with the drop shot to the same area immediately after landing the fish. “I’ve played around with it, but really the only color – my favorite color for smallmouth, period, is smoke pepper. Whether its Erie, St. Clair, Champlain NY, 1000 Islands – I have a lot of confidence in that color.”
Pipkens feels he had a distinct advantage over other anglers in that he uses Hullspeed Performance Marine Coatings on his Skeeter FX 20. The water based epoxy/silicone bottom paints are designed to improve speed but more importantly in the Open, where he was making a very long run, fuel economy. “The gas mileage (with Hullspeed) is big, because I was making a long run every day. I might not have been able to get there (without it). Or, I would get there, and be at 0% on the gauge. So the gas mileage is huge”. Coupled with a Yamaha 250 SHO, Pipkens’ fuel efficiency was maxed at a time when it needed to be, and he was able to fish without worrying about fuel consumption.
After a solid sophomore season which saw Pipkens improve his overall performance on the Elite Series, he needed this win in the Northern Open to punch his ticket to the 2015 Bassmaster Classic. Leaving the three day event with trophy in hand as the 2014 Northern Open on Lake St. Clair, Chad Pipkens can say “mission accomplished”.
Learn more about Elite Series Pro Chad Pipkens by visiting his website: http://www.chadpipkens.com
Follow Chad on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/ChadPipkens) and Twitter (@ChadPipkens)
New Switch Options
FLW Tour pro JT Kenney talks about the newest switch options from Power-Pole. Locking you boat down just got easier with the new wireless foot switches.
Order yours here.