Top Pros Come out
for Pardee - 2nd Annual Media Day
(continued)
Meanwhile
on the other side of the lake loud laughter could be heard as Cal and Byron
pursued bass with a variety of swimbaits. Cal focused on Hudds and Al-e-Baby
jointed hardbaits while Byron fished Osprey swimbaits. Unlike many tournament
anglers Byron actually counts on swimbaits with money on the line. Well known
for his love of big baits he fished Osprey swimbaits all morning and even
customized the baits on the deck of the boat.
Byron Velvick shows Cal his new
e21 rods
While he was customizing his lures
he turned to see Cal fishing a prototype smallmouth bass swimbait from Mattlures.
His eyes lit up and he asked “what is that!?”
Skeet with a nice smallie
Cal showed him the
intricately painted hard swimbait then tossed it out and started to wind it back
slowly. They worked a point and Cal started fishing the Mattlures swimbait slow
and snagged it up twenty feet below. “You probably should cut that off,” Byron
said with a grin. “I’m not leaving this one,” Cal replied as he shook the rod
trying to free the bait. “I know, I was just hoping you would leave it there and
I could come back and pick up that bait this afternoon,” Byron joked.
Byron customizes his Osprey
swimbait
While the swimbaits drew
chasers the bass simply wouldn’t commit to the big baits and by 10:00 am Byron
said the bite was probably dying down for the swimbaits. Byron went on to
describe how different fishing swimbaits were in a tournament situation versus
trophy bass fishing. During a tournament if the bite isn’t hot by 10:00 Byron
will switch out to other lures until he boats a few, versus trophy bass hunters
who will fish big baits all day, and often consider the early afternoon prime
big bait time.
Byron shows Cal his favorite rod
in the series
With the swimbait rod
retired to the rod locker Byron turned to a Fin-Tech jighead with a Berkley
Chigger Craw on an e21 Carrot Stick and started converting strikes into landed
fish. Unlike last year when Pardee was yielding smallie after smallie this year
there was a pretty even mix of both largemouth and smallmouth being caught.
Byron puts down the swimbaits and
fishes a Berkley Chigger Craw
A few fish later, and it
was time to head back in for a mid-day angler swap. Zander would fish the rest
of the day with Randy McAbee who is well known for his use of crankbaits on the
FLW tournament trail, and Cal would fish with our friend and organizer of the
event, Kent Brown.
Kent Brown organizes both Pros and
Press for the afternoon session
