What a huge weekend for the anglers fishing the BASS Elite Series tournament at Oneida Lake in the final tournament of the season – an event that determined which anglers would fish the Bassmaster Classic and the inaugural two-tournament postseason. With as many storylines as there were participants, it might come as a surprise that it wasn’t an angler that made the big story, but a fishing technique – topwater fishing to be exact. And the winning baits? An XCalibur Zell Pop and the brand-spanking-new Heddon Rattlin’ Spook.
Legendary topwater angler Zell Rowland didn’t make the cut to fish Saturday and Sunday, but his presence was felt in a big way when Oneida champion Chad Griffin used a Zell Pop to amass the winning sack. Griffin said he had a weird feeling when he arrived at the New York lake. “I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I just had a weird feeling,” he said. “The whole week was weird. I was staying at a cheap hotel and they didn’t have enough power to charge my batteries. Another competitor gave me a battery, but I think I fished the whole week on one battery charge.”
Griffin fished an area with depths from 6 to 9 feet that had milfoil and water cabbage that would have been covered in mats in previous years, and the closest competitor was a mile away. “Nobody saw me catch a fish during the whole tournament,” he said. He’s not disclosing where that spot was so that he can utilize it again in the future.
He said the water temperature has been cooler this year and the weeds are not as full as in the past, which allowed him to use the Zell Pop instead of a frog or other slop bait. The smallmouth were holding in these sparse weeds, not chasing baitfish like most people believe smallmouth behave.
“I’ve never fished for smallmouth in grass before, but it was just like fishing for largemouth,” Griffin said. “Most of the time in Texas we throw topwaters for smallmouth in open water, but these fish were staying put. I found them halfway through the second day and they were there the rest of the tournament. The last day I had my limit by 9 a.m.”
Griffin’s Zell Pop was Bone Chartreuse in color pattern, which he thinks resembles the yellow perch that make up a big part of the smallmouth’s diet in Oneida. The smallies were inhaling the bait, but he lost it on the last day and switched to a Zell Pop in Hitch color pattern, which the smallies blew up on but didn’t inhale with gusto like they did the Bone Chartreuse.
The winning retrieve was fast. “I love that bait. It’s my confidence lure. For the price XCalibur asks for the Zell Pop, I can’t believe more people don’t use them,” he said. “I worked it quick like a Spook and really making it spit. I was spitting it so hard it was like peacock bass fishing. Every now and then I’d stop it, and most bites came right when it stopped or just after I started the retrieve again.”
Also at the Oneida tournament, Booyah and YUM pro Terry Butcher clinched his first Classic berth with a 10th place finish. “I can’t express how I feel right now,” Butcher said. “It’s really awesome. Last year I came up a couple of points short, but to make the biggest game and fish for $500,000, you can’t beat that.”
Butcher’s bass also came on a topwater bait – the new Heddon Rattlin’ Spook. He said he didn’t go into the tournament planning to throw the Spook all the time, but it turned out that way. “After the first morning when it was overcast, I never put the Spook down,” he said.
Butcher discovered that the Rattlin’ Spook was the lure he should be throwing on his final day of practice. He was trying a variety of baits in the afternoon and some smallmouth started schooling on the surface. He caught two good ones on two casts, and put the Spook away for the tournament.
Only three fish he weighed in during the tournament came on a different bait – a YUM Wooly Bug in green pumpkin. Color pattern on his Rattlin’ Spook was Ghost.