The first tournament of 2021 had some familiar and some new names in the top 10 as anglers to the road, seeking out the best water they could for this event. Shogun (thanks!) was the sponsor of the Road Runner and the radius for the event was 50 miles from the Shogun restaurant in Fayetteville.
A warming trend during the week were capped off by a serious round of thunderstorms and heavy rain in the northern part of the radius on Friday night. This made for some tough decisions on where to go. Because of the storms and rain, el presidente Taylor Frizzell wisely moved the start back an hour that morning.
Road Runner Results
With the event coming early in the season combined with rainy and stormy weather, participation was a respectable 73 anglers. Overall, 35 of 73 (48%) anglers turned in a limit, while 63 of 73 (86%) turned in at least one bass. This is on par with the last two Road Runners held in March, and in fact a bit up from last year.
Once again, one lake showed up as usual in the Road Runner. Siloam City Lake produced the win again. In five of the last six NWA Road Runners, Siloam City Lake has been the winning lake – 2018, 2019, 2020 (2nd RR) and 2021. Additionally, in these same six events Siloam City Lake has put NINE anglers in the top four spots.
Event favorite, Dwain Batey, took first place with 93.25″ and Big Bass of 21.5″ to take home some good $$. Sam McClish took 2nd place with a strong 86.50″ while Carson McBride jumped back into things with 86.25″ for third place. The rest of the Top 10 were Michael Burgess, Roy Roberts, Ian Howard, Heath Berner, Cole Sikes, Justin Wright and Michael Sandlin. See the full results on the TourneyX tournament page.
My day was a disaster, marked by poor site selection followed by poor judgment and poor execution. If you haven’t seen the video of the debacle, check it out on YouTube.
Angler Recaps
Good news for those of us who didn’t do as well, the top four anglers sat down to share their secrets for finishing in the money! Kayak anglers are a different breed and one of the awesome things about our club is the willingness to share and help others. Here’s what Dwain, Sam, Carson and Michael had to say:
1. Where did you go and why?
Dwain – I chose Siloam Springs City lake, there were a lot of good options within the radius, but having just came from fishing the Hobie event in Broken Bow I didn’t have much time to pre-fish, so picking some random place especially this time of year didn’t feel right. I was able to fish a couple hours on Tuesday and Wednesday and just checked a few baits. As soon as I would catch a fish I’d put that bait up and switch to something else. I got bit on 3 baits in practice.
Sam – I pre-fished 3 other lakes the last couple weeks, but with the shad kill I was skunked each outing. I went to Lake Atalanta for a couple hours the weekend before the tournament and caught a few 14s on a jig and chatterbait.
Carson – I went to Lake Sequoyah, I have a lot of time on the water there and feel very confident during a road runner style event.
Michael – I started off at Mills Creek on Table Rock. My research for spring time screamed this would be a good cove to fish and catch some big girls. It had a channel creek running into it. Deep banks and a feeder creek.
2. Did the big rain the night before affect your fishing area?
Dwain – Yes, but in a positive way. This time of year City Lake gets a lot of floating slime that really hampers fishing with moving baits. Well Tuesday pre-fishing it wasn’t that bad, and I caught a few fish on a crankbait, but the very next day it was so bad I couldn’t throw a crankbait at all. So the rain actually pushed some of that stuff on through with the current and let me actually fish a crankbait during the event.
Sam – With the rain I had planned for it to really help push the fish to the banks, I was wrong. I paddled around trying to figure out my next move and kept graphing fish in the 25-30ft range on steep drops.
Carson – The big rain the night before majorly affected the whole lake, with the white rivers running into it, the lake progressively got muddier throughout the day, so I tried to stay away from the mud line by fishing the very north end of the lake all day.
3. General approach that worked for you, techniques, etc,?
Dwain – I started out by demoralizing Kyle and Cole by catching 4 fish in the first 16 minutes within sight of them throwing the new Skirmish Baits AIM7 jerkbait in my Batey Shad color. You have to set the tone for the day, you know? In all seriousness, I couldn’t believe those fish were in that spot, much less eating the jerk bait on command, but it really did help me mentally the rest of the day to pull up and look like I knew they’d be there. Then that stopped working, and I didn’t catch the 5th fish for a while, finally figuring out what I mentioned above that the slime wasn’t as heavy and I could throw my crankbait. Well I caught one pretty quickly on that for my limit fish. I culled all of those early fish starting with a 17” on a ned rig at 10:33 am, and then one about every half hour up to an hour, to cull to my final total at 1:06 pm. The last 4 culls were all on the flat sided crankbait, wasn’t one of mine, didn’t even have custom paint on it. The fish were off the edges of spawning flats feeding up as they waited on “go time” which isn’t far off if these warm temperatures hold up at least for these smaller lakes anyway.
Sam – The only option I had at that point battling the crosswind was to tie on an A-Rig.
Carson – I threw a jig all day long around lay downs and rock and that is what I threw all day long basically, never even had a ned rig tied on.
Michael – After 5 hours and only 1 good fish to show for it that creek wasn’t producing for me. When I arrived at my 2nd location the rain pretty much blew out every spot I fished the week before. I found a bank wall with the same setup and started to throw a jig. My 3rd cast and I got bumped, was the only thing I needed to know I was in the right area and throwing the right color. I also caught them early on a jerkbait and on a craw colored crankbait.
4. What was your key fish and anything special about the catch?
Dwain – After my jerk bait bite stopped working, I picked up the ned and caught a17” fish that was in my final bag, but that didn’t produce anything else, and I had just stopped running that down a full bank to give it a legitimate shot to work, and when I pulled off that bank I picked up the flat sided crankbait and hurled it out in a slightly deeper spot where fish have been known to stage and caught the 21.50″ which gave me confidence to keep throwing that flat side. From there I caught one almost an hour later that was a good cull, then about 30 minutes later again with a good cull, then another hour and my final cull all on that same flat sided bait. The main key was just believing that they’d show up as the day went on, and having the confidence to wait them out.
Carson – I had 2 key fish actually, very late in the day I decided to do something big, I have a spot I can go to and normally feel good about catching a good one or two but wasn’t confident because of the rain, I said screw it and made the move anyways, that’s where I caught a 19.75″ and a 17.75″ in the last hour of the whole thing, bumped me from 74 inches to 86.25″ total.
Sam – I’d like to say my key fish was catching my 20.25″ but it had to be the first fish I caught that was a 16” it helped confirm (1) Those were definitely bass at 30ft and (2) they were hungry. That bite was hot from 10:15 ’till about 12:30. I caught about 11 fish in that timeframe doing that. I didn’t get a single bite before then or after that.
Michael – Highlights of my day was watching a coyote swim across the cove chasing a deer and getting checked by the game warden for the first time ever.
Heavy Hitters Update
Well, I’m off to a bad start on this one. Need to get a good fish in the Road Runner to get things going. Here are the current standings, with Cole and Brian and Jason off to a great start! Who will be crowned this year’s Heavy Hitter? Still time to enter since you have 7 events left and only need best 5, check out the rules and how to sign up.
Next Up – MLF on Beaver Lake
How many “Beaver Lake Specials” can you catch? Those 12-inchers can win this one for you if there are enough of them. Get ready and see you on the water.