Anglers usually ride dying patterns to defeat in big bass tournaments, but Quincy Houchin of Mabelvale had enough at the end Saturday to win the FLW Costa Series opener at Lake Dardanelle.
Conditions were challenging for the three-day event, which ran Thursday through Saturday last week. The temperature at takeoff on the first day was about 52 degrees with a hard northwest wind. Takeoff on Day 2 was 47 degrees, calm and clear. Day 3 was warm and clear with a fierce east wind. That pretty much encompassed the full suite of early spring fishing conditions in Arkansas.
Houchin targeted a large backwater in the upper, riverine portion of Lake Dardanelle upstream from the Scranton Bridge, about 25 miles northwest of Lake Dardanelle State Park. The area is one of the few prime spawning areas remaining in the upper part of Lake Dardanelle, where most of the backwaters have been cut off and silted in by the jetties and revetments that divert water into the navigation channel.
Houchin placed his entire bet on this area, whose main features are assorted wood cover in depths of 2-3 feet and 8-9 feet. The banks are sandy. Some are steep and others are level. Targets include blowdown trees of various sizes, full treetops and twigs. Houchin said he caught his biggest fish off the smallest pieces of cover.
"Basically I'm a target fisherman," Houchin said. "I was pitching to wood underwater that I could see, and wood diagonally in the water. I fished the shallower water first and then I'd go to the deeper stuff."
Most of his targets were logs, but he paid equal attention to twigs because they are often connected to tree crowns or tips down deep.
"I caught some of my bigger fish by the twigs," Houchin said. "You really don't know what's under there. I just went through there flipping what I saw."
Conditions were perfect for that spot for the first day, but they deteriorated thereafter, and Houchin's weights showed it. He boxed 5 bass weighing 19 pounds, 12 ounces in the first round, then fell to 14-1 and 11-7 in the second and third rounds, respectively.
Meanwhile, Shannon Pierce of Pine Bluff, Zach King of Hot Springs and Brandon Lee of Ratcliff all made strong surges on the second day. By locking out of Lake Dardanelle and running almost to Morrilton, Pierce had the riskiest strategy of all, and it failed him in the third round when rising water took his spot out of play.
The east wind knocked out King's best spots, too, and Lee failed to catch a fish in the third round. Stubbornness and discipline kept Houchin in the hunt. Attrition did the rest.
Houchin nearly blinked, though. With diminishing weight and pressure from the other competitors, Houchin said he was sorely tempted to fish another area on Day 3. He knew fish were still in his primary area, however, and he didn't have another dependable area to fish. He believed it would take 15 pounds in the third round to win, and he said he knew his spot would not produce that well in that kind of weather.
Houchin said he resigned himself to a top-five finish, and that he convinced himself to be happy with it.
As it happened, 15 pounds was possible in that spot in Day 3, but Houchin missed some big opportunities. Fish bit, but without conviction. Houchin lost one that bit at the boat that he estimated to be 5-6 pounds. That and another big one that he lost would have pushed him into the 16-pound range.
Ultimately, Houchin said he actually won the tournament late in the second day.
Most of the fish he boxed in his primary spot were largely the same size, so he left that area around noon and fished other places in search of a fail-safe plan. None materialized, but a side trip into Illinois Bayou produced a 3-5 bass that bit a Lucky Craft 2.5 Series squarebill crankbait. That enabled Houchin to cull a 2-pounder and boosted his weight by about a pound and a half.
Subtracting 1 pound would have given Houchin a final weight of 44-4, which would have been 5 ounces below runner-up Tom Silber.
"I was just killing time, but truthfully, that's the fish that won it for me," Houchin said.
It was worth $50,000. That comes out to about $2,803 per ounce. That's some expensive sushi, but that fish is still swimming somewhere in Lake Dardanelle.
Sports on 04/06/2017