Pro Lesson
How Clark Fished The St. Johns River

Photo: ESPN Outdoors St. Johns veteran Preston Clark says that current was key at the recent Bassmaster Southern Open – it turned some shell-beds on, and others off.

He caught 30 to 35 keepers each day of the tournament, though it wasn't as easy as that sounds. His weights were:
> Day 1: 5, 16-01
> Day 2: 5, 10-04
> Day 3: 5, 18-02.

That gave him a total of 15 bass weighing 44-07, and he banked $14,071. Here's how he unlocked the secrets of the St. Johns.


Local Knowledge Huge

"In the wintertime we get the cleanest water of the year, but it's still brackish and tannic – the color of weak iced tea," Clark said. "The visibility's about 2 feet. Even though we're 70 miles from the ocean, we still have barnacles and catch some saltwater fish."

He's a good sight-fisherman, having scored his only pro victory using the technique at the 2006 Santee Cooper Basssmaster Elite Series. He bagged a then-record winning weight of 115-15, so it's no surprise he went looking the first morning of practice.

"The water temperature was about 57 degrees," he noted. "I went down to Lake George – about a 40-mile run south. I found where they'd been spawning, but they'd pulled off. So Monday afternoon and Tuesday I fished shell bars near Palatka. As it turned out, I fished within 5 miles from the ramp all 3 tournament days.

"Local knowledge played big for me," he added. "Nobody fished really close to me, but (winner) Peter T. fished around me some. Traditionally you can catch them on a Carolina-rig on the bars in the river (which was what Thliveros was doing), but I wasn't doing too good with it."

When Clark switched to a crankbait, he started getting the results he wanted.

Bed Timing

"The tide had everything to do with this tournament," Clark said. "You had to know which shell bars were good. At different times of the tide, the fish showed up on different shell bars. Some are good on an incoming tide, some on the outgoing. Some are better with strong current and others with less. It's just experience to know which ones to fish when.

"When the tide was just starting to turn, some were dead, and some you could smoke them on. Usually I try to fish where it's running hard, but this time they didn't seem to want a strong current, especially on day 3 when I caught my biggest bag."

As mentioned above, he normally drags a Carolina-rig across the shell bars, but in practice he got better results with a crankbait. "This time I caught them all either cranking a Bomber 7A in firetiger, or a Lucky Craft Pointer 100," he said. "They'd only hit when the bait was stopped. I could pause it 3, 4, maybe 5 seconds and they'd inhale it.

"In practice I tried different retrieves to see what they liked. I bent all my hooks in, but I could still feel the bites. Once I keyed in on the pause, I decided I needed a suspending bait. They were chasing long, skinny shad, which were pretty big. I got out the Pointer 100 and I could leave it for 10 seconds or so in one place on the pause.

"I got them on the Pointer until day 3," he noted. "They might have moved a little deeper. I struggled a bit. I had just three small keepers when I pulled up on this one shell bed. The tide had just turned, and on the second or third cast I lost a 4-pounder, and then a 3-pounder."

At that point, he "pulled off" for a few minutes, relaxed, took a deep breath, and retied. He figured he was too excited, and need to calm down and play the fish longer to avoid dumping them.

When he pulled back up, "it was on. I caught them every other cast for an hour. For some reason the current never did run hard all day, and it usually smokes through there.

"Figuring out I needed to pause the retrieve with the crankbaits, and using Trilene fluorocarbon line were both key in this tournament," he added. "When I paused the lure there's a little slack, and the current puts a bow in the line. You need contact but not a tight line, and since fluorocarbon has less stretch. I could feel the tick and get a hook in them quick. I only lost two fish all week, and that was because I was excited and tried to reel them in too fast.

"It was really nice to hit the old spots and start the year off here in the backyard and do as well as I did," he noted. "That helps get the confidence up. And it doesn't hurt to have my next two tournaments down here either."

Notable

> He'll be competing in the Bassmaster Elite Series in March on the Harris Chain of Lakes, and the Kissimmee Chain, both waters being very familiar to him. He lives in Palatka, Fla.

> He fished both the Bomber and Lucky Craft lures with a 7-foot Fenwick Elite Tech Crankshaft cranking rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX reel, and 12-pound Trilene 100% fluorocarbon line.