Tackle Shack Report
Despite a cold start in the morning, the catch was pretty good in the Tackle Shack season opener at Lake Maxinkuckee.
It was especially good for Shawn Kertai and Heath Hawkins who won with 14.63 pounds and won the Big Bass Pot with a dandy 5.98-pound largemouth.
“We caught a lot in the channels throughout the day,” Shawn explained. “I caught most of mine on bluegill-colored swim jig and a bluegill Jackhammer. Heath caught most of his on a finesse jig he makes and a Ned TRD. Our bigger fish came on scattered rock piles up toward the Academy in 4 to 7 feet on the same kind of baits.”
Bill Mathews and Kris Iodice were second with12.08 pounds.
“We wanted to focus on pre-spawn fish since we figured they would weigh a bit more and with the tournament the week before; we figured a lot of the bed fish had been getting messed with enough and would be tough to catch,” Bill said.
“We caught every single fish on a BAFA fishing F8 jig head and small swimbaits. We caught a quick limit comprised of one largemouth and 4 smallmouth between 1-1.5 pounds. We quickly culled our way up to 9-10 pounds. We caught a ton of fish, especially in the morning. Once we had over 10 pounds we decided to go look for a kicker largemouth. We were catching smallmouth almost exclusively on the flat.
“We tried some docks and some weed edges and caught some fish on a BAFA flashbang finesse jig, but nothing that helped our bag. For the final hour we went back to our initial game plan and culled a few more fish out using the F8 head, including our big fish, a largemouth that weighed 3.47 pounds.”
Third went to Andrew Miller and Jeff Showalter who had 11.46 pounds.
“We were 3rd boat out and stopped on a spot that was about last on the list, but it was just gut feeling,” said Miller. “We got bit twice on a Texas rig worm but didn’t hookup so I grabbed my 80’s hairband jig that I tied the night before specifically for this event and never put it down. We caught our three biggest fish in that area which was a 10-foot flat with scattered weeds. We ran that pattern rest of the day and probably caught 6 limits.”