In the BFL tournament on Lake Murray this past Saturday many of the top anglers were fishing a shallow crankbait, but as is so often the case it turns out the winner was doing something completely different!  I caught up with the Gamecock Bass Fishing Team’s Hampton Anderson of Anderson, SC today and he was good enough to share details of how he caught his big bag, which weighed 25-3 and featured a 6-pound-7 ounce fish.

Hampton says that he caught all his fish on a ¾ ounce Greenfish Tackle Crawball Silicone Skirt Football Jig in toxic craw color fished around brushpiles located near points, channel swings and similar areas.  He was fishing up the lake and most of the spots were in the creeks but closer to the main river channel – not in the backs of pockets or anything like that.  The best points were close to where the channel swings close by.  Generally the brush he was fishing was in 15-20 feet of water.

I asked Hampton what impact the mud has had on his fishing, and he says it has definitely slowed things down.  He is getting fewer bites, and he has to fish more slowly to get those.  Fortunately the fish that bit Saturday were the right bites, and besides the one big fish the bass he weighed still had nearly a five pound average.  He caught ten keepers over the course of the day and reported a fairly consistent bite.  A limit came off his best two brushpiles which he fished at the beginning of the day, and the big bite came at 2:00.  In addition to mud the wind was a factor, and instead of being able to throw up on the fish he had to get close and drop down to them – almost fishing vertically.

This week Hampton will be fishing the CATT Murray tournament with partner Josh Rennebaum, and then the next weekend he will be fishing the Fishers of Men again on Murray.  My thanks to Hampton for being willing to speak with me.