Although he lives less than half an hour from Lake Hickory and actually works in sight of the lake, David Williams has not had a chance to practice recently for the Carolinas Bass Challenge North Carolina Division tournament there this Saturday.

“It’s probably been two or three weeks ago since I was on the lake and did a little striper fishing. I have not done any bass fishing on Hickory this year,” said Williams who lives in Maiden and works at Riverview Sports right at the Lake Hickory dam.

Since he has not had any time on the lake this year and anglers can’t practice the week prior to a CBC tournament, Williams said his fishing strategy Saturday will be “a guessing game.”

“I’ll probably look for some topwater fish early, then try to run some points and look for some shad spawning,” he said.

One thing he knows for certain: the tournament Saturday is going to be vastly different from the CBC-NC tournament held about the same time last year.

“Last year we had flooding rains and that brought all the fish up shallow. But this year, it’s just the opposite. We’ve had really hot weather and no rain, so the water is really clear and it is getting hot fast. Clear water always makes for a lot tougher fishing,” he said. “ I’m thinking it’s going to drive a lot of the fish out deep.”

But, that could be the key to success, he noted.

“Lake Hickory is one of the better lakes to drag a jig or throw a crankbait during the hot weather months after they move out from the spawn,” he said.

“I was hoping we would get a bunch of rain. We had a big storm front come through two weeks ago and we were supposed to give five inches or so of rain out of it, but it rained all around us and we did not get any rain at all.”

Williams and his father, Gerald Williams, are about 10 spots out of first place in the North Carolina Division, but they only trail the leaders by 41 points, a gap easily covered with a high finish in the next tournament or two.

The father-son duo have been fishing tournaments together since David was a teenager and his dad was taking him fishing from the time he could walk, Williams said.

“He did not push me into fishing tournaments; I pushed him. I was competitive and I kept asking him to go fish a tournament with me. I remember fishing some of the earlier tournaments when we were competing in the parent-child divisions.”

 

Carolinas Bass Challenge – North Carolina Division

Sat, May 17, 2014

Lake Hickory

Whittenburg Access

www.carolinasbasschallenge.com