This photo taken by James Overstreet says it all. The fist bump with JM cameraman Eric Kaffka signals that a limit is aboard the boat of John Crews. He caught that by 7:30 a.m. and started culling about 30 minutes later.
He’s stuck with the game plan thus far. That is drilling down on a shad spawn bite on the windy side of an island bordering the main river channel. He’s using a one-two punch of a jerkbait on the point of the island where shad are actively spawning. When that action subsides he goes around the corner to the back side of the island and skips, pitches and casts a swim jig to isolated casting targets. Those are brushpiles and isolated grassbeds.
Around the corner is James Niggemeyer. He’s working that back side of the island. The two anglers discussed boat positioning and overall strategies and are in sync with their game plans.
Crews is literally on point and looks to be locking down on the shad spawn bite.