QUITMAN, Texas – Quentin Cappo has been fishing Lake Fork since 2004. His father and a cousin have made frequent fishing trips here from their Prairieville, La., home. Cappo knows the lake, which is why it has been such a source of frustration for him since qualifying for the Elite Series three years ago. Cappo finished 74th with a two-day total of 9 pounds in the 2019 tournament here. He finished 73rd with 9-4 over two days last November.
With his second-place total of 28-15 yesterday, Cappo weighed 10 more pounds in one day than the total he’d caught in four days of previous Elite Series competition at Lake Fork.
“This has been a long time coming,” the 35-year-old Cappo said Thursday. “Me and Lake Fork have not had a good relationship. I’ve been on ‘em in practice before here and then go out and something changes and it doesn’t go right. So to actually have a decent practice and for it to actually stay the same was pretty magical.”
With the overcast skies Thursday, Cappo abandoned his sight-fishing plans quickly. He started “dredging” shallow points with a big square-billed crankbait.
“I’m throwing a deeper one than I normally would throw, trying to stir up the bottom and get more of a reaction bite,” he said. “It’s a heavy-pressured lake. When you have heavy-pressured lakes, something different gets them fired up. Once I get ‘em fired up, I can stay on them. But it seems like I can go hours without a bite. As soon as I get one, it’s okay, here we go.”
Cappo said wind is crucial. “The more it blows, the better,” he said. He should get that today.
“In 2019, I thought I was going to win this thing,” Cappo said of the Elite Series event that Brandon Cobb won. “I was catching 30 pounds a day every day in practice. I caught a 6-pounder on my fourth cast (in the tournament) and never got another bite. I’ve spent a lot of money here, a lot of time here, just fun fishing it. To come out (Thursday) and do that was magical.”