Chris Lane’s confidence is high. His family drove all night from Guntersville, Ala., found a hotel room, and surpised him this mornng at the takeoff.
“It puts a little extra fire in me. The win would be for them.”
Lane knows that he must swing for the fence, let it all hang out, go for the win.
“I want to make Kevin work for it,” he said on Bassmaster Live.
How he’s doing that today is by exploiting the wind. Wind is definetly his friend.
Wind reduces the surface visibility and triggers more of a reaction strike by the bass.
“They don’t follow it, or look at it,” he explained. “They’ll just explode on it.”
“It” is a collection of topwater lures. Those include a River2Sea Whopper Popper and Heddon Zara Spook. Both are uncommon lures to use this time of year, and all day long. In previous days he’s alternated between those lures and a buzzbait and topwater frog.
What else is happening are the subtle but key wind breaks on the points. Lane is fishing main lake points with a mixture of cypress trees and emergent vegetation. Both provide concealment for the bass, while the wind helps add to the cover element for the bass.
“The wind will keep bigger fish up shallow and they’ll feed more,” he added. “They’ll roam around instead of holding tight to the cover.”