Todd Faircloth felt the frustration of so many other Elite Series pros during his two days on Lake Dardanelle. He finished Day 2 considerably less frustrated than he was after Day 1, but equally puzzled by the way this Arkansas River lake fished this week.
Faircloth, who entered this tournament 4th in the AOY race, was 97th after Day 1 with 4 keepers weighing 5-13. He literally turned around those numbers on Day 2, catching a 13-5 limit that vaulted him to 66th place.
“I just went fishing, fishing water I hadn’t even practiced in,” Faircloth said. “I caught one on a vibrating jig, and I’m like, okay. I pushed that for awhile and never got another bite. I picked up a squarebill (crankbait), threw it on some rocks, caught a keeper, pushed that for awhile and never got another bite. I picked up a flipping bait, pitched some grass and caught a keeper. I did that for an hour-and-a-half and never got another bite.
“As a competitive angler, you want to pattern fish. You want to be able to duplicate a bite. And I know some of these guys are doing that here. But for me it was junk fishing to the extreme. I caught five keepers all day, and I caught them on four different baits.”
So Faircloth’s “junk fishing to the extreme” pattern was as follows: Catch one, put that rod down, go do something else, somewhere else.