Jacob Wheeler targeted “anything that would break that current – a stump, a log, a stick – so a fish could sit there and not have to fight the current but could dart out and catch a minnow.” In other words, river fishing. “Seventy-five percent of my fish came from Laurel Park north up the Chattahoochee. Wood cover was the key.”

His back up plan involved bluegill beds on Lanier’s south end. He could call his shot on those fish. That’s important because the river fish did not replenish after he caugth one from any given piece of cover. “If I caught a fish off of a stump or a log I never caught another one off of it.” But if a bream bed produced once it was likely to do so again.

Wheeler duped topwater fish with a couple of prop baits and noted that he had to switch down to a Rapala model to entice his day 2 weight.

Additionally, he flipped a variety of plastics.

In a tournament where experts expected deep brush piles to pump out a winning string of spotted bass, the key to Wheeler’s win was his decision to target largemouth in a stretch of river that did not exceed 10 feet in depth.