Tri-Cities Qualifier

By Ben Hanes, Writer

Northwest Bass Pro Staff

The Hanford Reach has long been known to produce very heavy smallmouth bass, particularly in the spring.  It is also during this time that a significant amount of water is released through Priest Rapids Dam; hence, the water is much higher than normal in the Wallula Pool.  This causes an influx of water to enter into areas that normally are high and dry, and it gives anglers the opportunity to pursue fish in shallow, backwater sloughs.... If they’re willing to make the potentially dangerous, long run.

On June 18^th, several of the top finishers chose to navigate the shallow, swift, and treacherous waters of the Hanford Reach.  However, in the largest Tri-Cities Northwest Bass Tournament ever, only one team proved they had truly mastered the complex Reach smallmouth.  And they did it two years in a row.

1^st   Hall and Petroskie Power Fish for Bronzebacks

            “When we pre-fish, we always try to find at least one new area,” said Paul Hall.  “When you’re competing against such great fisherman, you can’t back down.  Eventually, somebody is going to figure out what you already know, and then you have to find something new.” 

            After winning the Northwest Bass Qualifier at Tri-Cities in 2006, Paul Hall and Greg Petroskie believed a similar pattern might yield comparable results.  However, they also knew that with the incredible competition, they would be forced to find a few new areas to potentially clinch the win.  They accomplished this goal during practice. By keying in on rapid, cool water with the slightest current breaks, they were able to find large female smallmouth that had not yet spawned.  Other anglers simply passed by these areas.

             “It was a lot like steelhead fishing,” remarked Paul, “We would just let a split shot bounce around in the current until we felt that ‘thunk’ feeling.”  The team also caught some of their better fish on reaction baits.  Their largest fish, a five-pound female smallmouth that was about to burst from being so bloated with eggs, was caught on a chrome and blue-back rattletrap.  They used 10-pound test McCoy Mean Green line and St. Croix Rods to land their fish.

            Petroskie and Hall engaged in a style of fishing they like to call ‘cyclical fishing.’  With large amounts of current, fish are prone to move in and out of minor current breaks periodically throughout any given day.  Therefore, even though the anglers might not have caught a smallmouth at a particular spot in the morning, they could return to the very same ‘cut’ later in the day and have much more prolific results.  This occurred several times for Petroskie and Hall.  By essentially running and gunning, they would systematically power fish sweet spots in a cyclical fashion. 

            In the end, cyclical fishing was enough for the team to weigh-in a massive smallmouth bag that weighed 20.10 pounds.  Paul Hall and Greg Petroskie were also driving a Triton Boat and wearing Solar Bat Sunglasses, which increased their total payout to $6,662.50, one of the largest qualifier payouts in Northwest Bass history! 

“I’d just really like to thank Gary and Lisa Styles for running an awesome circuit,” said Paul Hall, “and Jeff Priester from Nixon’s Marine for taking care of the anglers’ boats.  This is a great circuit and the numbers prove it.”

2^nd   Eckstrom and Grafe Go for Green Fish

            Joel Grafe and Rob Eckstrom from Lake Stevens knew that with the strong flow and high water upriver, they were going to pursue smallmouth in the morning.  Their ultimate goal, however, was to sack a nice limit of smallies in the AM, and then roar sixty miles south to hunt for green fish.  That is, largemouth bass.           

            In the morning, the team targeted current seams and back-eddies in 4 to 6 feet of water.  Their primary lure techniques involved wacky-rigging white Senkos and drop-shotting Panic Minnows in slight current.  They would let their baits drift gently in the river over rocky bottoms, patiently waiting for the telltale strike of a vicious smallmouth.  Thankfully, several smallmouth succumbed to this method in a very short period of time.  Within just a few hours, the team had successfully deposited 15 pounds of fish into their livewell.  And then, as planned, they raced far to the south.

            After a long run, Eckstrom and Grafe knew they still had a great deal of time to patiently pursue largemouth bass in the back bays.  “We would let our baits sit motionless for up to a minute each cast, casting at every bush and overhanging tree we could find,” said Joel Grafe.  “We noticed that grass clumps near overhanging trees and brush tended to produce more fish.”  The team initially used larger Senkos, but soon discovered that the bass sought after something smaller.  Therefore, they switched to four-inch, green-pumpkin, wacky-rigged Senkos on 10-pound test line.   

            Eckstrom and Grafe knew they had their spools filled with relatively light line for the heavy cover they were fishing.  Nonetheless, the largemouth wanted a finesse presentation.  Unfortunately, in the last 10 minutes of the tournament, the team lost a 6-pound plus largemouth that snapped their line right at the boat. 

            Despite their lost fish, Joel Grafe and Rob Eckstrom were still able to walk away with a second place finish, and over $3662.50 in cash and prizes.  Their five fish limit weighed 20.04 pounds, putting them six-hundredths of a pound from first place.           

3^rd   Dunham and Bruce Bag Bedded Fish 

          Ralph Dunham and Jeff Bruce from Tri-Cities principally used their wealth of local knowledge to weigh in an impressive 18.96-pound bag of smallmouth.  During pre-fishing, their chief task was to find bedded fish, and with their familiarity of the water, they were able to quickly and precisely locate several quality nesting fish.  During the tournament, however, they found that many of the quiet sloughs were now clogged with boats.      

To combat the boat traffic, they would run and gun to find empty, productive areas that were temporarily devoid of any tournament boats.  They started at the F-sloughs, a community hole, where they caught 13 pounds in less than 25 minutes.  From there, they progressed mainly upriver, with a focus on roughly twelve different areas.    “We fished fast, but slow,” said Ralph Dunham.  “We would hit an area as thoroughly as we could, but focused on hitting a lot of different areas.  We had 3 brief flurries of crazy action.  The first flurry was in the early morning, then again around nine in the morning, and then once again around noon.  Between those time periods, it was pretty slow.”      

The anglers used Zoom Flukes and green-pumpkin Zoom Lizards to coerce the bedding smallmouth to bite.  With the Zoom Flukes, they would give the rod tip a slight twitch or two, and then let the bait fall in the water column for roughly five seconds.  Ideally, they would want the Fluke to flutter onto a nest.  On bedding bronzebacks that were particularly skittish, they would cast out the Zoom Lizard and let it sit for forty-five to fifty seconds, before the spawning fish would return to the bed and find that a nasty little critter had invaded its space.  This evoked aggressive strikes.  Their largest fish of the day, a 4.42-pound smallmouth, was caught on a Lucky Craft chrome-black Pointer 76.  They triggered the fish to bite by letting the jerkbait suspend over the spawning smallmouth.  The big smallmouth could not handle the pressure of an annoying minnow looking over its shoulder, and instead decided to have a delicious meal that ended up being not-so-tasty.

At the end of a great day of fishing, the team cashed a check for $1,750.00

Big Bass

            “I saw my line moving, and when I set the hook, I knew it was a good one! Thankfully, my drag was set loose with the 8-pound test line I was using,” said Joel Grafe. 

It’s really kind of difficult to imagine why a 6.82-pound largemouth would waste its time with a four-inch green-pumpkin Senko.  After all, it would need much more than that to even come close to filling its appetite.  The team of Joel Grafe and Rob Eckstrom knew what they were doing, though, and they had quickly discerned that the largemouth wanted smaller-profile baits.  Their accurate assessment earned them a Lamiglas Rod Certificate, $656.25 in cash, plus an additional $200.00 from Sniper Lures. 

Northwest Bass is the largest fishing circuit in the Northwest, and in the 2007 year, will feature 5 qualifying tournaments.  All of these tournaments lead up to the Northwest Bass Challenge Circuit Championship, with the top prize being a fully-rigged, tournament level Triton TR-196/200 HP Mercury boat package sponsored by Nixon’s Marine.

Northwest Bass is sponsored by Nixon’s Marine, Inc., Mercury, Triton Boats, Lamiglas Rods, Tony Lind Paving, White’s Boots, Solar Bat Sunglasses, VIP Studios, Princess Pickled Foods, and Clearwater Custom Tackle.

Angler’s Sponsors

• Paul Hall and Greg Petroskie are sponsored by McCoy Line and St. Croix rods.

• Joel Grafe and Rob Eckstrom are sponsored by All New Glass

·         Ralph Dunham and Jeff Bruce are sponsored by ROKNOB Custom Cast Hardware

~Ben Hanes, the author, currently lives in the Tri-Cities area.  Ben is an avid bass fisherman, and has been tournament fishing for 10 years.  He is currently sponsored by McCurley Integrity Dealerships, Columbia River Bank, Cascade Sign and Design, and writes articles for Northwest Bass.