BASS REPORT: Junior takes shot at $500,000 payday at Forrest Wood Cup
NEW July 26, 2010 / 6:30 p.m

ATLANTA - Barely 10 days away from competing for the biggest payday of his life, Ron Hobbs, Jr. is most excited about signing a liability waiver.

A half-million dollars and bass-fishing immortality can wait. Right now, Junior wants to talk about Blackhawk helicopters.

"Dude, I had to sign a waiver in case I make the top 6 and get to ride in a Blackhawk helicopter - how cool is that?!?" Hobbs says the week before departing for Atlanta and Lake Lanier, where 78 of the FLW's top anglers will compete for the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup and the biggest paycheck in professional bass fishing. "I just want to make the top six so I can fly in a helicopter."

Hobbs' "Aw shucks" nonchalance, of course, does nothing to dispel the gravity of Thursday afternoon, Aug. 5. At roughly 4 p.m. EST that day, the humble milkman will walk out onto the big stage at Gwinnett Arena in Duluth, Ga. - a suburb of Atlanta - and load his Day 1 bag of Lake Lanier spotted bass into the weighing tank for FLW president Charlie Evans to announce to the crowd. Smoke will billow, lasers will fire, people will cheer.

After dominating the Pacific Northwest tournament scene for over 10 years, Hobbs will share the backstage holding tanks with the likes of Larry Nixon, Brent Ehrler and George Cochran - bass-fishing millionaires and legends of the sport. He'll be competing on a lake he's never seen before ("I saw a map of it, though," he jokes), three time zones away from his home water on Lake Washington.

None of it seems to phase him. But maybe that shouldn't come as a surprise. Hobbs has shown a remarkable ability to adapt to foreign fisheries in a hurry, as shown by his second-place finish in The 2008 Bass Federation National Championship on Lake Wylie in South Carolina, his 12th-place finish in the 2008 BFL All-American on Lake Hamilton, Ark., and his 6th-place finish on the FLW Series Western Division tournament on the California Delta in 2008.

"I talked to one guy about Lake Lanier, and I think I found out everything I need to know about it," Hobbs says. "I think it's going to fish a lot like any other lake in the West, but with different types of structure."

Learning Lake Lanier
Georgia's Lake Lanier is one of the bulkheads of the Southern tournament circuits and a regular stop for both BASS and FLW. A 38,000-acre impoundment of the Chattahoochee River, its drainage sprawls over 1,040 square miles, making it roughly 2 1/2 times the size of Lake Washington.

"It’s huge, but from what I can gather, you can take half the lake and throw it out the door," Hobbs says. "The lake has a bunch of creek arms, but this time of year they get stagnant. I probably won't fish a big portion of the lake."

The lake holds a small population of largemouth, but spotted bass will be the dominant species at the Cup, and they'll likely relate to deep offshore structure in Lanier's 80-plus-degree waters.

"It's not going to be like you're out in the middle of the lake, throwing at nothing," Hobbs says. "They'll be brushpile-oriented. I know it's going to be a deep bite because of the water temperatures, but they'll have to be related to something. In that lake, all the structur ethey use is planted brushpiles."

Hobbs expects to find fish schooling in 15 to 30 feet of water, chasing the lake's primary forage.

"There's a lot of blueback herring in that lake," Hobbs says. "They look just like the herring out in Puget Sound, and they need the cooler temperatures. The thermocline will probably be set up around 30 feet, so they won't be any deeper than that. "Boat positioning is going to probably be the most important part of the tournament. Once you find fish, they'll be sitting at 10 to 15 feet over the top of a 25-foot brushpile. Putting your boat in the right place will be a big deal."

Figuring out the bite
With Lanier's spotted bass likely suspended over deep brushpiles, plastics and swimbaits will be huge.

"Anything that falls slow into the brushpiles is more likely to get bit than something like a Carolina rig," Hobbs says. "I'll throw a lot of flukes - double-fluke rigs, maybe triple-fluke rigs. You'd probably do well with a Senko. The big fish will be the ones suspended over the top of the brush, so I think if you run a swimbait at 10 feet, they'll come up and eat it."

Lanier's spots will likely react similarly to topwater in the lake's clear waters, and it won't just be a morning bite.

"The water clarity is 10 feet, so you'll probably be able to call them to the surface in the middle of the day," Hobbs says. "They'll react just like stripers and come to the surface. The question is 'How many pieces of structure can you find with fish on it?' If you pull one fish off a brushpile, will you be able to pull another one without the whole school coming further off? You might be better off just pulling one or two fish up and moving to another spot."

8FOLLOW THE 2010 FORREST WOOD CUP HERE and check out the NWWC Bass Report regularly for exclusive on-site updates as NWWC host Joel Shangle heads to Atlanta to cover the "world championship of bass fishing".

-JS

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