Omega Prostaff angler Roger Fitzpatrick recaps his BFL Regional at Lake Dardanelle

November 09, 2016

I had an awesome week down at Lake Dardanelles preparing for the FLW BFL Regional. My first day of practice I found some really good fish hanging around the shore grass as the lake was quite a bit higher than I have ever fished before. My best way to catch them was with Omega Swim Jig with a Beaver trailer. I had to keep it moving to get a bite. My second day was when I stumbled on to some really big fish way up river behind some islands off the main channel. I found a couple of patches of Lilly pads loaded with bait and the fish were blowing up on them. I poled down for about an hour until I I finally found out how to catch them--I thought.I caught 2 in a row on a Chatterbait tipped with a white Beaver and left. The next day I found another similar spot but once again could not get them to commit on a bait. I finally decided to go big and it worked as I saw 2 over 5 lbs eat my Chatterbait this time tipped with,a Zoom swim bait---I had a piece of tubing over my hook as to not actually hook the fish. On the next day I found another pattern that I never did get to try in the tournament--but was actually quite solid as the gentleman who finished second told me,that that was how he caught them. There were some of really heavy matted grass on the shore that if it had enough water under it was a prime spot for some good ones as I had a six pounder and another few bites under the matts of heavy vegetation.
As it worked out I only fished the pads and was 3rd after the first day with 15 and some change, but only boated 4 the next 2'days as the pads got the best of me on several fish. I didn't realize until there was an hour left on day 3 what the best bat actually was. I finally put on an Omega Swim Jig (white) with the same big Zoom swim bait as the other pad field that I went to was a lot thicker and nothing else would come through. The last hour I caught a 5 and lost 2 other big fish that wrapped me up. I really wish I had figured it out earlier in the derby as I'm sure I was around the winning fish.
All and all, very blessed to finish 5th and excited about going to Pickwick in June in the All American. Quick shout out to a few of my few of my awesome sponsors that really help make this all possible for me:

JESUS CHRIST my Savior
Skeeter Boats
Yamaha Outboards
TH Marine
Sport Boats
Omega Custom Tackle
St Croix Rods
Daiwa
P Line
Lunker Lure
Choppers
Power Pole

Huge Thank You!!
Roger

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