Milking one spot for three straight days made a winner of Wil Hardy II at the Bassmaster Northern Open on Oneida Lake.
The Harlem, Ga. angler caught an 18-04 sack of smallmouth bass – his second straight catch of 18-plus pounds – to win the event. He finished with a 3-day total of 53-13 to win his first B.A.S.S. tournament and claim a berth in the 2017 Bassmaster Classic, provided he fishes the remaining two Northern Opens.
Each day, Hardy caught his limit early while Carolina-rigging a green-pumpkin Zoom Speed Craw and dragging a 3/4-ounce Greenfish Tackle Creeper jig tipped with a green-pumpkin Zoom Speed Craw along the bottom.
“I had a limit pretty early again (about 7:30 a.m.) today, but it was a whole lot slower than it has been,” he said. “We didn’t catch many small ones. It seems like most of the ones we caught were pretty decent. Then we culled up three or four times after that.”
Hardy said the area he fished had a “whole lot of everything” including scattered gravel, zebra mussels and cuts of grass.
“I found that spot last year (during the Northern Open held on Oneida in August 2015), but I never really caught them that good there." Most of the fish he caught were about 11 to 13 feet deep.
FLW Tour stalwart Jacob Wheeler chased smallmouth again and caught a limit that weighed 16-06 to take second place with 50-9.
“Today was a lot of fun,” Wheeler said. “I went out there and caught a lot of fish. That is the cool thing about Oneida Lake. It's getting better and better every single time we come here.”
Wheeler found smallmouth roaming in the holes of grass and along breaklines where the fish were 10 to 13 feet deep. His strategy was dropshotting with a green-pumpkin finesse worm to catch a limit and then switching to a Carolina-rigged Larew Punch Out craw or Larew Biffle Bug Jr. for catching larger fish.
Here are the final totals for the Top 12:
1. Wil Hardy II: 53-13
2. Jacob Wheeler: 50-09
3. Jamie Hartman: 50-06
4. Kurt Dove: 50-06
5. Larry Mazur: 48-11
6. Mike Iaconelli: 48-07
7. Jesse Tacoronte: 47-05
8. Ron Johnson: 47-00
9. Ian Renfrew: 46-15
10. Tyler Berger: 44-09
11. Mike Shumanis: 42-11
12: Alvin Shaw: 39-03
