Lieblong Leads on Dardanelle with 19-10
Local pro up by less than a pound after opening-round action
Rising water brought increased current to Lake Dardanelle, and Jason Lieblong leveraged this dynamic to take the lead on day one of Rayovac FLW Series Central Division action on this Arkansas River impoundment. He brought in a limit that weighed 19 pounds, 10 ounces.
In the early hours of his day the pro from Conway, Ark., alternated between backwaters and main-lake banks in an effort to determine where the fish were most active. Once the sun gained altitude and harsh light had pushed the fish tight to cover, he committed to the bank.
“I just put the trolling motor down and went fishing and found some fish on your obvious stuff like laydowns and grass. I even caught some in open water with no structure whatsoever,” Lieblong says. “I found a little current, and that’s key.”
While some of his competitors opted to fish offshore structure, Lieblong based his shallow focus on where he thought he had the best chance of finding quality fish.
“River bass aren’t going to get really deep, unless you go in the backwater and get on ledges,” he says. “I’d catch some backwater fish, but they’re not as good as the current fish. I mean, if you catch one in the backwater, it’s a really slow bite and you don’t even know he’s on there. But even when the river was low the last few days, I still caught them because my area still had a little flow.”
Noting that most of his bites came in a foot or two of water, Lieblong says that one of the keys to success was keeping his distance from the fish. He held the boat in 6 to 8 feet of water and cast as far as he could toward the bank.
With the fish in their usual summer lethargy, Lieblong says he couldn’t get them to chase his crankbait. Abandoning the moving baits early, he stuck with flipping presentations the rest of the day.
“It’s too hot for them to chase stuff,” he adds. “You have to hit them in the head with a bait.”
Lieblong reports catching fish throughout the day, although he never experienced any significant periods of consistency. His biggest fish – a 5-pound, 7-ounce bass – bit at 1:30.
“It was just sporadic,” he says. “We didn’t catch anything the first hour, and then the second hour – boom, boom, boom. It was just off and on.
“It was just a matter of finding where there was some baitfish,” Lieblong continues. “That’s where the fish are. If you see some shad popping, you throw a worm in there. They’re popping for a reason, and that’s because someone’s chasing them.”
Top 10 Pros
1. Jason Lieblong – Conway, Ark. – 19-10 (5)
2. Nick Prvonozac – Warren, Ohio – 19-00 (5)
3. Toby Corn – West Frankfort, Ill. – 17-08 (5)
4. Jeff Keene – Vinita, Okla. – 17-00 (5)
5. Wells Kaiser – Cuba City, Wis. – 16-14 (5)
6. Spencer Grace – Dardanelle, Ark. – 16-06 (5)
7. Kerry Milner – Bono, Ark. – 15-14 (5)
8. Austin Brown – Benton, Ky. – 15-10 (5)
9. Thomas Heintz – Waterloo, Ill. – 15-09 (5)
10. Jeff Fitts Keystone – Heights, Fla. – 15-03 (5)
Afternoon Rally Lifts Roberts Atop Co-angler Division
Co-angler leader Dustin Roberts of Clarksville, Ark., caught two keepers between 9 and 9:30 a.m., then watched four and a half hours drip by with no more bites before magic happened. The result: a limit catch of 17 pounds, 8 ounces that tops the division by more than 2 pounds.
“We found the fish about 1 o’clock, and I caught them in about a 30-minute flurry,” Roberts recalls. “My pro [Kerry Milner] had found the spot in practice because there was bait there. We couldn’t fish it earlier in the day because there were people on it. We checked in three times during the day, and finally we came back when there was no one there and started catching them.”
A mixture of moving baits and plastics appealed to the fish on ledges in 8 to 10 feet of water.
Top 10 Co-anglers
1. Dustin Roberts – Clarksville, Ark. – 17-08 (5)
2. Jeffery Smith – Knob Noster, Mo. – 15-03 (5)
3. Mark Heidt – Versailles, Ind. – 13-15 (4)
4. James (Zach) Ingram – Quitman, Ark. – 11-10 (5)
5. Kirk Sims – Lowell, Ark. – 11-06 (5)
6. Brian Pierce – Colorado Springs, Colo. – 11-01 (5)
7. Mike Hesson – Hackett, Ark. – 10-15 (5)
8. Clint Long – Raymore, Mo. – 10-11 (3)
9. Lance Baker – Huxley, Iowa – 10-10 (4)
9. Brian Brown – Kuttawa, Ky. – 10-10 (5)