Professional Input at the Collegiate Championship

As nearly 300 of the nation's top college bass anglers ply the waters of Lake Lewisville in search of lunker largemouths, you can bet there's one question weighing heavily on all their minds: "Am I doing the right thing to win?"

How and where to fish are always the two biggest decisions any competitive angler has to make before building a solid tournament-winning game plan. At Lake Lewisville, the site of this week's BoatUS Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship, the big question seems to be whether to fight the crowds and target fish in shallow flooded cover, or fight the wind and hope you can pinpoint the mother lode out deep.

Most of the college anglers Earth Sports spoke with had their sights set on the shallows, but a few brave souls said they planned to try their luck well off the banks of the lake. With all the back and forth about where to go and what to throw, one has to wonder: What would the pros do?

Bassmaster Elite Series pros Jeff Kriet and Mike McClelland are at Lake Lewisville this week. Neither pro has been on the water, but both have prior experience at this lake and they've heard enough tidbits of information to know how things are shaping up. Earth Sports asked them one question: "If you were fishing this tournament, what would you do?" Here's what they had to say.

Jeff Kriet

"The water is up pretty high compared to what it has been. If I had to make a prediction I'd say this event will be won shallow. Any time you have flooded bushes or grass there's got to be a flipping bite. In the past some guys have flipped boat docks (at Lewisville) and caught fish, but flipping has never been a major factor. This year I'd say the tournament can be won flipping flooded cover.

There's a lot of water up in the green willows (trees). In my experience any time water gets up in those green willows the fish will be there. I'd go throw a buzzbait, a toad, or some kind of moving bait around those willows first thing in the morning. A square-bill (crankbait) or a spinnerbait should also be good early. Once that died off I'd immediately go to flipping bushes and shallow cover. I'm talking about stuff in eight inches out to three feet. I think the whole key here is figuring out the details to really pattern your flipping fish. If you can determine that fish are on a certain type of tree or near a certain type of structure or bank, that will be the deal. You're going to need multiple spots if you want to catch a good sack and the only way to do that is to figure out a pattern that you can reproduce throughout the lake."

Mike McClelland

"There's some color to the water and there are willow trees that have water in them, so my thoughts immediately go to shallow stuff. I've also heard there's a little shad spawn going on and some guys are talking about seeing bream beds up shallow. It just seems like this is one of those tournaments that sets up really good to get on the bank and fish.

After a few hours if I couldn't make anything happen shallow, I'd back off just a little and look at that first depth break. I don't think these fish are going to be real deep, but I definitely wouldn't count out that first break offshore. With so many boats in the field it might take a one-two punch of shallow and offshore stuff to win."

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