Connor Nimrod did the heavy lifting by himself Dec. 16, the day he hooked and boated a five-bass limit few bass anglers have achieved while fishing solo in a bass tournament.
The University of Louisiana-Monroe Fishing Team member had the bass right where he wanted them, two smallish high spots with hard areas, at Caney Lake in Jackson Parish. He alternately fished them with crankbaits to catch and cull 15-20 bass, all over 3 pounds, to build his limit to 42.10 pounds.
“It was special. I definitely was blessed, for sure. I was so jacked up,” said the 24-year-old bass angler who majored in business marketing. He wrapped up his college bass fishing career that day and went out with a big bang that drew ohhhhs and ahhhhs at the weigh-in.
Nimrod mostly used a Bomber Fat Free BD5 Shad to put those lunkers in the boat. His younger brother, Dylan Nimrod, a senior who fishes with the ULM Fishing Team, finished a distant second with a limit weighing 26.12 pounds.
Could’ve done better
The elder Nimrod’s limit woulda, coulda and shoulda been heavier. The brutes sometimes fought over the crankbait and if one missed it, he said, another smashed it and all put on a show during the fight, including head shaking, angry acrobatics.
“I could have had a bigger bag than that,” Nimrod said. “They (the misses) came up jumping and thrashing. I don’t know how big they were. I had two places. I kept bouncing back and forth. It was a magical day.”
His biggest bass weighed 10.09 pounds and the smallest was in the 7-pound class. A 9.85-pounder was a key fish.
Nimrod, who has opened a fishing-related business, Tournament Technology, had a hunch he’d do well tournament day. He was on ’em.
“I thought I could go catch 30 pounds. I kept catching big ones and bigger ones. It was a magical day,” he said, noting that’s how successful his pre-fishing trips were.
He found the fish sitting in 12- to 13-foot depths over small high spots that attracted shad and, as a result, big, hungry bass. Cormorants and loons got active when the bass started chasing baitfish.
“Actually, what they do, there are hard spots that they get on this time of year. Just about any high spot,” Nimrod said, noting the sweet spots he found had hard areas. “They’re definitely getting ready to spawn, probably in late January, early February.”
High spots
There was a bunch of bass over each high spot with the hard bottom. Nimrod took a screenshot of his side scan and one hump had 15 fish and another about 20. The Bomber crankbait color that triggered more strikes in practice and the tournament was Sexy Shad, he said. He’d also rotate other shad-colored Bombers. His limit was pretty much done at 10 a.m.
After that, Nimrod mostly rode around and watched his brother fish.
