Louisiana hosted the 2022 season opening Major League Fishing Bass Pro Tour event with anglers fishing three lakes — D’Arbonne in Farmerville, Caney in Chatham and Bussey Brake in Bastrop. Louisiana Sportsman caught up with champion Bradley Roy of Lancaster, Ky., and fellow pro anglers Jared Lintner of Covington, Ga., and Jacob Wheeler of Harrison, Tenn., to get exclusive fishing reports on how they would fish here this month.
Caney Lake is Jacob Wheeler’s kind of lake. The tournament results prove that. A lot of open water with underwater points and creek bends all leading up to shallow water with plenty of grass. Wheeler caught nine bass totaling 43 pounds, 7 ounces in his first day to ever fish the lake. Among those were a 7-11, 7-6, 6-5, 6-0, and 4-15. Those were just five of his nine bass.
“It was jerkbait fishing 101 for me,” Wheeler said. “I figured it out through the day and it gave me the best day of fishing as a professional in my life. I have a friend who lives near here that has told me to come fish this place for a while now and this is my first time. I tell you what. I’ll be back.”
Wheeler, the reigning MLF Angler of the Year, said a jerkbait will still work this month, although the fish will be heading up more shallow than where he caught earlier.
“It is a time of transition,” he said. “They may be still spawning or they may be transitioning from shallow to try and get staged up to move to their summertime haunts. I’d concentrate on secondary points and anywhere there is an outside bend in a channel that is closer to the spawning areas.”
Throw a hard jerkbait on the edges of the grass or some sort of soft jerkbait near the emergent grass like a Fluke or some sort of wacky worm, he said. As the day goes on, try the outside grass lines even as far as 10-12 feet deep.
Roy said the key is the grass and calls Caney “a different animal” this time of year. He said a lot of the fish will spawn in the grass and around the boat docks.
“I would start out looking for spawning areas on the northern end up the creek arms,” he said. “I’d start with a 5-inch stick worm and rig it wacky with the hook in the middle. That makes it fall slow and a good twitch will make a bass smash it. It hangs in front of their face longer.”
His favorite colors for this type situation are green pumpkin if it is sunny or dark green or brown on a cloudy day.
Jared Lintner said the pockets and flatter creeks down by the dam would be his favorite spot right now.
“Those bass will migrate in there to spawn in the grass and once the weather is stable, they will stay near there a while even after they spawn,” he said. “Once you find fish, you have options from chatterbaits, vibrating jigs and swimbaits. Everybody concentrates on the big ones, but it’s a great lake to just go catch bass using a wacky worm or Senko around the boat docks and laydowns. If it’s a big one you want, don’t be afraid to throw a big 5- to 9-inch swimbait. If you’ve seen the mouths on those huge bass, you know they can eat it with no problem.”
