Scott Rice Dominates

After the Michigan Center tournament, Scott Rice only weighed in one fish and was way down in the AOY standings and commented to me how he was struggling to figure anything out this season. I hope he stopped his complaining because he was dominant at the two Cadillac events, winning both and propelling himself into the lead for the Angler of the Year. I was not present at either tourney but talked to Scott and got a little insight into what went down up north.

The club has been going to Cadillac off and on for years and a lot of anglers had their go to spots. Scott had done quite well here two years ago but for some reason could not re-connect with those fish. He arrived Wednesday and after a few days figured it was time to try and find something else. What he found ended up surrendering back to back 14+ pound limits and by the end of the tournament he had his pattern and spot so dialed in that he was almost calling his shots.

"Jim and I talked and we concluded that the fish were post-spawn and were right on the inside edges of the breaks" commented Scott referring to his brother Jim Rice. Scott found the fish would briefly roam away from the weeds early and they were pretty catchable but would get back into the vegetation, just sticking their noses out looking for easy meals. "You would have to get the bait right at the base of the weeds and if you weren't pulling your lure off the weeds to the edge then you wouldn't get bit".

The bait Scott used was his customary soft stickbait rigged wacky style in the 5 1/2" version. The color is unknown but I guess it was his usual cinnamon/purple flake edition. The twist was that he used a weighted hook and then customized it by shaving some of the weight off to give a slightly slower fall and making the bait not bury in the weeds so much. He would then pull that bait off the top of the stalks and let it set at the base of the weeds. He was fishing a small point but the way the weeds were was the key more so than the structure.

By Sunday Scott had this pattern dialed in and would catch a limit early while the fish were out cruising. But as the sun got higher, the fish buried farther into the weeds and that's when he went to work. He noticed a small section of his weed edge that was a little sparser than the rest and only stretched out for a few feet before it became heavy again. Rice figured the fish were using this small break in the weeds as the "path" to move from shallow to deep water and started to focus on this section.

Scott wanted to prove his "path" theory to his partner Randy Peck (who also weighed in 13 pounds) and predicted he would catch a fish on the outside of the weed break. He then proceeded to cast his senko into the area which lay in about 12 feet of water and just let it set for close to two minutes. Finally his line moved off and Rice set the hook on a 3+ pound fish, proving his theory and setting off an assault on the Lake Mitchell fish which resulted in several fish over 3 pounds and a first and second place finish for the two.

A lot of anglers reported catching fish early and then struggling to get bites later in the day which makes Scotts efforts that much more impressive. There was another tournament also using Cadillac and Mitchell lakes which made the post-spawn fish even finickier but as usual, someone always figures them out. Mark Dereadt also bumped up his yearly totals with two strong top 5 finishes and big fish for the tournament went to Scott Hartman at 3.7 pounds.