What will the strategy be? Get a limit of shorts and then go look for big mama? Or keep catching shorts all day trying to cull up to 12lbs?

During tournaments I choose to wack on the unders untill I get 12-13lbs, may not win everytime but you will generally get a top 3.

Swing for the green monster
Go BIG

if you want to be the hero or zero guy - get a limit and then go big or go home!

if you want to play it smart - you better have that culling beam out and you better be using it all day..

I'll either have 4 pounds or 15 on Saturday. I am swinging for the fences. I don't consider that a consistent winning strategy, but my old fishing buddy is coming in for this one. We haven't fished together on Fork in quite some time. He is not a fan of the dink and you just never know.

Good luck to all.

Tight Lines,
Mark

Exactly. Another thing to add. Never leave fish to find fish. The bigs ones are with the little ones, only smarter!

work on 5 unders, hoping that one of them is an over... thats always my strategy out there.

Are you going to be deep cranking buzz baits on the ledges again, or flippin crankbaits into the heavy grass?

12-13 lbs of unders is a little unrealistic, in the many years of fishing the dink master trails I've only seen 2, 12+ lbs sacks of unders. My personal best is 11.59 w/5-unders.
If you can get 11+lbs you stand a good chance to get a check.
That actually won it last year, no overs were brought in.

The advice Clint gave is right on, I've hooked a 10" inch fish and on the very next cast caught a 12+ lber from the same spot..

They will mix together that's for sure.

Now that's the smartest thing I have heard yet... very nice very nice... to many folks get impatient and run, run, run, run....

I was about to say Billy.....hahaha I've never seen a sack over 12.24 but again it's the future.

I say swing for the fences boys....25k will fill up a pcket fast and not to mention the notariety.

Hog hunting for us........

Unless you are sight fishing, how exactly do you know the size of the fish that you are fishing for? Especially this time of year, when a Sharelunker is just as likely to be shallow as a 13 inch fish?

According to the data reported on this site a couple of weeks ago, over the years something like 25% of Sharelunkers have been caught on plastic worms or lizards. Another 9% were caught on spinnerbaits.

I don't know about everyone else, but I've caught both big and little fish on all of those baits.

The leading producer of Sharelunkers was the jig, but it still only accounted for something like 16-17% of the 13 pounders turned into the program.

I remember one of the first fishing books I read was Jimmy Houston's. He answered a question about "fishing for big fish" by saying he doesn't know what fishing for big fish really is. His viewpoint was that you go fishing and let size take care of itself.

The biggest fish I ever caught on Fork came on a Texas rigged baby ring fry in about five feet of water. The fish I caught just before and just after that one were less than 15 inches long.

I would play the percentages, try to cull my way up, and hope I caught a big girl along the way.

How many boats are going to be out there for this thing?

I will estimate over 200 Teams

Heck, alot of times 12 or less in unders will win. It is hard to catch a 24" over on a particular given day. Now the weather is setting up nicely for that to happen on Saturday, so there could be several.