As mentioned in an earlier post about finding the best fishing lures by checking out the Bassmaster Elite Series winning lures, you can gleen a bunch of information about what fishing lures to use when by studying the pros on their strategy.  The latest torunament was at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.  Keith VanDam was the winner and he did so targeting smallmouth bass, which was a distinct difference between himself and the majority of the competition.  Given the temperatures were rising and the bass were beginning to spawn, he targeting beds to catch his fish.  I'm not a huge fan of targeting beds as it can lead to diminished reproduction, but there is no doubt that is can be effective.  Just make sure to release the bass immediately if you do decide to go this route.  Given that they were on beds, the most productive areas were hard gravel bottomed points and led to good spawning habitat.  If the bottom were clay or mud it was not productive at all.

His go to bait for the week was the Strike Master 3x finesse worm.  I have used a similar type of soft plastic bait by Strike King, but never the finesse worm.  I have found their version of the Zoom Centipede to be a reasonable facsimilie.  I think the two key strong points that the Strike King series employ is a floating body and a ridiculous amount of stretchiness.  The former is great if you are fishing your french fry lure with a weight of some sort (be it a carolina or texas rigged setup or in the case of this week's winner it was a jig head).  The stretch does tend to help out the longevity of the lure and leads to less changing your plastic worms.  The floating aspect was important for Keith VanDam this week as it allowed the bait to be very visible hanging out in the bed of the bass.  This lead to increased catch rates for the week.

Do you have anything to add in terms of the best fishing lure of the week for the Bassmaster Elite Series stop at Smith Mountain Lake?

There is no doubt that reading what the pro fishing tour guys use to win tournament will help you as you fish your local lake.  To that end here is a recap of the best fishing lures on Lake Amistad, which was the location of the inaugeral tournament on the Bassmaster Elite Series in 2009.  The top two finishers produced staggering weights of fish and also prove that there are more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.

Jason Williamson won the tournament with 96+ lbs of fish.  That included a very impressive 68 pounds on the last two days of the tournament.  His lure of choice was the Osprey Swimbait, which to me look a lot like a Mister Twister Sassy shad, but much larger.

His tactic was to work the bait down to some trees that were about 20 feet below the surface and keep it down there.  This helps to prove the point that sometimes you need to just wait and believe that the fish will be there.  He didn't catch a single fish in the spot the first two days of the tournament, but went hog wild the last two days.

This was in stark contrast to the 2nd place finisher, Alton Jones. He was the slow and steady Freddie that nearly went home with the prize. And if Williamson hadn't scored huge the last two days he would have easily won. All of his fish were caught on a texas rigged Yum! Dinger.  He used the bait in shallow water situations and was especially fond of longer casts, which were then allowed to be worked extremely slowly when it was a solid cast to a great spot.  This tedious process was deadly effective at putting these fish into the boat.  The YUM Dinger is a similar type fishing bait as the Yamamoto Senko.

The Bassmaster Elite series is off to a roaring start with some big weights and some monster bass.  There were two fish over 10 lbs that were weighed in during the tournament.

A great way to find out what the best fishing lures being used today is to check out the professional fishing tours.  Likely the most prestigious in the bass world would be the Bass Master Elite Series.  This is a great way to find

information on both what the pros are using, but also in what conditions and what structure.  Make sure to pay close attention to the environmental conditions they mention (air temperature, water temperature, clouds, sun, barometer) as well as the structure type to gleen important things to consider while using that particular lure.  It is quite often that a particular lure is especially effective in a specific set of conditions.  It may produce the whole rest of the year to some degree, but really shines in a given situation.  This should be considered when reading about how the pro caught his huge stringer of fish.  Alton is surely looking forward to
mexico bass fishing.