Plan B Wins Final HD Marine Sinclair Tournament

Jeff Morgan (left) and Brad Warfield won the final HD Marine tournament of the 2006 season. The two-day event was held June 10-11 at Lake Sinclair.

Temperatures soared well into the 90s during the last HD Marine tournament of the 2006 season, but it didn’t hurt the bite for first-place finishers Brad Warfield and Jeff Morgan. The team found fish shallow for the two-day event, which was held June 10-11.

On day one the team fished for some topwater fish they’d found in practice.

“We didn’t get bit, and I knew we were in trouble then,” said Brad. “We went to ‘Plan B,’ which was jigs around docks.”

Plan B, pitching jigs around postspawn docks, would be a pattern that would hold to the end and lead the team to victory.

Brad makes his own jigs, and he was pitching a black/blue bait with 5/0 Gamakatsu hook.

“Our boat was never in over eight feet of water,” said Brad. “We just fished docks on the way out of spawning pockets. You really had to watch your line. The fish would swim out with the bait. You wouldn’t even feel them hit it.”

The team keyed in Oconee River pockets above the mouth of the Little River.

On day one they had 16.7 pounds, and on the second day they weighed in a sack that went 20.04 pounds.

“Fish  just haven’t made it out deep yet, even though it was like 100 degrees both days,” said Brad. “Surface temperature Saturday morning was 79 degrees. Sunday morning it was 83 degrees.”

The team had 10 keepers each day of the tournament.

James Wiley and Kevin Dugger won the HD Marine points race. They won two of the five HD events of the 2006 season.

Here are the top-five teams:

1. Jeff Morgan & Brad Warfield, 10 fish, 36.74 pounds
2. Jimmy Millsaps & Jeanne Millsaps, 10 fish, 31.64 pounds
3. Danny Tinsley & Dwight Johnson, 10 fish, 30.65 pounds
4. Bobby Hyde & Lee Kennedy, 10 fish, 26.61 pounds
5. Benjie Cleary & Barry Hooper, 10 fish, 26.55 pounds