Judy Wong Rigs Up a Win
September 17, 2009
With the WBT season quickly slipping away, Judy Wong needed to make a move if she wanted to have a shot at the Angler of the Year title at season’s end. Time was of the essence, so the obvious answer, of course, at least to her, was to slow down.
While fast-moving lures like spinnerbaits and crankbaits earn much of the glory, Wong hasn’t forgotten that a slowly-presented soft plastic can be deadly. She proved that in the WBT Championship on South Carolina’s Lake Keowee in February 2008, using a variety of Yamamoto soft plastics to earn the inaugural cup. And she did it again last week, methodically dragging a Carolina rig over a river ledge on Tennessee’s Old Hickory Lake to claim her first WBT regular season title.
A deep-diving crankbait helped the cause, but it was the cannonball rig that accounted for most of Judy’s winning catch, a three day total of 28-05 that absolutely crushed the rest of the field at the stingy Nashville area lake. No one else was within six pounds of her when the scales closed.
The lure that did the damage was a soft plastic lizard, a mainstay of anglers everywhere for pitching, flipping and dragging. While other options have come around, Wong relies on her trusty Yamamoto lizard whether she’s at home on Toledo Bend or traveling to any of her out of town events.
“The bass really key in on it,” she said. “It has all of those appendages so it has plenty of action with even the slightest movement of the rod.”
It’s also her confidence bait: “I’ve just always seemed to catch a lot of good fish on it,” she added.
The bite was tough, as evidenced by the low weights. The tournament took place immediately subsequent to Labor Day Weekend and Old Hickory is one of the most heavily-used recreational lakes in the country, a playground for an area that has tons of boaters. That may have contributed to the meager catches.
“The bite was real subtle,” Wong said. “They would pull back on the rod just enough to let me know they were there.”
While a watermelon-red lizard accounted for many key fish, when it got overcast out she changed over to black with blue flake. Both produced quality bites off of her primary ledge. “They don’t pay big bass anymore, but they measured two of my big ones and the biggest one, caught on watermelon-red, was 5-01 or something like that and I also had one that was 4 ½ on black with blue flake.” Indeed, she had the biggest fish each day of competition. The lizard doesn’t present a huge profile, but clearly it has big fish appeal.
Her rod choice was key in this event and she used her American Rodsmiths signature series Pitch and Flip model. “We don’t have a Carolina rig rod. We have a worm rod and 
the pitch and flip and the pitch and flip has a little more backbone and it gets a better hookset. You had to make really long casts (at Old Hickory) and they usually bit after only a couple of pulls. The rod made the difference.”
Defying conventional wisdom, she used monofilament line (15 lb. Triple Fish camo) for her main line. “I still have enough confidence that I can feel the bite with it,” she explained. “I caught everything that bit.” She added a short length of Triple Fish fluorocarbon for a leader and used a ¾ ounce Tru Tungsten weight ahead of a Force Bead. The cylindrical weight allowed the lizard to “come through a lot of brush without hanging up” but was still heavy enough to keep in close contact with the bottom. The lizard was rigged on a 4/0 XPoint wide gap hook.
While Wong has already won the WBT Championship and regular season events on other circuits, her first WBT victory had special meaning, if nothing else because it allowed her to jump from 12th to 4th in the AOY standings, helped by point bonuses awarded for leading after competition days.
“I didn’t think I had a shot an Angler of the Year,” she said. “And I can’t control what Pam (Martin-Wells) and Juanita (Robinson) and the other ladies do, but if they falter, I’ll have a shot.”
The final regular season event will take place on Louisiana’s Red River, which is less than two hours from her house. The wheels in her mind are already spinning.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” she explained. “It’s dead water on October 1st and then October 14th we’re back over there. But looking at my calendar, even with my commitments I should be able to get over there for two sets of three days without wearing myself out.”
If the chips fall right, she could find herself as only the second woman to fish in the Bassmaster Classic next year. It’s unclear whether a Carolina rig will play a role next February at Lay Lake, but if she’s there and if it’s a factor, you can be certain Judy will put her GYCB lizards to good use.