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By: Larry Larsen

The roar from upcoming rapids was building. I ignored it and lofted a long cast across the river toward a small pocket between two giant, car-sized boulders. I started the retrieve of my tube bait and made one turn before a smallie socked it, jerking my light casting rod downward to bounce off our inflatable raft.

As the fish took to the air, I put the pressure on the bass to bring it into the raft before starting down the next rapid. The 2-pounder didn’t want to give up easily, so the battle went on for another 30 seconds. We drifted closer to the massive, tumbling rapid just below us as the pace of the current picked up.

“Hurry up and get him in the boat; you have to put on your life jacket for this one,” my guide, “Squirrel” Hager yelled. “You may also want your rain suit because you will get wet here. I’ll try to keep you dry, but these are the Keeneys.”

I looked up in time to see 5-foot-high, white-capped waves forming ahead of the raft. The flat river stretch was turning into the famous whitewater for which it is known. The Keeneys on West Virginia’s New River are three successive Class IV and V rapids at the bottom of a 1,000-foot gorge that offer a challenge to serious whitewater rafting aficionados. I had seen them before while on one of outfitter Class VI’s paddling trips.

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By: Kevin VanDam

Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo, Michigan, one of the best bass fishermen in the world, won the 2010 Bassmaster Classic on Lay Lake near Birmingham, Alabama, in February, 2010, after winning the 2009 BASS Angler-of-the-Year title in September, 2009.

How I Decided On Beeswax Creek
I’d already fished two Classics on Lay Lake, one Classic in 2007 that was held at the same time of year as the 2010 Classic; I actually finished 3rd in 2007 by fishing Beeswax Creek. I knew that in February, cold and warm fronts would move in and out, and water levels on Lay Lake would fluctuate and change. I wanted to be as current as possible with the information I gathered during the official practice days just before the 2010 Classic started.

I knew the lake had been high, muddy and really cold in the weeks prior to the Classic. Those conditions were the same ones I found during the official practice days just before the Classic began. I also knew that the spotted bass in Lay Lake didn’t like cold, muddy water and would be really hard to catch. Therefore, I decided to focus my efforts on trying to catch largemouth bass.

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By: Larry Larsen

I was in a highly competitive race for Angler of the Year in my bass club with just one event left. Our group of 48 anglers had drawn for partners two weeks out, and there was no off-limits time. That was good, because very few in our club had ever heard of Central Florida lakes Mary Jane and Hart, let alone fished them. The sister lakes lying in the middle of the likes of Kissimmee, East and West Lake Tohopekaliga and the St. Johns River received no acclaim.

There were no marinas on the lakes to promote them, and the waters were far from any major highway. They had a sizable total of around 3,000 surface acres, and all of it was unknown to my partner and I. That’s a lot of water to cover, so we had to eliminate bunches of it to find the prime bass spots. We should visit the waters the weekend before the tournament to do some on-the-water investigation, my partner and I reasoned.

When we arrived for that practice day, we were met with one irregular, grass-lined body of water (Mary Jane) connected to a deep, circular lake (Hart) lined with bulrushes. Upon close inspection, I noticed that the height of the rushes varied as I inspected the perimeter of Lake Hart. Motoring around the lake with depth finder flashing, I also noticed a slightly deeper drop at the edge to the taller rushes. Fish moving about within those plant beds and bumping the stalks made those places ideal to start our “practice.”

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