REDDING, Calif. — Saving the best until last often makes for a stressful day, but the wait ended triumphantly for APEX Cup angler Nick Wood of Little Shasta, Calif. whose three-day total of 36.06 pounds topped the Wild West Bass Trail Superclean Showdown on Shasta Lake presented by Bridge Bay at Shasta Lake and Phil’s Propellers.
After placing third on Day 1 with 12.13, Wood added 11.99 and took over the Day-2 lead. The Championship round found him posting the day’s heaviest bag — a limit of 11.94 that gave him a winning margin of 2.4 over Cody Meyer. Wood anchored his final bag with a 4.41-pound spotted bass that sealed the deal.
“I caught that big one at 2:30 and thought to myself, that might have done it,” Wood said.
All three days, Wood fished the Sacramento River Arm, where he focused on a bait-laden spot. With chilly snow melt running into the area and creating a thermocline, he targeted a steep rock bluff wall in 40 feet.
“There’s a gut next to that wall that holds bait,” Wood said. “That was the key area — the spot on the spot.”
Same as the first two days, Wood caught his fish on a 4-inch Keitech Swing Impact in Tennessee shad on a custom dart head. In the earlier hours, he caught suspended fish on a cast-and-retrieve presentation, but once the sun rose high in the sky, the bait sunk lower in the clear water and the fish followed.
“Once the fish sunk to the bottom...
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