Upper Niangua and Ha Ha Tonka State Park, rocky banks, shallow flats and shallow docks.

After a week of practicing a few days in the upper Niangua for the tournament today, Ben and I decided to make the run from PB2 to that area to fish. During the practice days I was getting bit rather consistently on the bottom in shallow water around wood and brush, also had a stick bait bite a week ago in the same area. Similar to my practice days, the fish were biting but we just could not get bigger bites from keeper bass. Our best stretch of bites including one keeper was in Ha Ha Tonka along a row of about 10 docks, the fish there were biting rather consistently. Tournament fishing is so much about decision making and today I made some poor decisions. The main stretch by the Hwy 54 bridge produced the most bites and best bites during practice. Today the wind was blowing pretty strong on these banks which made it difficult for us to get bit on the bottom to work and feel the bait as needed. What would I have done differently in retrospect? Two decisions would have provided us a better chance at bigger bites, the first, we should have worked that stretch of docks several times as the fish were there and biting and second, we should have worked that stretch by the bridge slower and multiple times with jerkbait and spinner bait. The tournament was primarily won on the jerk bait and jig with most of the fish being caught shallow. The winning bag was 24 pounds, followed by 20 pounds and several 15-17 pound bags the last check was for a 12 pound bag.