Swindle & partner make key adjustment

Third place finishers Elliott Gault of Leesburg and James Swindle of Parrish weighed 28.52 pounds to earn $6,000, overcoming a practice setback that forced them to adjust quickly. A productive area found late in practice turned muddy overnight following rain runoff, leaving them to begin tournament morning on water they had not practiced. They started around grass using a lipless crankbait to secure an early limit before recognizing a key change in conditions. As the sun climbed, bass positioned beneath shallow docks, and the pair switched to a green pumpkin Backwoods Custom Jig, flipping shaded cover during the strongest feeding window of the day. Between roughly 12:30 and 1:30 p.m., nearly every flip produced quality bites.

“Every time we flipped, it was a big one,” Gault said. The surge included a 7.45 pound largemouth, pushing them into the top three.