"I saw this bait at ICast and knew it would be the perfect topwater bait for smallmouth," explained Howell. He was right, over the past two days Howell has put over 30 fish in the boat with the Punitor 85 bait from Molix.
Howell is fishing weed-lines in several areas on Oneida targeting schooling three to four pound class smallmouth. Howell said, "There aren't a lot of four pound smallmouth in Oneida, but there are plenty in the mid three pound class. Those are the fish I have been targeting and helped me make the final day cut."
Alternating between the Blue Gill and Silver Bait color has been successful for Howell. "The Blue Gill color really looks like the Perch here on Lake Oneida and the Silver Bait resembles almost any bait fish."
Howell is also using a new product from the Gary Yamamoto Bait Company bait company called the D-Shad. "When a fish slashes at the Punitor and misses I'll immediately follow up with the D-Shad in Smoke Shad color. The D-Shad is a soft rip bait style bait. It's salted like a Yamamoto Senko, so long casts to a target are really easy. Then it falls with a Yamamoto Senko style shimmy. A couple twitches and it's on!"
Heading into the final day Howell is less than two pounds behind second place behind current second place angler Michael Simonton. Leading the way heading into the final day is Ish Monroe. Howell trails Monroe by five pounds five ounces. "I'll need Ish to struggle tomorrow to have a real shot at winning and Ish is a proven winner so its a long shot. I am going to go out there tomorrow and throw the Molix Punitor and the Yamamoto D-Shad until my arms are sore. This is fishing, so anything can happen."