How Chris Johnston caught ’em to win the Santee Elite

Believe it or not, Chris’ 1st Elite win – that first Canadian Elite win – was 6 years ago, on the St Lawrence. Since then he’s had 4 2nds before smashing his 2nd 1st: As you probably know, Chris had 2 30+ days and beat Brandon Palaniuk by a solid Santee limit: 19-12. Insane!

After winning AOY last year, Chris had not been tearing it up this year until this tourney. Hs best finish was a 12th and he was coming off a 75th at Murray. Just goes to show again – never count a Johnston out! Here’s how he won this time – and remember it was a no-FFS tourney.

Going in and practice

> “Going into practice I hadn’t seen the lake in a couple years. I knew there was a lot of grass and thought it’d be won out of the grass somewhere. So I was really gonna focus on the grass.

> “I knew there might be a few spawners, but you wouldn’t be able to win on spawners that time of year.

> “That’s how I started my practice in the bottom lake, just fishing grass. I had 1 4-lber, a 3, a couple little ones – it wasn’t very good for me.

> “…just happened to be some docks in front of me, and I thought, I’m gonna go try those docks, do something a little different. The first dock I threw a Coike at, I caught a 4-lber. I went down 2 docks and shook off a 5-6 lber. …alright there’s something to this.

> “I fished 10 more in that are, had 2 more bites. That’s when I clued in like, it’s a bit of a deal here. So I ran every dock I could the rest of that day…clear water so I could see a lot of them, and they were all 3-4 lbs for the most part, with 1 big one.

> “Day 2 [of practice] I ran a similar pattern – cypress knees and docks and stuff – in the upper lake, Marion. I probably had 20-25 bites that day, and on Santee Cooper if you can catch 10-15 bass a day you’ll get a couple good bites.

> “I couldn’t see them [in Marion], and on that Coike, when you get a bite…they drop it really quick when you’re shaking them off. It’s not a like a jig or wacky rig…as soon as they bite it almost, they drop it. So I thought a lot were smaller ones with a coupel decent fish.

> “I thought if I could mix in some grass with that dock pattern, it might be the winning deal.

> “I wanted a secondary deal [the grass]…I looked for more grass and stuff but I couldn’t find it.”

Tournament

> “Day 1 I went to the bottom of the lake and it didn’t really work out. I had 2 3.75s so I went to the top lake, caught 3 over 4 lbs and saved the fist day.

> “The 2nd day [he decided to] fish the stuff where I had 20 bites day 2 of practice. By 8:00 in the morning I had 27 lbs, so they were a little bigger than I thought.

> “…not going to beat up on other stuff where I shook fish off, so I fished new water. Any docks that fit the pattern. Basically every stretch I went to, I got a big one. The next spot I caught a 5, another stretch I caught an 8 and a 5.75. That’s how I got up to the 30-lb mark.

[Days 2 and 3 he basically practiced – where he caught one, he tried to expand his dock deal. He was saving his bet stretches for day 4. Day 4 he planned to start on some stretches he’d fished, then head to his juice.]

> “I thought some of my main-river docks were running out and not replenishing. So I thought, I’m gonna fish them pretty quick, then I want to spend the last 4 hours in some more popular creeks that have a better population of fish.

> “Turns out…I ended up catching quite a few big ones again on the main river so I didn’t even make it down to where I wanted to go til 1:00. I lost a 5.5, caught a couple 4s that didn’t help and caught a 6.

> “I didn’t even get to fish all the stuff I wanted to…everywhere I went I was getting bites.”

The docks and the Coike

> “[The right docks] had to be 3-10′ of water. If it was an isolated dock or it stuck out more – or it had a little deeper water on a stretch – those were the higher-percentage ones.

> “They were typically on the outside of the dock under the big platform with the most shade.

> “If it wasn’t for that Coike, I wouldn’t have caught those giant fish off those docks. [Without it] I feel like I might have caught 1 of every 10 of those big fish.

> “It was the first thing I picked up when I went to a dock [in practice]. I had it rigged up…to try it on some different stuff on Santee [like docks].

> “Obviously knowing it works on LiveScope, I wanted to try it blind. I’m not an expert at it by any means….”

> “I feel like the Coike is the next thing – like the Senko and the A-rig. Big ones are curious…these fish we were catching were big post-spawn females, and they don’t eat a lot of baits this time of year….”

Baits

> HideUp Coike Fullcast – “I was literally begging and trying to get some baits however I could. I ended up paying $120 a pop to get some overnighted after practice ended. I had to bum 1-2 off some Elite guys. It was whatever I could get my hands on so I caught ’em on a variety of colors. I was trying to get more natural ones – red scuppernong, gp, watermelon red flake….”

> 1/0 Gamakatsu EWG Treble, 1/8-oz nail weight, 22-lb Seaguar Tatsu Fluoro (“I upped it after the 1st day of the tournament”), Daiwa Tatula SV Reel (8:1), 7′ 3″ MH Daiwa Tatula Elite Multipurpose Rod.

> “I was pretending like I was watching it on LiveScope. I’d work it in the same way, I was just doing it blind.

> “It was basically almost like a jerkbait. I learned this from watching it on LiveScope. Jerk it once, that gets their attention. Then you jerk it again and they get curious. Then if you do a quick jerk that gets them fired up…that’s when they eat it.”

Electronics

> “I used the Garmin depth-shading and I could see the docks on the Garmin mapping. That was huge for me. I looked at them the night before the tournament – I picked out areas before I even went out fishing the next day.

> “The Power-Poles and the Move were key. I would go on high around a dock once I was done fishing it, go to the side of the next dock…stick the Poles down…make 2-3 casts on the side of the dock, put the Poles up, put the trolling motor on 100 [to the next dock].”

Shoutouts

> “…that HideUp Coike Fullcast. Seaguar Tatsu line – I got some fish I thought I shouldn’t have got in – wrapped around 3-4 poles, jumping 10′ to the side from where my line was. My equipment performed flawlessly.”