Why did he come outta nowhere – aka Erie, PA? 😁 Because he hadn’t fished at all since putting the boat in the driveway after the last MLF Bass Pro Tour tourney last year! More on that later, but the bottom line is – he’s still got it. Here’s how this one went down – and he’s got 2 checks because he won the tourney and big bass.
Going in
> “Going into it…I hadn’t prepared or anything. I hadn’t done any research, hadn’t been in my boat. I just completely got away from it [after not requalifying]…all the baits from Stage 7 last year were still tied on til 2 days before I left for FL.
> “It was on the radar but…spiritual warfare and the battle I’ve been going through for years. I can’t really explain it, but if this is what God was saving for this chapter, for the end – I was just aware of it.
> “I thought about it – like how cool it would be to go out this way…because what has been happening is unexplainable. Like things that seemed off – like God why would you do this to me. But I just kept the faith and smacked that kind of attitude down when I thought about it.
> “In the heat of the moment those were the things I thought. Like why did I have this random thought to run on Cayuga 60 miles to go to a place, to come from last to finish 21st [and] just miss the cut – someone beat me at the last second. Stuff like that, non-stop story after story….
> “So I thought about an ending like this and how it could be. But I’ve thought that before.”
His experience at Orange Lake, FL:
> “We fished a Team Series there, I think maybe in 2024. Me, Brent Chapman and Alton Jones fished that together and we did really well…qualified for the final round.
> “…over the last 23 years, Glenn Browne was a buddy of mine and whenever I had a layover [after the first event of the season, before the next one], I would stay at his house and that was his favorite lake. We went there more than anywhere.
> “But it’s like an oversized pond and I never thought we’d ever go there in a tournament. I couldn’t remember a single place we went, but I remember how we fished. Glenn taught me how to fish in FL….
> “I knew what not to waste my time doing, and I knew it was solid hydrilla mats everywhere.
> “I was going to spend practice not running at all…put the trolling motor down and find the exit route for all the spawners on the south end of the lake. The south end is the marshy end – it has lot of rivers and backwaters and also the bay…. I felt like 80% of the bass population on that lake spawned on the south end somewhere.
> “It was a needle in haystack type of thing.”
Practice and bait selection
> “I didn’t do well in practice. The 1st day I had 4 big ones and probably 10 fish…4 between 4.5 and 5.5, and they were all in the same general area. 3 of them in were 1 200-yard stretch, and another scoreable was in another 200-yard stretch….
> “Other than 1 random bite out in the middle, I had [scoreable] bites out of 2 areas. And they looked identical looked like. …little openings or troughs in the grass where you could actually use the trolling motor without getting bound up in that hydrilla…a little deeper – 3′ in the middle and 2.5′ on the sides [and not hard bottom].
> “I had horrible 2nd day of practice, which made me know I had to [stick with those 2 areas] in the tournament. I caught 1 bass staying away from those 2 areas.
> “In practice I saw multiple giant fish just blow up randomly, like all over the place,…couldn’t get any of them to bite. From doing this forever, I felt like I had to get a reaction bite.
> “Sometimes I saw big gizzards and bluegills jumping out of the water, like porpoising away from these fish. So I was convinced…I had to use something kinda white [and] had to be super erratic with it.
> “…reel as fast as I could, pop it out of the water, land it on a mat and it off. The first time doing it I caught a 5.5….”
Tournament
> “I’d done [that technique] before in other places, but the problem was on day 1 of the tournament it was generating bites, but that technique also generates misses. I missed 8-9 fish and a couple were 8-lb class fish. But that was the only way I got bites in practice.
> “After day 1 on the day off, I knew I needed to do FL staple stuff. I know ChatterBaits are the deal…and a swim-jig. I figured I’d tie on 5 ChatterBaits – gold, b/b, gp, a watermelony one – a bunch of ’em and I was going to try slowing down….
> “I felt like I was in the winning area and I sucked [on day 1].
> “I slowed down on the 2nd day. I went in there with the white stuff and didn’t get a bite. I tried the different colors, didn’t get anything. I left and got all helter-skelter…had to find new fish….
> “In the 2nd period I slapped myself back into reality…go back to where I got the bites, and just figured it out. And it turned out to be the b/b ChatterBait, fishing it on the bottom like a worm – super slow around those clumps, kind of fluffing it beside them.
> “In only took 1 bite…a 5-lber to give me confidence. Then I caught an 8-03.
> “I fished the same areas [the rest of the tourney]. I never even thought about going anywhere else. I had some long dry spells, but it seemed like when I was having a dry spell, everyone else was too.”
Baits
> 3/8-oz Z-Man JackHammer – “As slow as I could do it. I had a 1/2-oz rigged, but that [3/8] was the deal. [It made him fish slower], not to mention I had bites on the fall too. In 3′ of water [that 1/8-oz] is a big difference.
> Trailer – “The first couple days it was ‘sapphire blue’ [Zoom] Speed Craw, then I ran out of those…bought some generic [Speed Craws of the same color] from Bass Pro Shops.
> “I was throwing it and letting it fall…pull it up, get the blade to vibrate and let it sink again…just like I was fishing a jig.
> “I started getting bites out in open water. The last 3 were in the open water. I was reeling it slower, then you’d get grass on it and had to snap it off. …try to keep contact with the bottom…as slow as I could fish it.
> 7′ 4″ MH rod, 8:1 reel, 20-lb Gamma Fluoro.
> Line was key – “I was using 16 the first 2 days, then switched to 20. I think fluoro is part of the reason I won. That braid is just noisier, even with a ChatterBait. I’ve done actual tests with it – me and buddy fish the exact same bait, one with 50-lb braid and one with fluoro, and he can’t get a bite on the braid and I’ll catch 100. It’s that obvious.
> “I know guys were catching them on a ChatterBait with braid…if they switched to fluoro on the last day they would’ve beat me.”
Electronics
He used Lowrance:
> “The half a foot or even 4” of difference shows up on there. I use Lowrance and it’s really good about seeing in 3′ of water.
> “That’s the reason I used to use a flasher – all that fancy stuff never read that shallow. But things have changed. I could see 2.6 and 3.1 – it wasn’t 3.1′ everywhere, so…being able to read that shallow [was key].
> “I set my range at 8′ and it was giving me a really clear reading even in the thickest hydrilla.
> “I wasn’t using FFS or anything like that.”
Shoutouts
> “Bass Day Ever was a new sponsor I picked up in the middle of the season last year. They make apparel and do some [other] stuff. I got on board with them, and…with 3 tournaments left to go, my title sponsor had a problem…nothing bad, they are great friends of mine.
> “So I checked with some other sponsors to see what I could do…and those guys came through for me. Without them I couldn’t have finished the year to catch those last 3 big bass to get me in [to Heavy Hitters] so that was huge.
> “…Lowrance and Power-Pole…Fishing Online, and Solar Bat sunglasses…and Phoenix Campers.
> “And God. Dude, I was a vessel just going through the motions. Watching it back…it’s just not possible, what happened – for the other guys and me and everybody. I didn’t do any of that. I just had to be there going through the motions.”
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