How Dylan Nutt smashed ’em to win the Classic

Who is Dylan Nutt? Half the Nutt brothers who have been tearing up Southeast tourneys. Of course Dylan won the Classic, and his brother was half the team that won the College Classic. Amazing.

Here’s the deets on how Dylan won the Big Show – it started with a solid month of pre-practice, which is not unusual for these college-age guys for pretty much any tournament.

Going in and practice

> “…I spent a ton of time up here pre-practicing and I caught a lot of fish…had some really good days. I kinda had a gameplan going from then.

> “A lot of the places I was catching fish then I was catching fish in practice. I had a pretty good gameplan going.

> “It was an area of the lake I liked better than the rest. It seemed to have bigger fish in it. I just hunkered down in that area and grinded it out.

> “It just seemed like it had a lot more habitat and spawning areas – a lot more spawning flats in that one area.

> “The rest of the lake is just kind of like a river. It seemed like you could find some good smallmouth in those areas but the largemouth weren’t as prevalent. You could catch plenty of largemouth there but they were small – 2-lbers.”

When it rained a ton the night before the tournament:

> “I was very worried if the water was going to get dirty in some of my main areas. I did have 1 area I was never able to fish because the water got so dirty in there. If I would’ve been able to fish in there I would’ve had a really big bag. I would’ve maybe been able to back up that day 2 on the last day.

> “…the rest of them stayed pretty clean and made it good for me.

> “I just feel so blessed.”

Tournament

> “Day 1 I caught them right off the rip off some flats. I had about 18 lbs pretty quick. BASSTrakk had me about 16 but I was sandbagging a little bit.

> “I caught a ton of fish that 1st day, but after [the early bite] I didn’t get many good bites til late in the afternoon…pretty good lull that first day.

> “…11:00 til 1:00 I didn’t catch much and I made an adjustment…went back after some smallmouth and ended up culling up to that 19 lbs.”

He said that area was bars in 1.5-8′ with brushpiles, stumps and “little rough spots where they’d be sitting,” all current-related.

> “Day 2 I had a really slow start. I started in the same area and had about 12-13 lbs at 10:00. I went to a couple stretches where I’d been catching smallmouth, and from 10:00 to 11:00 I caught 20 lbs of smallmouth. I really caught the crap out of them in that 1 hour of fishing.”

Those were mostly floaters off steeper banks, laydowns and docks:

> “It was a deal I’d gotten on the first day of practice – catching some fish that were floating, swimming up and down the bank. Day 1 I didn’t catch any that were swimming. …that cold night I think tucked them to the bottom. It got warm again and they started swimming around.

> “Then after that…I knew I needed to go and try to find some big largemouth. I went into an area that had a lot of flats in it – a lot of rock and structure in that creek – and I went in there caught a 4.25 right off the rip. A smallmouth….then I just trashed ’em for the rest of the day.

>”…several over 4, I caught a 5, a 6.25 and a 6.75…on one single rock. It looked like quite a few more big ones were down there – I’m talking 6-8 lbers. My second cast I had some huge ones follow me – like an 8-lber. My third cast, the smallest one in the group comes up and eats. It was  a 6.25, which put me at 26-11. Then got a little tough on me for the last hour.”

Several guys were in that same bay including Drew Cook, Patrick Walters and I think Yui Aoki.

> “Day 3 I started right off the rip targeting smallmouth on those steeper banks. My second cast I catch a 2.75 and my 4th cast was a 4.75. I had 19 lbs pretty quick….

> “I went back to my largemouth area and went 3-3.5 hours without catching a good fish. So then I went back smallmouthin’ and caught quite a few nice ones in the last 2 hours of the tournament.

> “I lost 1 pretty big one, then 2 casts later I caught a 4.25. Then I went somewhere else and caught another 4-lber and…another 4.25. They were on the bottom – one of them was floating.

> “I was very calm and collected. God had me very calm all week. I knew that whatever was gonna happen was meant to be. I wasn’t very stressed out or anything. …very calm this week that I’ve never really felt in a bass fishing tournament.

> “I give all the credit to God – He kept me so calm.”

He said that once he caught ’em he knew Drew Cook would have to catch like 25 and Easton Fothergill would need 27. But either way he wasn’t stressed about it.

Baits

> Not yet released 6.5″ Berkley Lab Series Minnow (shad color) on a 3/16-oz tungsten jighead with a 3/0 hook, 8-lb Berkley X5 Braid (crystal/white) to 15-lb Berkley GinClear Fluoro, Abu Zenon X Spin Reel (3000), 6′ 10″ ML Abu Fantasista X Spin Rod.

> “I definitely think [that Lab Series bait] made ’em hang on longer and probably made me get some more bites…. I definitely noticed that as soon as I rigged one up I got a bite pretty quickly….”

> Why that rod: “It’s got the perfect action as far as using a jighead minnow. I’ve played with some of the other rods that they make…. The Fantasista 6 10 ML has such a good taper to it. Some of the other ones are lighter on the tip and are good for some lighter minnows, but for the minnow I was throwing, that Fantasista has the perfect action.”

[I don’t see the 6′ 10″ ML available on TW but it is on the Abu site here.]

Electronics

> “I was using a Garmin 8616 with LiveScope…34 transducer.

> “I had a Lowrance up front for my mapping [and] side scan. My Lowrance at the console was really important in pre-practice because I was doing a lot of scanning…I would mark some rocks or a brushpile or something like that in pre-practice.”

Shoutouts

> “I want to give a huge shoutout to all my family and all my friends who showed up, and everybody watching at home. I haven’t even begun to start looking at all the text messages I’ve gotten. I need about a week just to sort through them.

> “And all my sponsors – I wouldn’t be able to do it without all of them.

> “…a huge shoutout to the Morgans. My buddy Jackson – his mom let me stay at her house for that whole month I was up here as well as practice. She made things very easy for me…. They’re great people and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.”