How Hank Cherry got the win at a cold Guntersville

Well, take the FFS out and make the water cold, and you’ve got your recipe for a cherry pie and for that matter a whole meal! 😁 Here’s how your back to back Classic champ caught ’em, and I bet you know already – shockingly it wasn’t with a jerkbait!

Going in and practice

> “I thought it’d be tough and the water would be cold but it’s Guntersville. So my first inclination was to try to find jerkbait fish in an area then expand it to grass to hopefully find some in the grass.

> “I did that, it just didn’t transpire the way I thought….

> “So the 3rd day of practice I put in at Alred’s and I saw the birds working out in front of me.  So I idled out about 500 yards, put the boat down. I had 1 follow the jerkbait up, another one bump it and not get it.

> “I had the grub in the boat and was like, Let me just check. I made a cast and caught a 5-lber. Couple casts later I caught a 4-lber – within 15 minutes I had like 22 lbs.

> “I had [the grub] tied up in the box. It’s just a staple of mine anywhere I go in the country when the water’s that cold. I’ve thrown it a couple times throughout the years.”

Tournament

> “The 1st day I caught everything on a ChatterBait because I couldn’t cast the grub without my eyes freezing up, and that was messing up the presentation. Between trying to do that and the jerkbait, it was wigging me out because I couldn’t feel my bait, and I’m not effective if I can’t feel it.

> “I had a 3/8-oz ChatterBait JackHammer [gp shad] with a BassMooch Shovel Tail [TN shad] on it. I was fishing just hydrilla. I would have maybe a 30-40 yard stretch inside the grass where it was. [Bottom depth was] maybe 3′. …just as slow as I could tick the top of the grass.”

> “Day 2 I went right back to where I started…gotta see if they’re there. I pulled up and caught like a 4-lber on a jerkbait, then I had 2 more foul it up. As soon as they fouled it up, I told my marshal…’I know what to do.’ I picked my grub up and never picked up another rod the rest of the day.

> “I was paying attention to suspended fish…and bait on the down scan. When I figured out where points on the grass stuck out a little further, that’s where the bait would suspend and the fish were somewhere around that area.

> “Day 3 was 1 rod the whole day. Same exact area, I just expanded. I turned it from a 300-yard stretch to about a 900-yard stretch.

> “I never saw another competitor fishing there the whole time. …I just started getting in a rhythm and feeling it. When I really started catching ’em, I might catch 10-15 on consecutive casts.

> “The 2nd, 3rd and 4th days I probably caught 50-70 bass each day – and I had a couple jigheads pretty much straightened out from fish I couldn’t move.

> “…only thing I did different day 4 was I had been leaving about 10:30 – I stayed til about 1:00. Which produced 2 more 5.5-lbers.”

> Why he was leaving early: “I just had in my head that I needed to check some of that grass up the lake and I was going to catch a bigger fish. I was looking for a 7-lber. Just what we always do – we’re always second-guessing.”

Baits

> 3″ hand-poured grub (chart/silver flake) – “It is hand-poured, that bag of baits was old” – on 1/8 and 1/16 darter heads a 2/0 hook, 10-lb Xhing Fluoro, Seviin GF Reel (8:1), 6′ 10″ ML Level NGX Rod.

> BassMooch HC115 Jerkbait (Table Rock shad – comes standard with #5 BKK trebles which he leaves on), same rod, reel and line except 12-lb fluoro.

> “The jerkbait was instrumental. [Day 4] afternoon when I came running back up, there’s a bluff right outside of takeoff on the main channel. I pulled up there and caught a 5-lber on it with like 10 minutes to go.

> “The jerkbait was definitely the locator but the grub mopped up the fish.”

> Why the loud chartreuse colors: “When the water’s cold, I like chartreuse. …they’re attracted to that chartreuse color when the water’s cold.”

Electronics (non-FFS)

He was using Garmin down scan.

Shoutouts

> “I always give credit to the Big Guy upstairs for looking after us.

> “I trolled so much and Monster Marine is a new sponsor of mine…the battery power I had was incredible.”