Christie: Hard times on Lake Hartwell

Looking back, maybe I should’ve done something different, but I felt confident that this was how I had the best chance to win.

I always say you don’t fish for points in the Bassmaster Classic; you fish to win. Well, that’s what I did – I fished the pattern that I thought held the most potential for me to win.

I devoted almost my entire tournament to fishing shallow docks. That’s where I found the most consistency in practice and, although I had a big bag on Day 2, I struggled the first and third days.

I think a lot of guys who fished shallow had similar results. It was just hard to be consistent for three days in a row.

I knew that going in. When we arrived at Lake Hartwell for the first three days of practice, the water was warmer and the fish were biting.

I kind of got lured into that trap. I thought my chances of winning were better shallow than deep. I just think the changes in the weather between practice and the tournament made a difference.

Practice was totally different conditions than what we had in the tournament. We had sun and calm the first three days of practice, but the first day of the Classic was brutally cold. I was still breaking ice off my rod at the end of the day. The night before got down to about 10 degrees so that knocked the fish in the head a little bit.

On Day 1, I did a little offshore fishing over some brush at the mouth of the Tugaloo River where I caught one fish on a 3/4-ounce Booyah jig with a green pumpkin Christie Craw. I spent most of the day in a creek near the mouth of the river flipping docks with a 1/2-ounce jig.

I lost a good one on a dock and that hurt me. I only had four bites all day and I boated three.

On that first day, we had a shorter time to fish. Plus with the extreme cold, I knew it wasn’t going to be fast and furious, so I decided not to go to my best spot. I had another spot where I thought I could catch a limit, but it just didn’t work out.

The second day, I started offshore over a brush pile in 30 feet at the mouth of the Tugaloo River. When that spot didn’t produce, I ran up to my main spot past the Interstate 85 bridge and focused on flipping docks.

The weight was better that second day, but I only got six bites.

I knew I was playing with fire because I was getting more bites in practice. It was warmer before the Classic, but I thought that most of those fish were residents.

As I learned, that’s not the case on Hartwell. Those move around each day. I think it’s just the personality of the fish that grow up chasing blueback herring. I think they just get used to running around and looking for something to eat.

Also, in practice we had good sunshine and the fish positioned well under docks. But once we started getting cloudy skies, they had no real advantage in being under the docks. So they got out in those drains and ran around chasing herring.

On Day 3, I knew I needed a big bag, so I went back to the river and spent the first couple of hours throwing a jerkbait and a crankbait, but I couldn’t get bit on either of those.

I spent the rest of the day fishing docks, but I only got two bites and didn’t get the first one until 1 o’clock. It was still cold and we had more cloud cover, but I also think I just didn’t come across the right docks.

Looking back, maybe I should’ve done something different, but I felt confident that this was how I had the best chance to win.

You want to leave your options open, but I didn’t want to switch because I saw the potential that was there. I had a couple places where I thought I could go catch some spotted bass, but those won’t do you any good.

Naturally, I would like to have finished higher than 24th, but I fished to win and you can’t have any regrets about that.

Overall, I still greatly enjoyed my time at the Classic. I’m still learning how to manage this event. It’s different than a regular-season event, but all of the show and excitement that goes along with the competition makes it a great experience.

I want to congratulate Casey Ashley for winning the Classic. A lot of people said he was supposed to win because that’s his home lake, but that doesn’t matter as much as people might think. With that much competition, you have to be able to catch ‘em for three days and Casey did a good job.