Lane: Elite power hitter

Chris Lane spent his time in the minors then toiled for several years in the big leagues, but now he’s found the juice and has become a feared power hitter on the Bassmaster Elite Series.

Lane is batting an impressive .300 in the past 10 regular season Elite events, with last month’s Sabine win completing a triple crown of victories. This week Lane has a home game on Lake Guntersville, where he moved his family five years ago. It was there that his life situation settled, where he developed other aspects of his game and regained his fishing mojo.

See photos of Chris Lane’s climb here.

“I’m blessed,” he said. “I think it was the move to Guntersville five years ago. There was a lot to be done, a lot of figuring out for me and Holly and the kids. We had to really buckle down, and I had to work a lot harder to make it in professional fishing.

“That’s when I started to feel it, when I started to feel the difference in being a fisherman and being a good fisherman – learning what it took to be one of those guys at the top. It’s not easy.”

Many believe his climb to one of the league leaders began with his 2012 Classic win, but it was the move from Florida to the Tennessee River impoundment in Alabama. He said the people of Guntersville made the transition easy as they embraced his family.

Lane, who started hot on the Elite Series in 2006, had fallen into a bit of a slump. So to catch back up, he had to work on his game. In Florida, where he learned to fish the shallow, vegetation-filled fisheries with his grandfather, father and brothers, he had always done well in events. Bassmaster TV analyst Mark Zona calls Lane the best at fishing grass.

But to succeed on the Elite Series, he had to learn new techniques and new lakes, and then better utilize his knowledge on the water. Lane admits that takes time, and all his experiences have come together to make him a complete player.

Early career

Lane began fishing Southern Opens with B.A.S.S. in 2003. He finally won his first event on Lake Okeechobee in 2006 in his 14th tournament. Two months later, he was in the bigs for the first Elite event, where he said the learning curve got sharper.

“You have to become versatile fishing against the best fishermen in the world,” he said. “In 2006, I was starstruck – I’m backing down the middle ramp at Lake Amistad and I have Rick Clunn and Denny Brauer on each side of me. I’m going ‘Holy smokes!’”

Yet that didn’t bother him. He was a first-year phenom, earning checks in five of 10 events. He did similarly well the next two seasons, then kind of lost his swing and went into a slump, cashing in only two events in 2009.

“So I enjoyed the first couple years, then really got my butt kicked in years three, four and five,” he said. “Then we moved to Guntersville. I love the people in Guntersville. I love the lake. It offers so much to a fisherman to become more versatile, from drop-shotting to top water, you name it, you can do it all here.”

Having his wife and four children thriving in the community allowed him to focus on his fishing, and he worked on becoming a more well-rounded angler. It was like he caught up to the pitching.

“It was the year before I won the Classic, finishing 12th in the points and really making a lot of checks,” he said. “I found what worked for me, and put my head down and worked as hard as I could.”

Moving on up

In 2011, Lane earned a check in six of the eight Elite events, then he won an Open a month before winning the Classic on the Red River out of Shreveport/Bossier City.

“I left it all to God,” he said. “I said I’m going to give it everything that I can, and I leave the rest to him.

“Winning the Classic, a three-day event, that was just life-changing, career-changing. It takes a little bit of stress off you, but then it’s added stress to not be a one-hit wonder.”

The 2012 season saw Lane cash in seven Elites, including a second-place finish on Okeechobee. When it appeared like he was slipping, his father, Robert Sr., who phones Chris and Bobby every tournament morning as they await Elite takeoffs, would give a tough-love pep talk.

“At Falcon Lake, I had two fish and was 91st after the first day,” Lane said. “He calls and says, ‘Dude, what are you doing? You’re a Bassmaster Classic winner. You need to go fish like it.’”

Five months later, Lane was holding his first Elite trophy after doing the unexpected and becoming the Sultan of Smallmouth by winning on Lake St. Clair.

“No. 1, to me, that was the biggest upset in the history of bass fishing tournaments ever on the face of the earth,” Zona said. “If there was totally a tournament not in the wheelhouse of Chris Lane – Chris Lane is the best on earth at fishing grass – but to see him out there in giant waves, in the mouth of Lake Huron, was so out of place.”

Lane had previous good tournaments in northern fisheries, but this was different. It showed him he could sweep a four-game series, hit one out of the park anywhere.

“After winning my first Elite event, I think that it really was a turning point in my mind, because I had finished second, I finished third, fifth,” he said. “The question in my mind was, ‘Can Chris Lane win a four-day tournament?’ Once I did, it was like, ‘Man, I can do it, now let’s give it everything I’ve got.”

Wait a second. You hadn’t been giving your all?

“Yep … not giving it everything I had the right way,” he said. “Not staying out till dark because you felt you had to, but staying out to dark and actually working on becoming a better fisherman, giving yourself a better chance on that body of water.”

Angler of the Year

With the 2012 world champion title, his next great feat would be MVP. He said it’s way too early to consider a Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year (AOY) run, but the Sabine victory sure is a nice way to start the season.

“It hasn’t crossed my mind,” he said. “AOY is always sitting there in the corner of your mind when you’re leading and you see your picture up there, but it’s so early in the year.

“What I’m focused on is leaving everything on the water, to not let off the gas, to not have an event where I came in three hours early on a practice day because I was tired, or I was comfortable being in first second, third, fourth in AOY.”

The Elite schedule sets up well for him now, whereas before tough road trips like Kentucky Lake might have gotten into his head.

“I’ve never cashed a check as many times as we’ve been there, but we are going there at a prime time,” he said. “I like to read my graph now. I like to throw a crankbait on a ledge, because it’s the Tennessee River just like Guntersville. I learned so much on Guntersville that I can take with me and drop it right on Kentucky Lake. I look forward to that event now, instead of, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve never been paid there, 95th, 93rd.’ I’m excited about it now.”

Guntersville, which he said will be a smashfest, is an event that concerns him. He wants to defend his home field well, and he admits he’ll have to do better than his recent finishes. He was 36th in the 2014 Classic there and 40th in the 2010 Elite and 91st in the 2009 Elite.

“Not so hot at all,” he admitted. “One of the reasons I moved here is because I did so well here, prior to the Elite Series.

“Fishing the way that I was fishing five years ago to the way I’m fishing now is completely different. I’m not going to say that I’m going to catch them any better, but I’m going to try not to make the same mistakes I did in the Classic and other two Elites here.”

Lane’s seven B.A.S.S. titles put him among the current league leaders, and he hopes to stay hot. Anglers talk about confidence and momentum in fishing, and that’s something Lane certainly possesses.

Chris Lane has become a threat to knock it out of the ballpark any time he steps up to the plate.