These six men earned a trip to the 2012 Bassmaster Classic because of their excellent showing at the B.A.S.S. Federation Nation Championship presented by Yamaha and Skeeter, Nov. 3-5. From left, top row, are Matt McCoy, Tom Jessop and Josh Polfer; first row, John Diaco, Jamie Horton and Chris Price.
Jamie Horton - Southern Division
Jamie Horton won the overall title at the BFNC by targeting bass in the spillway in a bayou on the Ouachita River. The 44-year-old angler was representing the Southern Division. He’s a member of the River Region Bass Fraternity in Alabama.
Horton put together a strategy that would produce a three-day catch of 15 bass weighing 36 pounds, 2 ounces, based on solid predictions about the weather and winds, 15- to 20-mph winds out of the northwest. He banked on the wind pushing the water over the dam and filling the spillway with current.
Horton won his first BFNC overall title Nov. 5, but he has won his division there before. The previous win sent him to the 2002 Bassmaster Classic, where he finished in 40th place.
John Diaco - Eastern Division
John Diaco, 39, of Rochester, N.H., won the Eastern Division for his home state. Diaco hails from Lakes Region club and is a manufacturing engineer by trade.
Diaco usually flips to laydowns back home in New Hampshire, but the bass hanging around the felled trees along the banks of D’Arbonne Bayou ignored his offerings. “They just don’t eat that stuff here,” he said. “I don’t throw a spinnerbait or crankbait back home.” But those are the lures he had to rely on in the bayou to trigger strikes.
“I just went from tree to tree to tree,” said Diaco, who caught most of his fish on the spinnerbait the first day. “I really had to thump it up against the stuff to get the fish to react to it. Then when they stopped hitting that, I started throwing a crankbait into the trees. I did the same thing every day; I just had to change the baits and change the way I was fishing them.”
Josh Polfer - Western Division
Josh Polfer, 28, won the Western Division for Idaho, the same state that sent Brandon Palaniuk to the BFNC last year. Competing in his first BFNC, Polfer caught all of his fish from a couple of offshore humps (14 to 25 feet deep) with deep-diving crankbaits, a Carolina rig and a jig.
“I had two baits that worked really well for me — a Dry Creek Money Grub and a 6-inch Kamikaze Finesse Worm — on the Carolina rig,” said Josh Polfer, a member of the Payette River Bassmasters and president of the Idaho B.A.S.S. Federation Nation. “I found [the humps] in practice but didn’t go to them the first day.”
The second competition day, Polfer went to one of his spots to catch his limit, and the last day he camped on those spots to bring in another limit.
Tom Jessop - Ccentral Division
Four-time BFNC qualifier Tom Jessop won the Central Division title. He was fishing for Tip Top bass club in Texas. The 61-year-old cattle buyer lives in Dalhart, Texas.
Jessop decided to pre-fish the championship this time, and it paid off for him. “I have only fished the practice days before and I realized I had to put in a lot of time to win my division,” said Jessop.
When the wind blew the first day, Jessop caught several of his fish on a spinnerbait. As the wind began to die the second day, he relied more on a Carolina rig to catch some small keepers from the sandbars. He also caught some keepers on a jig.
Matt McCoy - Northern Division
Matt McCoy of Indianapolis, Ind., had plenty of experience fishing on a river system because he frequently competed in tournaments on the Ohio River and qualified for the BFNC through the Northern Divisional, held on the Mississippi River this year.
McCoy, 36, won the Northern Division, representing Indiana and his club, the Cataract Hawg Stickers. He caught all of his keepers flipping a green pumpkin tube bait on a 3/16-ounce jighead to treetops 3 to 4 feet deep.
McCoy said having the patience to stay in his area was the key to success. The best action was usually late in the day, and he only had a one-hour window to catch his fish. However, McCoy knew the area held bigger bass, so he stayed rather than run to an area that might yield more fish but less quality.
Chris Price - Mid-Atlantic Division
Chris Price won the Mid-Atlantic Division of the BFNC, but only by 4 ounces. Price, 39, is a member of the Del Mar Bass Trackers. He lives in Maryland but came to the BFNC courtesy of Delaware.
“I covered a tremendous amount of water just to get a bite,” said Price. “I was running on adrenaline and nerves and just really fished fast. I bought a lot of gas and spent a lot of time riding and just kept my crankbait moving.”
“I did a lot of pre-fishing here and I knew a lot of places where there were fish, so during the tournament I traveled around trying to find a good bunch of fish but never did,” Price explained. “I scrambled around with that crankbait just fishing fast in several different areas and catching a lot of smaller fish, but I caught enough to get by.”
