This was going to be the plan, win or lose: Greg Hackney would take his two sons, Drew (Andrew) 14, and Luke, 11, smallmouth bass fishing after the Bassmaster Elite Series Toyota Angler of the Year Championship.
With the Hackney family residing in Gonzales, La., the two boys had never caught a smallmouth bass before.
Monday afternoon, when Hackney finally won the AOY title at Lake Michigan's Bays de Noc, he wasn't sure where he was going to take them. After three days had been postponed due to high winds at Lake Michigan, that option seemed iffy.
But Hackney got a little help from his friends. Kevin VanDam and Mark Zona had been whacking the smallmouths on nearby Lake Huron, while taping an episode of "Zona's Awesome Fishing Show" for Outdoor Channel.
"VanDam called to congratulate me that night," Hackney said. "He told me I needed to come up there because they were catching them by the 100s."
So that's where Hackney took the boys on Wednesday. And it didn't take long to find the smallmouths. Hackney boated to the first waypoint provided by VanDam and Zona, made one cast to find out if the fish were there, then it was game-on.
"Luke's first one was over 6 pounds," Hackney said. "He makes one cast and catches the smallmouth of a lifetime. We stayed in the same 50-yard stretch from 8 (a.m.) until 1:30, throwing a swimbait and a tube. We must have caught somewhere between 50 and 75. At times, all three of us had one on."
Hackney and his sons started the long drive home Thursday at 3:30 a.m. By 7 p.m., he was near his parents' house in Star City, Ark., where Greg lived until he was 27 years old. They would spend the night there, before driving to Gonzales the next day, where Julie, Greg's wife, and their two daughters were anxiously waiting.
Greg Hackney, plus clear water and smallmouth bass doesn't fit the image many have of him as a shallow water/flipping specialist. But, as Hackney noted in a Day 1 post-weigh-in interview, that image is incorrect.
In fact, if his boys had grown up like Hackney did, they would have long ago caught a smallmouth bass or two.
"I spent more time growing up in Arkansas in the Ozarks, in that deep clear water," Hackney said. "When we were at Table Rock this year (where Hackney finished 3rd), the majority of what I weighed were smallmouths."
In a later conversation, Hackney expounded upon his clear-water history. Star City is near Pine Bluff, Ark., and the Arkansas River. In 1984, when Hackney was 12 years old, his father took him to the Bassmaster Classic weigh-in at Pine Bluff, where Rick Clunn set several records with his 75-pound, 9-ounce total from the Arkansas River. Clunn has been one of Hackney's heroes ever since.
"The Arkansas River was a much different river then than it is now," Hackney said. "It was gin clear and full of grass."
Hackney also spent time on Arkansas clear-water reservoirs in the Ouachita Mountains, like Lake Ouachita near Hot Springs.
"I won my first tournament at Lake Ouachita the same way I won at Cayuga (Lake), fishing deep hydrilla," he said.
Yes, you'll often find Hackney concentrating in shallow water, but that's just a starting point.
"I prefer clear water," Hackney said. "I hate a mud hole. I tell you what has made me a shallow water fisherman: I can read the shallow water so fast. If I go to a place I haven't been before, it's just easier for me to figure it out. It's hard to find that stuff that's offshore.
"I fish shallow to get something going, then I look out."
Never has a man who has been driving since 3:30 a.m. sounded as content with life as Greg Hackney did at 7 p.m. Thursday, with Star City on the horizon. He was coming home with two big checkmarks on his bucket list:
— Win the Bassmaster Elite Series Toyota Angler of the Year title, check;
— Take his sons on the smallmouth fishing trip of a lifetime, check.
In the midst of catching all those smallmouth bass, Hackney noted, "The kids said, 'This is the best fishing trip we've ever been on — period!"
Hackney sounded as proud of the second checkmark as he was of the first.