Jason Christie won his first major tour-level event on his first visit to Lake Hartwell. It came in March 2011 on the FLW tour. In some ways, Hartwell reminds him of Grand Lake near his Park Hill, Okla., home. Christie finished 24th in the 2015 Classic here.
Christie said it’s probably a week too early to repeat the method that led to his win in 2011, when he was targeting spawning bass with a half-ounce spinnerbait in Beaver Creek when Hartwell was higher than it is now.
“I relate it to Grand Lake,” Christie said yesterday. “Somebody is going to find them. Somebody is going to catch 20 pounds every day. It may be somebody different every day, or someone might do that two or three days. I wonder if they even know they’re going to do that yet.”
Christie was referring to the fact that Hartwell is changing so fast that any clues discovered during practice might be meaningless when the tournament begins Friday. The recent cold snap is forecast to be replaced by highs in the upper 60s and low 70s Thursday through Sunday.
“We’re lacking that warm weather,” Christie said. “(In 2011) it was totally different. Those fish were locked-in and spawning. These fish haven’t even begun that yet. That water temperature was in the low 60s then. We’re about 10 degrees off. And we had a (full) moon then.
“It’s close, but we’re not there yet. I think the week after we’re gone it’s going to really, really fire up for my kind of fishing.”
Christie has a game plan that he’s committed to for this Classic. He planned to run some new water today and, hopefully, find a starting spot for Day 1 on Friday.
“I just haven’t found that starting spot yet,” he said, “where I know I can go in and catch a few. I just don’t want to go out there (today) and have a sub-par day, when I lose whatever confidence I have now.”
By the way, Christie won that 2011 event on Hartwell with a four-day total of 70 pounds, 11 ounces. He led wire-to-wire, sacking 20-pound bags the first two days. He won by 10 pounds over Brent Ehrler, another angler in this week’s Classic field.