So it wasn’t a surprise when he finished second at Alabama’s Lake Martin in his initial Elite Series event. Yesterday he was asked, jokingly, if he’d known it was going to be this easy, would he have come to the Elite Series years ago?
“That’s funny,” Hawk said. “I got here as soon as I could.”
He was referring to having a track record, sponsors in place and his family (wife, Kristina, and four children) on solid financial ground before qualifying and making the decision to join the Elite Series.
Hawk has some experience on Grand Lake, having fished two tournaments here, including a 7th-place finish at the Bass Pro Shops Central Open last fall. He’s doing something a little different from the rest of the field. Hawk is catching them coming and going.
“I’ve focused on being offshore,” he said. “I looked at bedding fish in practice, but I kept pushing offshore. I wanted to find pre-spawn fish that were coming. The fat ones. And I wanted to find where they were grouped. I found a couple of stretches like that.
“Now there are more fish that are coming back out, and they’re loading up in those same type areas. I’m focusing on steeper banks where they can move from shallow to deep real easy. I’m catching them as deep as 15 feet, and 10-foot has been real good.”
Hawk’s main weapon has been a slow-rolled 3/4-ounce Pepper spinnerbait in a new “sun gill” color pattern. He’s also caught some flipping a Pepper jig with a Yamamoto Cowboy Creature trailer and a few cranking.
“That spinnerbait has really been the deal,” Hawk said.