If you’ve been around Elite Series emcee Dave Mercer as long as I have, you’ve heard about his fellow Canadian anglers – the brothers Johnston, Cory and Chris. In only the fifth B.A.S.S. tournament for each, the Johnston brothers are making themselves known to the rest of the bass fishing world this week.
After finishing 7th and 8th on Day 1, the Johnston brothers moved up to 1st and 2nd, unofficially, at the noon hour on Day 2. Even though their totals were only 4 ounces apart on Day 1, they had wildly different days. Cory caught fish throughout the day; Chris had one 2-pounder in the boat at 1:30.
“I was scrambling,” Chris said. “I had one spot where I’d hoped they’d pull up. I’d caught one there in practice. In two hours I caught six or seven. I was excited about how the day went.”
Chris has picked up today where he left off yesterday. His fifth bass at 11:40 a.m. gave him 21-4 and put him in the lead. Cory isn’t far behind with 18-3 so far.
“We 100 percent work together,” said Cory, who is four years older than Chris. “We’ve got one bank account. We split the money 50-50. We fish a lot of team tournaments back home. We kind of fish this just like that. There are no secrets.
“We’ll split the water up during practice. He trusts me just as much as I trust him to go through an area and cover it.”
However, they don’t fish the same water come tournament time.
“We’re a team, but we still want to beat each other,” Chris said. “I didn’t fish any of the same water he did (Thursday). We try to stay away from each other’s area.”
