Like the rest of the Bassmaster Elite Series field, Derek Hudnall hit the road for the first event of the year on the St. Johns River with high hopes of monster bass. For Hudnall, at least, the first big bite came a little earlier than he’d even hoped.
Hudnall, John Crews, Ed Loughran and Bryan Schmidt are all rooming together this week in a house on a private lake near Palatka, where they’ve stayed in the past.
“We put the boats in behind the house on the final day before practice to get everything dialed in,” Hudnall recalls. “We’ve always caught a bunch of fish on that lake, and we knew it had a couple big ones in it.”
But a quick little test run of the gear turned into the fish of a lifetime for Hudnall.
“I caught my personal best, an 11.6.”
The lake has a lot of submerged hydrilla in it. Hudnall was letting his bait get down into the vegetation and then ripping it free, trying to trigger a strike.
“I love to stroke a bladed jig. That’s what I was doing. When I ripped it out of a piece of hydrilla, that fish slack lined it. Ed Loughran was with me and lipped it for me. And yeah, it weighed 11.6.”
Hudnall accredited the catch to a few key pieces of equipment: his 7-foot, 3-inch Victory medium heavy fast St Croix Rod, 16-pound Sunline Shooter and the MISSILE Baits Shockwave he was using as a trailer.