I stayed with fellow pro Tristan McCormick at his Nashville home prior to the first Progressive Bassmaster Elite Series tournament of the season. As I drove through an ice storm on the way to Lake Guntersville, every backwater I passed was frozen solid.
After launching my boat on the first practice morning, I had to break through 100 yards of ice to reach open water. In all the years I’ve been fishing bass tournaments, I have never experienced anything remotely like that.
Despite the frigid conditions, I found solace that forward-facing sonar would not be allowed in the tournament. It would be enjoyable to do some old-school grass fishing.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t so enjoyable in practice. I caught only one bass the first day, three the second day and one the third day. I was terrified. I had no clue if I was going to weigh in a single bass.
On the first tournament day, I started where I’d had the most bites in practice. I caught a 15-incher, which calmed my nerves a bit.
About 100 yards ahead of me, I saw a big loon diving repeatedly in the same shallow spot. The loon appeared to be eating shad. One time it came up with what looked to be a crappie. Another time it had a bluegill in its bill.
I quickly trolled over, cast a Rat-L-Trap into the water where the loon had been diving and caught a 6-pound largemouth. I suddenly had two bass in my livewell that would go 8 pounds. My attitude went from dismal to being pumped.
I Power-Poled down and camped on the loony spot. I had only three more bites that day, but they were big enough for me to survive. My initial limit weighed 18-2.
I tried other areas on the second and third day of the tournament, but every bass I caught came from the loony spot. I boated about 15 bass on each of those days, weighed in 19-13 and 14-6 respectively and finished in 33rd place.
I’d never fished a multiday tournament before in which all my bass came from one small spot. It was maybe a 20-foot by 20-foot depression about 4 feet deep on 2-foot-deep flat. The bass were sitting in the depression to avoid the current in the cold water.
Two lures did the job for me: an Evergreen FA-115 suspending jerkbait and a Rayburn Red Rat-L-Trap I had never thrown before that was probably 20 years old.
I rode the momentum from Guntersville to the Elite tournament at Lake Martin the next week. It was so easy to catch fish at Martin that every angler in the field weighed in a limit every day they fished. The challenge was catching sizable bass.
Spotted bass abound in Martin’s deep, clear water, and they comprised 90% or more of the bass weighed in during the tournament. Over the winter, I had fished for spotted bass at California’s Shasta and Oroville lakes to dial in with my new boat and tackle. That prepped me for Lake Martin.
I started each day fishing over long points and drains for prespawn spots. They were suspended 30 to 40 feet deep over 100 feet of water. I picked them off with a Yamamoto Shad Shape Worm on a 3/8-ounce Cipher Fishing Tungsten ball jighead.
On all four days of the event, it took me only about 90 minutes to put a 9-pound limit of spots in my livewell. Then I’d go straight to the bank and skip a 5-inch Yamamoto Senko under shallow docks in search of heavier bass.
Most of my dock bass were spots that weighed up to 3 1/2 pounds. I also culled with a few largemouth. My two-fisted strategy produced a total weight of 45-14, which landed me in ninth place for the tournament and ninth in the overall Progressive Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings.
I couldn’t be more thankful for the fast start this season.
