Event: Bassmaster Elite at Lake Murray 2023
Scenario: In the classic movie plot, boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. That’s not dissimilar to Drew Benton’s tale of victory at this South Carolina reservoir.
By the numbers, the Florida pro placed second on Day 1 with 23 pounds and moved into the lead after adding a Day 2 limit of 23-9. With only a 14-pound limit on Semifinal Saturday, Benton nearly missed the Top 10 after a weather change backstabbed him like the typical Hollywood protagonist.
Fortunately, Benton righted the ship and pulled out the win with a Championship Sunday limit that went 26-7 for a tournament total of 87 pounds. Doing so required a strategic adjustment.
“It was your typical late spring scenario; there were fish in all phases — there were some spawning, there were a few fish still prespawn and there were fish postspawn,” Benton said. “You still had a little bit of a herring spawn going on and a little bit of a shad spawn, so you could target those pre and postspawn fish on those baitfish spawns.
“You had fish up shallow around the spawning bluegill, so you had a lot of different options.”
Days 1 ,2 and 3 saw Benton mostly focused on spawning fish, with an element of fry guarding and cruising fish wacky rig action. On Championship Sunday, Benton targeted the shad spawn early and then caught two bed fish later in the day.
“Out of my final stringer, I caught three 5s off the shad spawn and two good ones — a 6 and a 5 — off beds,” Benton said.
While certainly pleased his trademark “looking at ‘em” tactics played such a prominent role, Benton admits the event’s unfolding did not match his expectations.
“Going into it, I thought we were a little bit too late for the sight fishing thing to last the whole tournament,” Benton said. “The first day of practice, I rolled (into my area) and I saw several really big ones on bed and I thought, ‘Maybe it’s not as far along as I thought.’
“By Day 3, I really thought I was out of them. That’s when I had to make an adjustment for the final day.”
Backing up a little, Benton spent his tournament in one general area near takeoff and rotated through several spots. When Day 3 brought wind, rain and dim skies, his sight fishing deal evaporated. He had to pick his way to a limit big enough to keep himself in the hunt until clarity returned for the final round.
Benton caught his bedding bass using two baits, the first a drop shot with a Big Bite Baits Cliff Hanger worm. Next was a Texas-rigged watermelon red/green pumpkin laminate Big Bite Baits Fighting Frog rigged on a 4/0 Owner Wide Gap worm hook with a 5/16-ounce Elite Tungsten sinker. He tempted the shad spawn fish on a squarebill.
The decision: Despite the third-round weather woes, Benton said the event offered the rare alignment he needed to put together a winning combination. Versatility certainly played a significant role in his success, but Benton was thankful for the cards he was dealt.
“A sight-fishing tournament is a timing deal where you have to hit it just right to have four days of fish,” he said. “You either have to hit it right at the beginning of the spawn where new fish are moving up each day, or you have to be on a place like Lake Murray that has so many fish they can’t all spawn at one time and you have that trickle effect.
“The stars have to line up for you to win a tournament primarily sight fishing. For whatever reason, it did line up well for me. There were some good sight fishermen that didn’t have as good of a tournament.”
Noting a key detail, Benton said he found the lake’s midsection had cooler water — 72 to 74 degrees — than the upper and lower ends. This, he said, likely had the fish earlier in their spawning cycle than elsewhere on the lake.
Game changer: While waiting in the Day 3 bag line, fellow Elite Brock Mosley told Benton he had caught good fish downlake on a squarebill. This cued the lightbulb moment that enabled Benton to craft a viable Day 4 game plan that delivered the win.
“In the back of my mind, when said that, I thought shad spawn,” Benton said. “I didn’t have anything else for bed fishing to start on, so I completely switched up my game plan and went (downlake) and started looking for that rocky riprap type bank for those shad to be spawning on.
“The first one I pulled up on, I caught a 5-pounder. That decision to swap game plans on the final day is ultimately what won the tournament.”
Of course, the two big bed fish he’d catch in the afternoon of Day 4 helped, but as Benton explained, his instinct told him that devoting one final day to sight fishing — even with the more favorable conditions — was a risky proposition.
“I knew I couldn’t win it just sight fishing on Day 4,” Benton said. “After my Day 3, I knew I had to do something different. I felt confident I could find two or three big ones, but in order to get the stringer I needed to have to come back from 10th, I knew I couldn’t do that just sight fishing.
“Had I not caught them on the shad spawn that morning, I was going to go throw a big glidebait and a big swimbait to put myself in position. I had what I caught on the squarebill around 11, and I knew I only needed to find two at that point. I knew I needed a big day, but I couldn’t do that if I just went up there and looked.”
Takeaway: “All you can do is make the best decisions with what you’ve learned. When it’s your time, you just have to get out of your own way and let it happen,” Benton said. “You can’t force it; you can only do what you can do to control the variables you can control. But when it’s your time to win, those wins just come on their own.”
