TULSA, Okla. – The first time I met Jason Christie was in the summer of 2012 when he won a Bassmaster Northern Open on Michigan’s Lake St. Clair. After the tournament was over, he told me that the main reason he’d won was because he had relatively little knowledge of the lake and had to stick with what little he knew to be good.
If he wins the 2016 GEICO Bassmaster Classic Presented by GoPro, he surely won’t be able to use that rationale again.
In a lifetime of fishing Grand, he may have cranked every good looking point, flipped every productive dock and otherwise worn a trail up and down the lake. That’s what made him the pre-tournament favorite and it’s a big part of what makes him the leader after Day Two with 37 pounds 9 ounces, which has him nearly 6 pounds in front of second place angler Todd Faircloth. Today a few hundred of his closest friends joined him on the water, following his every move, hoping to see a part of fishing history, learn some new spots, or both. It seems like a lifetime of preparation is boiling down to one eight hour stint on the lake.
If Christie wins, it will be because he managed those few hundred spectators well. If he loses by a close margin it may be because their presence caused him to sacrifice 15 or 20 casts over the course of the day, and certainly led him to tailor his milk run to the party atmosphere and crowded conditions that ensued. If he pulled into a long cut and worked down one side of it, there was almost no chance he’d get to work the other side, or even double back. While the spectators were generally quite respectful, as he worked away from them they couldn’t help but slide forward, limiting his options and bottling him up.
As they crept forward, he remained quiet but his mind have been planning an escape route from a morning that seemed to move at the pace of pond water. He was quick but did not hurry, throwing an old school presentation that everyone in the field should have in their boat. Once he finally boxed his limit fish at around lunchtime he picked up the pace, still dissecting cover carefully, but moving much more frequently. With him, bass boats of every make, model and description, along with what appeared to be a few ocean-going vessels, traveled the lake, leaving criss-crossing wakes behind them. Christie may have ultimately been the reason for those washing machine conditions, but he personally never seemed to hit the spin cycle.
At the end of the day I asked him if he’d caught a five pounder off of every afternoon stopping point.
“I’ve caught five pounders all over this lake,” he replied. “But yes, I’ve caught many five pounders from each of those places.” He added that he had been sure he could find “one of those places where the big pre-spawn sows pull up and you can catch three in five casts.”
No five pounder came over the side of his boat today, but two late day culls – including one 15 minutes prior to check-in – boosted his weight meaningfully. The fans, whose enthusiasm had not
abated during the slow periods, or even when he slipped out of sight behind a row of docks, cheered the openly visible catches. They may well have been cheering the second consecutive hometown Classic champ.
Near the end of the day, Christie offhandedly remarked that he hoped that he’d be within five pounds of the lead heading into Sunday. He said that after struggling through so many fruitless casts and so many gallons of gas, he’d “feel like an idiot” if the rest of the field engaged in an old-fashioned whackfest. Tonight there will be no dunce cap atop his head, just a bullseye on his back and a chance to close out what started in 2012 by winning at St. Clair.