Wesley Strader, our Day 3 leader, had a very long dry spell today. He caught his fifth keeper around 9:45 a.m., which he estimated at 2 pounds.
Steve Bowman and I arrived to cover him shortly before that fish. The next four hours and 35 minutes were like watching paint dry. No fish. I don’t think he had a bite. Strader joked about joining the painters’ union. He switched locations every 30 minutes or so. And at several points he talked about needing one more good fish. During the middle of that stretch he even sat down and quickly ate a sandwich.
We didn’t see any other Elite anglers in the areas Strader fished. “I’m just trying to fish what nobody else is fishing,” he said. The first year Bassmaster Elite pro has a lot of experience on Kentucky Lake, having fished at least 15 tournaments there via other series. His very first FLW tournament, in 1997, was on Kentucky Lake. “I came in 11th,” he said. “I made enought money on that one to pay my deposit for the next year. This place is special to me.”
Then it finally happened at his last stop. Around 2:20 a 5 pound 13 ounce largemouth swallowed his bait. “I thought it was a big mudfish,” he hollered. That bass gave him the opportunity to cull up nearly 3 pounds and vault past Skeet Reese into the lead. After he landed it he was talking at an excited and feverish pace. I thought he was speaking in tongues for a minute. But really he sounded just like you or I would after catching a big fish.
Strader then moved 50 yards and said he was going to make three more casts before heading in. On the last cast he caught another nice bass, culling up an ounce and giving him 22 pounds 6 ounces for the day. That was the big bag of the day.
“I only had eight or nine bites all day,” he told us.
Strader never gave up, and the power of that perseverance landed the Tennessee angler at the top of the standings on semi-final Sunday.