2007 Bassmaster Classic Champion

I’m back home after a tournament at Guntersville Lake. A lot of you probably heard about the confrontation on the water that Kevin Langill and I had and about his disqualification based on unsportsmanlike conduct. This blog is a quick explanation of what took place.

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We’re back in Alabama, and I think we’re looking at a tournament where 20-pound bags are going to be necessary to put you at the top of the field. Fifteen pounds a day will win some tournaments. Here, it will probably take that to make the 50 cut.

The grass bite is good. Crankbait looks good. We’ll see. 

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It was a survival tournament, and I guess I survived. I finished our Smith Mountain Lake tournament in the mid-thirties. But it was a sight fishing event. And I, like a lot of other anglers in the tournament, couldn’t get enough bites to give ourselves the luxury of cruising the banks for bigger fish. 

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Well, sometimes I’m right.

When we started our Elite Series tournament at Smith Mountain Lake on Thursday, the first day, the bites were almost all on beds. And we cleaned them out. Most everybody was sight fishing, and some anglers like to do that a whole lot more than others do. But it’s part of the game.

Weights don’t ordinarily drop on the second day, but I figured that was going to happen to us. … And generally the weights did fall. I had two pounds less than I had the first day, and I moved up four places, from 36th to 32nd. Not great, but it sure could have been worse. And the good news is that my 32nd is roughly two-and-a-half pounds out of the magical 12th place. Top 12, fish on Sunday.

Figuring the weights were going to drop today wasn’t rocket science, just intuition based on the weather. Cold nights have been keeping the water temperature down, and so today (the second day) the first weren’t moving and weren’t biting until about 2 p.m. Some of the guys that got real good bites got them late in the day.

A few others gave up on sight fishing altogether and did something different. Kevin VanDam leads the tournament, and he gave up the banks, went to some ledges and caught smallmouth. It was a good move for him.

So now we go to a new day. I made the cut, so I’m weighing my options for Saturday. I’ll probably keep sight fishing, because we’re going to have a warmer night and that means they’re probably going to move tomorrow. And I’m going to have to find them.

But that’s ok. They’re out there somewhere. And two big fish might be good for a move way up.

The Elite Series is in Virginia at one of the most beautiful lakes in the country - Smith Mountain Lake. I just wish the fish were as predictable as the scenery.

We had a real interesting first day. The “fishing bite” was almost non-existent. Everybody was bed fishing. … Well, everybody might be an exaggeration, but I would be willing to bet there were 90 out of 100 boats bed fishing. That means that probably 450 beds are cleaned. We’ve picked them off.

We might have something on Friday that almost never happens in the Elite Series. The weights might actually drop on the second day. Then it will probably pick up again before the weekend’s over. It will be real interesting to see if the field can recover and find that many beds again.

The cut line today was 12 pounds, 10 ounces. So, logic would say that the cut line tomorrow would be double that, 25-4. But I’d guess it’s going to drop as much as two pounds. The cut could come somewhere around 23 pounds. Of course, every time I think the fishing’s going to be down, the field surprises me. These guys are so good.

By the way, I had a little less than 14 pounds, and that was good for 36th place.

But I’m real excited about the sight bite. I enjoy sight fishing. I know not everybody does, but I love looking at them and working them until you get them to bite.

As far as confidence goes, I’m feeling good. I’ve had a bunch of good tournaments this season, and I’ve actually led three times after the first day. Maybe it’s a good sign that I’ve got some ground to make up.

I’m also feeling pretty good about a new Berkley curly-tail worm that I’m going to throw. It’s cool.

It’s been a few days since I got to this blog. And I’m going to be honest. One of the reasons - not the only one, but one of them - is that I’m still beating my head against a wall over what happened last Friday at our Elite Series event on Lake Wheeler.

I finished 79th. Seventy-nine.

I’ve had plenty of people come up to me and tell me, “Hey, Boyd. Tough tournament. Sometimes you have those kind.” And I get that. I fully understand having a bad tournament. … But this was different. I started the day in 17th place, confident about what I was doing, and I had every intention in the world of moving up.

It’s not even so much that I finished 79th. It’s the fact that it all went to hell in one, confusing day that’s eating me up. Let me put it another way: I don’t exactly know why I couldn’t catch fish. Everybody around me was catching them. But I couldn’t get one to bite. Nowhere, no how.

Again, anglers everywhere will read this and probably just shake their heads and say, well, fishing’s like that. Everybody has bad days. … But I’m telling you. Dude, this was different.

I’ll give you an example. Two weeks ago, Mike Iaconelli, a great angler, had one of the worst weeks of his career. It was a great angler who had a bad, bad tournament. He never got on anything. He couldn’t find them. … I get that. Been there, done that many times. But I’ll say it again: what happened at Wheeler was different.

I had five sure holes and a lot of other places on Wheeler that I know will give up fish. I went to all of them at one time or another, and I couldn’t catch anything. The fish were everywhere except in my boat.

Let me tell you how bad it was. It was early afternoon and I had ONE fish that weighed ONE pound. I’m pissed that I’m no longer fishing to win. I’ve got to change what I’m doing just so I can get a limit. I figure that if I got a limit, I’d at least make the cut and live to fish another day.

So to catch my limit, I went into the back of a creek I had found, and the fish were schooling. They were breaking the surface. … About the time I got there Jason Quinn, who’s a good angler and really good guy, came into the same area. And before you can turn around he catches like four fish. He already had his limit, he was just looking to upgrade. And he’s catching them right and left. He came by and we talked for a minute. He said, “They’re biting like crazy, but I can’t get anything big enough to help me.”

I told him I had ONE fish. … You could tell, he just absolutely couldn’t believe it.

And Jason - and I’ll say it again, he’s a good guy - said, “Man, let me get out of your way.” He was giving the area to me so I could at least get my limit. On top of that, he offered to let me have the chrome and black Rat-L-Trap he was throwing. I said, “Thanks, but no need. That’s exactly what I’m throwing.”

After he left, I still couldn’t catch them.

I went into another area near a bank and watched a father and son fishing. I was parked a little way behind them, because I didn’t want to interrupt what they were doing. And I sat there and watched that young boy, probably seven years old, catch a four-pounder with a Zebco rod and reel. The kid was dragging a four-inch worm on his little Zebco and he caught a four-pounder.

The whole day was like that. I keep saying this, but I’ve had lots of bad tournaments. But it’s been years and years since I had a day like that. It was just one day, and it might have wrecked a season. I went from 13th on angler-of-the-year points to 34th. My goal had been to have eight consistent tournaments and to put myself in contention for angler-of-the-year. But that’s a long way off now.

Why did it happen?

First of all, I don’t know. … I don’t know why I couldn’t catch the fish that I normally would catch in my sleep.

What I do know is that after it started going downhill, I started pressing and got negative. And that never works. I was running around the lake like a crazy man, scaring my marshal to death. During the last hour I was running 75 miles an hour in two-foot waves. Panicking. Trying to catch a limit.

That’s no way to fish.

I finished with three small fish.

Now I’m back where I put myself the last two seasons. I need a comeback. A big comeback.

It’s our third Elite Series event, and it’s nice to be in my home state of Alabama. There was a lot of interesting action today on the first day of the Dixie Duel on Wheeler Lake. Good fishing and really bad weather before it was over with. I was fishing about 25 miles down the lake, and this afternoon we got rain so hard for awhile that you could see the front of your boat. The waves were crashing up over the bow, and it took me about two hours to make that 25 miles back to the dock.

Overall, though, I had a decent day. I got close to 14 pounds and that was good enough for 17th place. I’ve got to believe that another day like today will put me up close to the top 12, and that’s where I want to be. Getting one big bite can be the key. Alton and Ike both had a big bite today, and that’s what you need to be at the top. 

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And check out the weather map. This was just before weigh-in.

Well, I guess I’m done with our tournament at Lake Dardanelle - unfortunately. I finished in the money, but tied for 37th is not so great when you’re trying to get into the Top 12 so you can fish on Sunday.

We didn’t fish on Saturday at all. I had hoped to move way up on Saturday, but the weather killed us. Rain, cold, snow. So they cancelled competition. The Top 12 after Friday’s round fished on Sunday. … Even with the bad weather, I fished on Saturday. I took my marshal out. I wanted to see whether the bites I’d planned to go after were actually there.

They were.

We’ve had three events now, if you add the Classic to our tournaments at Amistad and Dardenelle. And here are a few kind thoughts I’m having about this season:

• I’ve had a ninth place and a 37th in our Elite Series events, plus a 13th in the Classic. Not bad, but I was hoping for better. It’s my absolute goal and full intention to make the Top 12 at the end of the Elite Series regular season, so I can get into the two-event special season at the end of the year.
• Mike Iaconelli had a bad tournament at Dardanelle. He was in the nineties. But he’ll probably still come back and make the Top 12 at the end of the season. He’s that good.
• I’m mentally committed to finishing every tournament within the 50 cut. That’s the starting point. Within those 50 cuts, I need to be in position to also win some tournaments. … I’m also committed to fishing differently when I have to do it. If I feel like I need to use a swing-for-the-fences style, I’m going to. I did it in the Classic on the third day and it didn’t work. But that was the Classic. It didn’t matter whether you finished second or 13th. If it wasn’t first it didn’t matter. But you have to be careful. … It was interesting at Dardanelle that almost all of the big bags came from one shallow area. It had a lot of good fish. But even though the 20-pound bags came out of that area, there were also some zeroes from that same shallow water.
• It seems to me that tournament officials are being a lot more cautious about having us on the water in bad weather, and they’re willing to cancel a lot quicker now than in the past.
• The marshals program is working great. It’s fantastic. It’s 4,000-percent better than what we had in the past. I hope BASS and ESPN will promote this program big-time and help it grow. We need to make sure the word is out about what a terrific opportunity it is for people that would like to spend a day out there with us in the middle of the action.  It’s a great program for somebody who really wants to learn how to fish at the highest level. People learn by observing and asking questions, and that’s what this program allows. … I think the marshals are enjoying it, too. When we start the day and get in the boat, I tell the marshals for the day that I hope they understand I might get real focused and quiet sometimes. I’m not ignoring them, I just get completely into what I’m doing at times. They are respectful and fully understand.
• Speaking of the marshall program, my marshal on Friday told me something interesting at the end of the day. Before we got started, I had told him what my gameplan was. I told him where I was going, what I was looking for and what I expected the results were going to be. At the end of the day, he said, “I can’t believe what happened. It unfolded exactly like you said it would. I’ve never had anything like that happen before.” I told him, “Well, maybe you’ve never stayed with your plan long enough to let it happen.”
• Last but not least, and this is not the first time I’ve pitched this idea. But I’m looking forward to a day that we have monitors in our boats, at least during the final day of our tournaments, that give us a running tally of anglers’ totals. I think it would completely change the approach we take if we know what the rest of the field is doing. We’re a professional sport. It seems to me that it would be a lot more interesting if the participants knew the score during the game.

The Elite Series is back at a place I like a lot. Lake Dardanelle. Arkansas. I like it because the last time we were here, in the fall of 2007, I got to hoist a trophy. The Legends. The last major. I got a big win here. So surely that means good things for this week, don’t you think?

In my opinion, the answer is definitely … not.

I’ll be the first to admit it’s nice to come to a place you’ve won or done well. Psychologically, it brings a comfort level. I think every angler has bodies of water that feel comfortable. It’s like NASCAR drivers that feel comfortable at certain tracks. Things just feel right at some places.

And I like it here. It’s a lake, but it’s river fishing - and I’m comfortable river fishing. But as far as feeling like I should do well in the tournament, the fact that I’m comfortable is not that big a deal, because it’s not 2007. It’s a different time of year and different water. It won’t fish the same. 

This might sound strange, but the thing that makes me feel good about this tournament is that right now the bites are tough to come by. Lots of times I do OK in tournaments where the bites are hard to find. And it looks like it’s going to be tough this week. Usually, we’re knocking them out here, but not now.

Clark Rheem, a pro from this area has said some of the wildlife folks believe there might be LMBV, which is Largemouth Bass Virus. As far as I know, nobody is saying that’s a fact. But some people seem to think that’s what’s going on. As I said, we’re usually smoking them here, but a lot of the guys are saying they’re going a long time between bites. Plus, it’s a 15-inch minimum here, so it’s going to make for an interesting tournament.

The way it looks now, an 11-pound bag should make the cut, and a 15-pound bag might get you the lead.

Another thing that didn’t help was the weather we had today. Wind and rain. It was nasty.

Speaking of confidence, I’ve noticed that Jason Williamson, a friend and a guy that I’ve roomed with on the tour, is walking around with a lot more confidence after he got a big win at Amistad.

I was happy for Jason. He solidified his place on the tour. It helps to get a win like he got, because it just seems to make you feel like you belong.

And it’s obvious he belongs.

It was nice to be in second place at our first Elite Series tournament, but the weather changed and so did everything else. It was a good top 10 finish, though. I’ll take all of those I can get.

I’m still in Texas, though. After the tournament, I got really busy. This is an update.

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