My good friend Ed Gettys had been on a tare of late catching 20+ lb stringers out of the hydrilla regularly. Knowing I was going to help Odom's Blue and Gray Marine work their Triton booth at the Big Bass Splash the weekend prior to the lake going off limits for the tournament, I decided to slip out for a couple days earlier that week and see what I could find in the grass.
TEAM TRAIL PRE-PRACTICE: I headed to the Danville area on Tuesday August 11 and it didn't take me long to get a few bites. The bad part was I missed or lost my first few bites so not only did I not know the size of the fish, I didn't even know if they were bass. I finally hooked about a 2lber and got it into the boat and a couple cast later I hooked into what felt like a giant! My line headed to the left and I could hear it cutting trough the water and strands of grass were floating to the top like a bush hog had run through it, and then it pulled off. I still have no clue what size that fish was or what species but I really needed to ID that fish in order to know if I was in the right area. I went awhile without a bite and decided to change areas.
I picked out a nice little point with a ditch swinging around it on the map and thought that looked like a prime location to check. When I dropped my trolling motor I saw hydrilla on my Lowrance and I fired a long cast towards the little point. I missed a fish on my first cast, caught a 2.5lber on my 2nd cast and caught a 5lber on my 3rd cast. I made a few more cast and noticed I wasn't hitting any grass so I started trolling towards where the fish had been and it was as slick as glass on the bottom. I was really confused as to why these fish were there and got frustrated to the point that I started to leave.
As I fired up my Mercury to take off I started thinking there was no way there were 3 fish laying out in the middle of nowhere and I was determined to figure out why they were there. I idled around for about an hour studying the lay of the land and I finally figured out that the map was off and I had actually been sitting in the shallow water casting into the deep and the majority of the grass was behind me. That told me that there must have been a pretty big group of fish there if I caught some that far away from the grass plus the big one right under me in the edge of the grass.
Once I had my bearings and really understood how the grass was growing I started fishing my way back through the area and as soon as I got within a cast of the way-point where I had my first few bites, I popped a 4lber! That was all I needed to see for that little spot so I moved on.
I found another school of fish a little later but they topped out at about 3lbs and then I went fish-less for the rest of the day.
I headed back out on Wednesday, August 12 for one final day of scouting. I headed to the New Johnsonville area and it was terrible. I caught 3 short fish all day and missed a few bites but that was all I could come up with.
ABA TEAM TRAIL OFFICIAL PRACTICE: By the time the official practice day rolled around, my partner David Gnewikow and I had talked and he wasn't going to be able to make the tournament. Fortunately for me, my good buddy Ed Gettys was the hottest stick on the lake and was planning on fishing alone so he asked me if I would like to fish it with him. I jumped all over the opportunity to learn from the master and we began planning our practice day.
We decided I would check the patterns the fish may be going to if they were leaving the grass and he would continue hunting fish in the grass but stay away from anything we'd already found. At the end of the day I hadn't had a single bite on top water and I'd caught a limit of 2lbers fishing shallow bars, stumps and brush.
Ed had caught about 20lbs fishing in the grass off of places that he'd either never fished before or places that fit the pattern that he'd checked earlier in the summer with no success.
After sharing notes on our practice sessions Ed really believed after what he caught on his new found places and secondary places that his primary places should still be loaded and we both agreed we would live and die in the grass.
ABA TEAM TRAIL TOURNAMENT: We had one place holding some good fish close to Paris that Ed had caught some on a couple weeks prior and I had slipped in there and checked it the week before and caught a 5lber so we decided to start there. After a half hour he had caught one short fish and we decided to head south.
We pulled up on the place where he'd won the Weekend Bass Series just a few weeks earlier and he hadn't made a cast on it since that day. We fished around that area for another 30 minutes and caught one short fish.
Our next stop was where Ed had caught a big one on Friday and after 30 minutes there, not a sniff.
The next stop was one where he caught a 4.5lber on one cast and left the day before and after a 45 minute stay, I'd caught two line burner keepers.
We made a short run to a stretch where Ed said he'd caught about 30 bass in the WBS that he'd won but none of them would help him that day because they were all 4lbs or less! At that point in the day we would've welcomed anything over 15". I could tell he had a ton of confidence in this area because we spent at least an hour working it over but when we left we'd caught one 14.5" fish.
It was 9:30 and Ed said he had one more place and after that he didn't know what we should do. I told him I had a few grass stretches that had some good fish two weeks before but if they weren't biting in his grass they probably wouldn't be in mine either as we both look for the same type grass.
We headed to his most southern area, an area that he hadn't fished in 12 days. We fished through what he thought was the sweet spot without a bite. He moved in a little shallower and finally he hooked up with a 4lber! That gave us 3 in the box, two of which we new we had to get rid of to have any shot at all of winning the event.
I jumped up and fired a cast out into the same area where he caught the 4lber and I caught a 2lber. and Ed caught a 2lber. on his next cast. That gave us our limit at about 10:15 and they weighed a whopping 12lbs.
We fished around a little bit and I paid close attention to every move Ed was making as he is a master of his craft whether it be deep or shallow. We eventually made it back in the area where we'd caught those three real quick and Ed popped another 4lber.
As I was culling a 2lber I noticed Ed was trolling away from the area where we were getting all of our bites. He kept saying "something isn't right"! I asked him what he meant and he said that there were some big ones close by. In my brain I was thinking at that point in the day 4lbers were looking pretty big but he insisted we troll around until he saw what he was looking for. I kept launching casts as far back towards where the action had been happening as I could but he kept getting further away.
Just as I was beginning to question his decision to leave the hottest area we'd found all day he said, "there it is"! I'm not sure what he saw even though he tried to show it to me and explain it to me but it was such a subtle change in the grass I just couldn't see it. He spun the boat around and fired a cast out and the next thing I knew I was dropping a 7.26lb brute into the live-well! I told Ed while I've always had a ton of respect for him and his ability to find and catch fish, I was very close to questioning his decision to leave biting 4lbers but I would never do it again. We had a pretty good laugh about it and then I heard "BIGGUN"! I look up and he has another good fish hooked right under the boat and I scooped up a 5lb class fish into the net.
The decision he made to drift away from the 2-4lb class fish had taken us from 14lbs to 22 lbs in about a half hour span. Although we both knew we still had a lot of work to do to make a run at the win, to be able to sit and watch one of my heroes, best buddies and legends do his thing was worth the price of admission to me. There are very few times I've ever been in a boat where I feel like I'm totally useless but watching him pick out those subtleties in that grass and surgically remove giants from it was mind boggling.
Knowing that area had the winning size fish we both agreed we should spend as much more time there as possible. Unfortunately we never had another bite and time was running out. I was almost a little intimidated to offer my input after the show the master had just put on but I really felt good about a couple of the grass areas I'd found so I asked Ed what he thought and he said let's go.
I eased into my first area and everything looked perfect grass wise. As soon as I reached my way-point I made a long cast to my lineup on the bank and a good fish gobbled my worm up. Ed came up front with the net and scooped a 6lber up which culled our 15"er and gave us around 25lbs. We were pretty pumped up I have to say because fishing had been very tough the previous few weeks and we knew getting five good ones in the boat would put us in contention to win a Triton Boat not to mention 9 grand in Triton Gold and Mercury contingency money.
We fished hard til the end and we did catch a few more fish but the biggest was about 3.75lbs and wouldn't help our cause.
We were in the last flight and one of the last boats to weigh-in. When I dropped them on the scales we took the lead with 25.50lbs and took over big fish with Ed's 7.26lber.
Everyone was congratulating us and even the tournament director said we needed to go around back and take a polygraph because no one was going to beat that and just before the scales closed, my heart sank as I heard a 27lb stringer hit the scales.
SUMMARY: When the difference in a win and a 2nd place finish is about 20 grand, it hurts a little to finish 2nd. The good news is we didn't lose any fish that would've helped us. Plus, we got beat by a pretty substantial margin when you start talking about mid to high 20lb bags in August which makes it a little easier to swallow. At the end of the day, wins, boats and money come and go but the experience, the memories and what I learned watching one of my heroes in action that day, I can keep forever. It truly was another blessed day on the water and one I'll never forget.
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