Entry 96-5

Mark Davis' Worst Tournaments

The Baseball Bat Lure

Editor's Note: Thirty-nine-year-old Mark Davis, who has fished in numerous Classics, has won Angler of the Year three times and has won the Bassmaster Classic in 1995. Davis ranked third on the BASS circuit in 2003 and recently won $100,000 in March, 2004 at the B.A.S.S. Table Rock Lake Tournament in Arkansas. Davis, a quiet, gentle man, competes fiercely once a tournament starts. This week Davis will tell us about some of his worst tournament experiences.

Davis: At a tournament on Lake Champlain in Vermont, I was catching my bass using a top-water lure over submerged grass. I found one grass bed where I usually would catch a big fish every morning during practice and where I'd caught a big fish on the first day of the tournament. So, I pulled up on this grass bed. Just before I started to fish, I looked back at my amateur partner. He had one of those old, rusty metal tackle boxes that were popular back in the 1940s. The rest of his equipment also looked like heirlooms. I made a few casts and caught a really nice bass.

When my partner saw me catch the bass on the top-water lure, he said, "Oh, we're going to fish top water, huh?" While I put my bass in the livewell, I saw him open up this old tackle box and pull out the largest top-water lure I have ever seen in my life. This bait looked like something you would use to fish for marlin out in the ocean. It resembled a baseball bat with about 4 or 5 inches of the handle cut off, and treble hooks riveted into it. It had a big nose with a popping lip on it, and I'm not kidding you, this lure was about 1- to 1-1/2-feet long.

He tied it on to his line and heaved that big sucker over the side of the boat right on top of my little grass bed where I'd just caught the big bass. The lure hit the water and the splash and sound that it made was like a boulder being dropped off a cliff. I just stood on the deck with my mouth open, not believing what I was seeing. Then my partner chugged that big bait, and the water shot 3 feet in all directions. The lure looked like a puppy dog swimming right through my bass area. Of course, after he threw that gorilla of bait on the grass bed, I never got another strike. I knew that would have been a bad day if he continued to fish with that big, old bait.

When he got the baseball bat lure in the boat, I said, "Look, buddy. These bass like smaller top-water lures. Pick out two or three out of my box, and you'll catch you some bass." He said, "Oh, no. I want to use this bait, because if I catch a bass it will be a big ole bass." I told him, "If you catch a fish on that lure, it will be Moby Dick, because that's the only thing I know that can eat a bait that big."

Every time we would go to a new grass bed, I'd start fishing as hard and as fast as I could, and I could usually catch one good bass before my partner would cast his baseball bat out. The fish were holding in really-shallow grass. When that gargantuan lure would land like a cloud of thunder clapping on that water, and my partner would chug it a time or two, any bass that was holding on the grass left the county. I was in contention to win this tournament, and I did the meanest thing I've ever done in a tournament in my life. My partner lacked casting accuracy, so finally he threw that big lure way out on the bank. I said, "Look, it's against the tournament rules for us to get out of the boat while we are fishing, and the only way to get that lure that's hung up on the bank back will be for me to put you out on the bank and let you go get it."

I told him to break his line, and I would give him 3 or 4 lures out of my tackle box that he could fish with the rest of the day. As a matter of fact, he could use any of the lures in my tackle box, but he had to break a line and leave that baseball bat on the bank. Finally, he agreed to break his line. I feel confident that if my partner had not fished that big bait all morning long, I very well might have caught the size and number of bass I needed to either win the tournament or at least, finished in the top two or three.




 

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