Entry 140-4

Mark Davis's $100,000 Weekend

The Third Day of the Tournament

Editor's Note: On April 23, 2005, Mark Davis won his third Bassmaster Elite 50 Series Championship against 50 of the best fishermen in the nation. In four days of fishing on Alabama's Smith Lake, Davis earned $104,000. This week, we'll see not only how Davis won the big bucks against the best of the best, but also the character and personality of a true Strike King pro.

Davis: When I went to bed on the second day of the tournament, I watched the Weather Channel and saw Smith Lake would have severe storms on the third day of the tournament. On this day, the tournament changed. The top 12 anglers were chosen to fish the last two days. Because our weights went to zero, in essence, we were fishing a brand-new tournament. The top 12 competitors would fish six different locations on a designated course. This course was challenging for me because I hadn't had the opportunity to look at the course before I fished it. I was fishing completely unfamiliar water with a severe weather change and a cold front coming. The course we were to fish was right by the dam with gin-clear water. I realized this water was different from where I'd been fishing. The weather was different too from I what the weather had been on the earlier days of the tournament. I knew I'd have to completely change my tactics if I wanted to catch any bass.

We were supposed to begin fishing at 10:20 a.m., but because this severe storm had moved onto the lake, all the competitors stayed in their trucks and didn't launch their boats for one hour. Although the wind was still blowing and we had some rain, the worst part of the storm had moved out. My experience told me that many times spotted bass turn on immediately after a front like that passes through an area.

I was fishing in a sponsor's boat that day because we weren't allowed to use our own boats. When I launched my boat at the ramp and put the trolling motor down to move my boat away from the ramp, I found that the trolling motor was dead. Since the tournament was going to begin in 10 minutes, I had to locate another boat and get all my fishing tackle out of the boat where I'd plan to fish and load it into the new boat so I could start fishing on time. There's no way I could have had a worse start in a tournament - a storm delay, bad weather, new water I'd never fished and a broken trolling motor forcing me to just throw my gear into a boat I'd never run before to use to compete against the 12-best fishermen in the tournament.

Mentally, I was in an absolute dither. When I reached the part of the lake that I had to fish, I told myself, "Calm down, Mark. Think about what you're doing. Tie on a bait you've got confidence in." So I looked in my tackle box, pulled out a 3/8-ounce titanium Strike King Quad Shad spinner bait with a white skirt. In my opinion, the conditions were just right for this spinner bait after the storm. The Quad Shad is my favorite post-spawn spinner bait. I'd had such a bad start to this first day of competition against the other top anglers that I felt I definitely needed to fish one of my confidence lures. Anytime I get mentally messed up in a tournament, I start fishing a confidence-bait like the Quad Shad to help get my thinking right. I knew this spinner bait would catch both largemouth and smallmouth bass.

On my second cast, I caught a 2-1/2-pound spotted bass and put it in the livewell. Now, everything was right with my world. Then a few casts later, I caught another spotted bass. Next I moved over to a point that had some wind blowing on it and caught three more spots. In my first 25 minutes of fishing, I had a limit of spotted bass in the livewell. I thought to myself, "Life is good." I'd started this tournament in the worst-possible shape I could be in mentally, but the Strike King Quad Shad had righted my mental ship. I was back in the game. I had 10 pounds in the livewell and the rest of the day to fish.

Catching those first five fish so quickly was the real key to my winning this tournament. By having the limit in the boat, I could fish slower, be extremely patient and spend the rest of the day trying to determine exactly what the bass were doing, where they were holding, what type of cover they were holding on, what type of lure they would bite best, what type of presentation they wanted, and what would be required to catch the bigger fish. I decided that those spotted bass I'd caught early were turned-on because of the storm. But after the storm passed through, the wind calmed down, the clouds went away, and the sun came out, and we enjoyed a really-pretty day of bass fishing on the lake. The spinner bait bite after the storm slacked off, so I knew I would have to change lures.

I began to experiment with the Strike King finesse worm and finesse tactics. I caught a few bass by fishing the Strike King watermelon finesse worm on a jig head. I fished the Shaky Head jig with the finesse worm on 8-pound-test line and a spinning rod. Even though I'd caught a few bass, this tactic didn't really seem like the best way to catch bass. The water was so clear where I was fishing that I could see the bottom at 12 feet. So I decided to try a scaled-down version of the Strike King Zero, called the 3-inch Yum Dinger.

One of the big advantages of being a Strike King pro is that the people at Strike King understand that when we're in a tournament, we have to fish whatever bait we can find to make the bass bite, whether it's a Strike King bait or not. And even though Yum is a competitor of Strike King's, on this day and on this lake, that little 3-inch Yum Dinger rigged wacky style proved to be the bait that the bass would bite.

One of the reasons I'd brought the Yum Dinger with me was because I'd learned in clear-water situations that a small bait like this was often what the bass wanted. Not only was the Yum Dinger a small lure, but it sank fast without my having to put a weight on the line. Another advantage to this bait was that it would cast really well on 8-pound-test line, and you could skip the bait under docks, bushes and limbs. I was actually skipping the Yum Dinger up under bushes where the bait would fall fast toward the bottom.

I caught three bass on the Shaky Head with the 3X worm, three more bass on the Yum Dinger, and the last bass I caught was on the Quad Shad. That last bass I caught on the Quad Shad weighed 3-1/2 pounds and allowed me to cull a fish out of my livewell. I caught the big fish in the last location I fished toward the end of the day. When I went to the scales that afternoon, I weighed in 13 pounds, 8 ounces to lead the tournament. But I only had a 1-pound lead.

Mark Davis's $100,000 Weekend

The Third Day of the Tournament

Next: The Last Day of the Tournament

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