Entry 140-5

Mark Davis's $100,000 Weekend

The Last 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: The weather forecast for the day was for much cooler temperatures with a lot of wind. With a cold front moving in and my having caught six keepers on my Quad Shad the previous day, I was confident I could win the tournament with the Quad Shad on that last day of competition. When I arrived at the lake, I saw we had cloudy, overcast conditions and plenty of wind. I looked at those weather conditions and said to myself, "This day's got spinner bait written all over it." I realized that these bass I was going to try and catch had already been fished for by 12 of the best bass fishermen in the nation. However, because all 12 of us fished somewhat differently, I thought I had a chance. I didn't think anyone else was fishing a spinner bait on this last day of the competition. I believed that to catch bass, I had to show the fish a different lure, and I felt like I'd be the only person in that gin-clear water fishing a spinner bait.

I returned to the same area where I'd caught my limit of spotted bass the day before. Although the bass would come up and hit at the spinner bait, they wouldn't take it. Even though I was fishing a trailer hook, I just couldn't catch the bass. Another factor that made fishing the spinner bait so frustrating was that the bass weren't attacking the spinner bait when it was close to the bank, but waited to strike when the lure was well away from the bank, out in 20 feet of water. So I knew the bass were suspended.

In the first hour and a half, I had three big spotted bass come up to my spinner bait but not take it. Finally, I had one spotted bass come up, hit my spinner bait and miss it, so I threw back to the same spot with a jerkbait and caught that 2-1/2-pound bass. I only caught that one fish in what I believed was my best place. When I moved to the next hole, I decided that if I was going to win this tournament, I needed to lay down my spinner bait and fish something I could fish extremely slowly to catch the bass. Although I tried the Shaky Head with the finesse worm and got a few bites on the bait, I finally decided that because fishing was so tough, my best chances to win would be to downsize and fish that small, 3-inch Yum Dinger.

The first place I threw the Yum Dinger was into a tree on the side of a bluff bank, and I boated a keeper. This was the third hole I'd fished that day. Then I caught another bass in that same area off another tree on the Yum Dinger, and I had three bass in my livewell. After I caught the third fish on the Yum Dinger, I decided this day was going to be really tough, and that to have a chance to win, I had to commit the rest of the day to fishing slow with that little bait. As the day progressed, I finally caught two more fish on the Yum Dinger. That 3-inch, watermelon-colored bait on 8-pound-test line with a No. 2/0 hook rigged wacky style proved to be the formula I needed to catch the bass on the final day. The real secret was skipping that bait under a bush and letting it fall without giving it any action at all, and being patient enough to fish so slowly that it almost hurt.

As I went to the scales, I thought I had between 10 and 11 pounds of fish. Kevin Wirth was ahead of me at the weigh-in, and he weighed in 10 pounds of bass. I knew I had to have 9 pounds to win, and I felt like I had the weight as I went to the scales to win the tournament. In fact, I thought I had 2 pounds more than I needed to win. When they put my fish on the scales, they weighed 11-1/2 pounds, and I knew I'd won the tournament. Having won three out of the five Elite 50 tournaments, I felt really blessed and fortunate to win this tournament. When the announcer asked me what I'd caught my bass on, I told him I'd taken them on the Strike King Quad Shad, the Strike King Zero and the 3-inch Yum Dinger.

I feel that in the sport of bass fishing, there's no room for dishonesty. This sport is tough, and bass are really fickle and hard to fish for and catch, especially in a deep, clear lake like Smith Lake. There's no one lure company that can make every lure that you need to use to catch bass every day you fish. For the sport of bass fishing to have that honesty and integrity and for fishermen to be believable, we have to tell the truth about what we catch our fish on. Obviously, I promote Strike King baits and think they're great. I believe in those lures. But there will be times when you have to use another manufacturer's products, like I did on the last day of this tournament when I had to fish with the 3-inch Yum Dinger.

Although I haven't talked to the people at Strike King after the tournament, I know what John Barnes, president of Strike King, will say when he hears I used the Yum Dinger on the last day of the tournament. He'll say, "You've got to do what you've got to do to catch fish and win a tournament." The difference between the Strike King people and some of these other lure companies is that all the executives at Strike King are bass fishermen, and they understand that to win a tournament, we've got to use whatever lures we can.

Editor's Note: This interview was conducted on Sunday morning, April 24, 2005, right after Davis had won the tournament on Saturday afternoon. At the end of the interview, we wanted more information about how Davis was able to beat the best 50-bass fishermen in three out of the five Elite 50 tournaments held in the last two years. However, Davis said, "I'm sorry. I'll talk to you later. Today's Sunday, and I've got to go to church. We can talk after church."

 

Contents:

• Part 1: Great Practice
• Part 2: The First Day of the Tournament
• Part 3: The Second Day of the Tournament
• Part 4: The Third Day of the Tournament
• Part 5: The Last Day of the Tournament