Entry 203-5

James Niggemeyer’s $62,500 Payday

Part 5: How Four of Us Won $250,000

Question: How did the contest change on the final day?

Niggemeyer: On the last day of the competition, all four anglers on each of the top-five teams would fish both the morning and the afternoon sessions.

Question: Where were you and Frank Ippoliti planning to fish, and where did Terry Scroggins and Chris Daves plan to fish, since y’all were fishing the same water?

Niggemeyer: Terry and Chris didn’t know much about Lake Fork. Since the bass had bit the day before on the spot Terry had found, Terry asked if he and Chris could fish that site on the final day. He felt that since I guided on Lake Fork, that I should be able to find a place where Frank and I could catch a bass. Frank and I planned to scramble around and see if we couldn’t catch some bass. During the morning session, Terry and Chris caught almost 40 pounds. But Frank and I only had two bass that would weigh about 6 pounds. However, in the middle of the day, our four-man team was still in second place because Terry and Chris had done so well.At our mid-day strategy session, I told Terry and Chris not to change anything because they had done everything right. I said, “Frank and I will do what we can to help catch some fish.”

The weather slicked off, and I decided to sight-fish. Once the sun came out, I could see the bass on the beds. I was catching my bass on Strike King’s Zero and the Z Too. I also caught a couple of fish on a tube. I had a nice 8 pounder that anchored my string that I caught with about 1-1/2- to 2-hours left in the tournament. We came up to a dock, which was the last dock in this particular creek. I’d been throwing a Zero to bass I could see on the beds. I believed so strongly in the Zero that I also was pitching it around docks, in-between where I’d see bass bedding. I pitched the Zero up close to the walkway section of the dock and felt a tick on my line. Once I set the hook, I could tell that the bass had a lot of power, because it stripped off drag and pulled my Zero through the cross members of the dock. The bass went out the other side of the dock from me and started jumping over there – away from our boat. I thought to myself, “Man, that’s a big bass. We really need this fish.”

I only had 50-pound-test Seaguar fluorocarbon line on my reel, and my line got wedged in the cross members under the dock. I couldn’t move the line or the bass, and the bass kept on jumping. So, I kicked the trolling motor on high and moved the boat toward the dock to get the line out of the cross members. Once I got the line free, I started working the bass back to the dock, over the cross members and back out into open water. When I finally got the bass on our side of the dock, the bass jumped one more time. As I brought the fish to the boat, Frank netted the bass. He lifted the fish up in the net, and the hook fell out of the bass’s mouth. But we had it! The bass weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces. I caught that fish on a green-pumpkin Strike King Zero. That 8 pounder helped us win the tournament.   

We finished the tournament with 234 pounds total for four anglers fishing for three days, and Alton Jones’ second-place team had 205 pounds. Each of our team members took home $62,500 from the tournament. And, on the Bassmaster circuit, I’d only taken home $32,000 since January, 2007. So, this win will help pay some bills and keep me fishing.

Contents:

• Part 1: How the PAA Texas/Toyota Tournament Was Set Up
• Part 2: What We Learned in Practice
• Part 3: First Day of Competition
• Part 4: Disaster Strikes
• Part 5: How Four of Us Won $250,000