Entry 282-2

Greg Hackney Sets New Trophy Bass Record

Part 2: Thirty-Two Pounds for 4th Place on Day One

Question: What did you do on the first day of the FLW East vs. West Fish-Off Tournament?

Hackney: I had set-up a tremendous bite the day before the tournament flipping an Ocho in shallow-water cover. As soon as the tournament started, I went to the same spot where I’d practiced with the Ocho, expecting to limit-out on big fish. I began with a top-water bait in the early morning and later began using a Strike King spinner bait. When the sun became brighter, I rigged the Ocho and couldn’t get a bite. I couldn’t believe all the fish in this region had left. I worked hard until 9:00 am, and I couldn’t make those fish bite. This morning was cloudy so the weather wasn’t conducive to a flipping bite. Next, I fished the top-water and spinner baits. However, when the sun came out, I thought the bass would move-up like they had the day before. I was wrong. I thought I could get a quick limit on that shallow-water bite to take the pressure off and then settle-in and catch bigger fish in deep-water spots.

Question: Greg, what is flipping weather?

Hackney: Generally, flipping weather is warm, bright sunny days that move the bass into the heart of thick cover. On cloudy days and early in the morning, the bass don’t move into thick cover because the water’s darker, and they can swim in the open water to ambush bait.

Question: What did you do when your flipping tactic didn’t work?

Hackney: Around 9:00 am, I pulled-up on what I believed was my best offshore fishing location at Lake Falcon.

Question: With what were you fishing this offshore spot?

Hackney: I used the Rage Anaconda in the red-bug color. I used a 3/8-ounce True Tungsten slip sinker, 20-pound-test Gamma fluorocarbon, and a 6/0 OWG hook.

Question: Greg, what kind of spot was this offshore region?

Hackney: The underwater location was a sunken fence line that made a 90-degree turn beside an underwater road. The road bed provided a hard bottom surrounded by rocks. I found this place by riding the lake using my depth finder. What made this tournament really difficult was having no underwater map of the lake. Because the lake was 30-feet high, the existing maps didn’t show the structure that was the bank before the lake rose 30 feet. When a lake rises this much, everything on the bank is 30-feet deep. Too, we had no lake map.

I had to ride that new water attempting to graph spots where I thought bass would be holding. The new bottom made fishing the tournament difficult for everyone because we had to find fishing spots that had never before existed on this lake. My two best fishing spots in this tournament were dry land 2 months before the tournament started. I fished in places where you’d normally deer hunt. The good news about this area was that the fish were schooled-up by size. I was lucky - all the fish in this school were huge. On two of my four fishing locations during practice, all the fish were 5-pounders. When I located this site where I fished the first day, the fish were holding in 17 feet of water, but because the first day was sunny, the school had backed-out to water 22-feet deep. When I reached this spot at 9:00 am, I fished all the way down the edge of this road bed for an hour without getting a bite.

Then when I turned around to travel back up the road bed, I graphed a school of bass in 22 feet of water directly under my boat. I had my boat sitting on top of the region where I should have been fishing. When I spotted bass under the boat, I cast out past the school. Instead of turning on my trolling motor, I let the wind push my boat and drag the Anaconda right into the school. I never turned the first bass that took my bait. He took the Anaconda and kept going, finally breaking my line. He was a monster. I’m not sure how big, but he was huge. I sat down in my boat, and tied-on a new Anaconda. On the next three casts, I caught three 7-pounders in back-to-back casts – one weighing 7-pounds 14-ounces, another 7-pounds 11-ounces, and yet another 7-pounds 8-ounces. On the first day, I ended up with 32 pounds of bass, and I was in 4th place.

Next: The Day to Get Ahead

Contents:

• Part 1: Twenty-five Bites in 2 Hours and Two 8-Pounders
• Part 2: Thirty-Two Pounds for 4th Place on Day One
• Part 3: The Day to Get Ahead
• Part 4: The Last Tournament Day
• Part 5: Hackney Holds First On the Final Day