Entry 321-4
Greg Hackney Tries Out the Strike King Hack Attack at Lake Oneida
Editor’s Note: Two-weeks before the last event on the BASS Elite Series, Strike King pro Greg Hackney of Gonzales, Louisiana, won the 2009 Forrest L. Wood Cup and $500,000 at Three Rivers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But after this big win, Hackney had to turn around, re-program himself, drive over 1,000 miles from his home in Louisiana and fish Lake Oneida in New York to fish against another group of some of the best bass fishermen in the world. There was a $100,000 first-place prize, but more importantly, he had to make sure he qualified for the 2010 Bassmaster Classic. Having won over $1/2-million dollars 2-weeks earlier, most of us would have kicked-back and coasted during the next tournament, but not Hackney. Hackney, like all of the Strike King pros, is a staunch competitor first and a bass fisherman second. He enters a competition, not to play the game, but to give his best effort to win. Let’s see how Hackney rebounded after winning the FLW Championship.
Part 4: The Third Day of Competition
Question: Greg, on the third day of competition, the field was cut to 50 competitors. Because you were in fifth place, you made the cut. What was your game plan?
Hackney: I was hoping to run the same pattern and hopefully catch the same amount of fish that I’d caught on the previous day. I decided to fish for largemouths first like I had done on the second day of the tournament, which wasn’t a very-smart move on my part, because the wind was blowing about 20 miles an hour that morning. The wind was blowing directly into my largemouth area.
When I got to my first spot to fish, I caught one largemouth that weighed about 2-3/4-pounds and three small smallmouths. I finally realized that the wind had changed the pattern, and I needed to switch from my largemouth area to my smallmouth area. But I didn’t leave my largemouth region until about 9:00 am, and I only had about 7 pounds of fish in my live well when I left.
Question: What happened when you got to your smallmouth spot?
Hackney: I couldn’t get the smallmouths to bite, but I finally caught enough smallmouths to start culling and begin to put a little more weight in my live well. I moved to one little site I’d found during practice, where I’d had several good bites. I felt I might be able to get a big fish from that spot. I had really wanted to save this spot until the last day of the tournament, but I knew that to stay in the hunt I had to catch some bigger bass. So, I decided to go ahead and sacrifice that spot and fish it on the third day. But I waited until the end of the third day to go to this little honey hole.
Question: What did you catch when you got to your honey hole?
Hackney: I caught a 4-pound smallmouth and a 3-pound largemouth, which gave me 15 pounds, 1 ounce to take into the weigh-in that day. With that bag of fish, I moved up to second place in the tournament, and I was really feeling good. I really felt like I had a chance to win it. 
I felt really confident going into the last day of fishing, and Chad Griffin was the only angler between me and $100,000 – or at least that’s what I thought. But I’d learned over the years that thinking you were going to win and actually winning were two-different things.
Regardless of what you think, you hope or you pray for, you have to remember you’re competing against the best bass fishermen in the world when you fish one of these major tournaments. Every one of these other competitors is thinking, praying and believing he’s going to win. The guys you’re fishing against are the best bass fishermen in the world. So that sort of tempers you a little bit and helps keep your expectations in the world of reality.
Contents:
- Part 1: The Key to the Tournament - The Hack Attack and the Rodent
- Part 2: The First Day of Competition
- Part 3: The Second Day of Competition
- Part 4: The Third Day of Competition
- Part 5: The Final Day of Competition
