Brandon McMillan dined alone at a Maryland Cracker Barrel last Thursday night. He probably wouldn’t have been good company anyway after starting off the Potomac River FLW Tour in 126th place.
It was a gut punch since he was coming off a 132nd-place showing at the Mississippi River and he knew another dud in the season finale would take him out of contention for a berth in the Forrest Wood Cup (he was 29th in points after six events). He settled on a flipping pattern to start and figured his nearly 12 pounds would have him in the middle of the pack.
He never expected 81 competitors to come in with at least 14 pounds. On Friday, he scrapped the flipping program and committed to throwing a weightless Texas-rigged Senko around a 50-yard stretch of milfoil in a completely different part of the river.
“I found that spot Tuesday night,” he said. “I just didn’t know how good it was. My game plan was to flip and swim a jig before I ever got to the Potomac and I got just enough bites in practice doing that to keep me on that one track. I got just enough bites to hang myself, basically.”
He also wanted to locate a spot he could jump to if he needed to finish off a limit if his flipping deal went to pot.
On Friday morning, he caught a series of 2-pounders before landing a 4-pounder for his fourth fish. That’s the one that changed his outlook.
“That fish convinced me that I needed to stay,” he said. “What else did I have to do? Had that fish been 3 pounds, I might’ve finished 90th because I probably would’ve moved.”
Instead, he went on to catch 20-07, the biggest stringer of the tournament, and jumped 110 places to 16th to make the top-20 cut for the second time this season. He added 19-07 on Saturday to move up to 2nd before bagging 11-11 on Sunday to finish 6th and cap off a 120-spot improvement.
A green-pumpkin Senko rigged on a 4/0 Mustad extra wide-gap hook was what he chose to throw repeatedly at the sweet spot he identified along the 50-yard stretch of grass.
“It was a great confidence booster,” he said when asked how he’ll remember day 2. “I’ve been in position before where I have to grind it out and one fish can change your momentum. Typically, when you’re flipping and you’re getting seven bites, one will settle you down, but then 30 minutes later you’re begging for another bite.”
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