Stacey King couldn't think of anything he might've done differently in order to slip inside the Top-10 cut at last week's Lake Hartwell FLW Tour. The Missouri veteran was thrilled to finish the event in 11th place.
"I was very fortunate to do as well as I did," he said. "I had motor problems and lost a good part of my practice, and when I did practice I didn't find very much.
"I found one area that I'd fished one of the other times we were there where I got a few bites on the last afternoon. I didn't know I was on as many fish as I was until the first tournament day came around and I started catching them."
He used a ChatterBait and a worm to compile a 3-day total of 32-10. His weights were up and down as he went from 10-14 to 14-01 to 7-11.
"I would've done better on that third day if we hadn't had the (3-hour) fog delay. I was running 45 minutes and it was almost 11 o'clock when I got there, so I only had 3 hours to fish. They wouldn't bite the ChatterBait, so I slowed down with the worm to scratch out a small limit.
"I caught a lot of bass the first 2 days – at least 20 keepers each day. It was good fishing and I really had a lot of fun."
The Big Bite Lookback, which focuses on the angler who's first out of the final cut at each tour-level event, is brought to you by the great folks at Big Bite Baits.