It’ll take Cliff Prince a while before he fully gets over the mishap that occurred on day 1 of the St. Johns River Elite Series. It was mid-morning last Thursday and he’d already caught a limit. He’d boxed a 4-pounder and was preparing to start the culling process when he opened the lid to his livewell.
All of his fish were belly up.
He’d turned on the wrong aerator switch and effectively ended his day before 11 a.m. B.A.S.S. rules prohibit anglers from culling dead fish. His mistake left him with 10-12 and buried in 95th place. He mounted an incredible rally to finish 6th by catching 62-10 over the final 3 days.
“To relive that day, I would’ve had a minimum of 25 pounds,” he said. “I caught the bucks off two females early in the morning and generally when you do that, the females will stay, but not for 24 hours. Once they figure out he’s not there, they usually leave. That afternoon, those fish were still there and I felt like I could’ve caught one or both. They were in the 8-pound class.”
He was in an area of the river where fellow Palatka area resident Terry Scroggins was also fishing. Knowing they’d do him no good, Prince waved Scroggins over and alerted him to the location of the fish.
“I told him, ‘I’d rather you see you catch ‘em than somebody else,’” Prince said. “That’s when I left. I couldn’t sit there and watch The Show. I had to go.”
He sight-fished again Friday and bounced back with a giant 23-04 stringer on day 2 that included a 10 1/2-pounder.
“I broke another one that size off,” he said.
On the weekend, he focused on shell bars in the river and fooled them with a lipless crankbait and a YUM Break'n Shad (fluke) rigged on an underspin or a scrounger head.
“With the weather and tide the way they were, it wasn’t conducive to finding more fish on beds,” he said. “I lost some fish that way, but it didn’t cost me the tournament. Those were community holes and those fish get beat on. Sometimes, they don’t eat it real good. Best case, I could’ve had 25 on day 3 and 20 on day 4, but day 1 is what cost me.”
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