One of the anglers who got a big boost after yesterday's Grand Lake Bassmaster Elite Series was Davy Hite. He finished in a tie for 5th and jumped 14 spots in the BASS Angler of the Year (AOY) race. He's at 36th now – one spot ahead of the Bassmaster Classic cutoff. Notable there is he said his fishing picked up after BASS announced that the 2008 Classic would be at Lake Hartwell in South Carolina – right in his neck of the woods.
He threw the same bait at Grand that winner Kevin VanDam used. About his 5th-place finish, he said: "I feel good about it. I knew with where I was in points, I needed to have a few good tournaments sooner than later. It's a great lake, and those were extremely good catches for summertime fishing. I had a good tournament, I feel good about it, and I feel real good about the momentum going into the New York stretch coming up after the 4th of July."
"Anytime you move 14 spots, it's a big move," he added. "The season is winding down, but there are still quite a few tournaments to go. When you fish six tournaments a year, after two or three people start getting excited about AOY and the Classic race. But with us fishing 11 Elite Series tournaments, there's still a lot of fishing to go until it's all said and done."
About the Hartwell announcement, he said: "It really motivated me when I found out. Since then, I've had a 35th, then a 5th (at Grand), and I've been able to bump back up. I'm going to stay extremely focused to make sure I'm weighing in at the Bi-Lo center and not sitting out in the audience."
He added that he knows Hartwell "better than most people that have a chance to qualify," but he doesn't fish it a lot. He's mostly stoked to be in front of a hometown crowd – his residence in Ninety Six is a little more than an hour from host city Greenville.
