Forty-three anglers failed to catch a keeper on either of the first 2 days of the Chesapeake Bay Bassmaster Northern Open, and Elite Series pros Greg Hackney and Britt Myers were among them.
As he packed up and headed for next week's Elite Series event at Smith Mountain Lake, Hackney was still trying to figure out what went wrong.
"I got here on Monday and I guess I've been lost the whole time," he said. "I'd never been here before and after reading the reports on the Internet, I expected it to be a slugfest. It might be the worst fishing trip I've ever been on in my life, and I've been on some bad ones."
He caught 10 to 15 short fish on day 1, but got just one bite on day 2. His highlight for the day was tail-hooking a 25-pound carp.
"I don't understand it. The Potomac's a lot shallower than this place, and it's a fish factory. This has deeper water, more laydowns, more boat docks, big areas of grass – as far as being target-rich, it's as fine a place as you'd ever want to go to.
"I felt like I fished a classic pre-spawn pattern, and maybe these fish are still in (the winter mode). I spent all my time on wood and grass, and maybe the majority of them are off chasing herring on the flats."
New Jersey's Dave Mansue led the cut to the Top 30 for the final day with a 2-day weight of 36-09. Former Eltie Series angler Frank Scalish was 2nd with 34-00, and then there's a big drop down to North Carolina's Rodney Sorrell in 3rd (27-10).
Current Elite anglers who made the 30-cut were Kota Kiriyama (4th), Jeremy Starks (11th), Mike Iaconelli (15th), David Smith (24th), Kevin Short (25th), J. Todd Tucker (26th) and Ken Cook (28th). They were joined by FLW Tour pros Glenn Delong (16th) and Aaron Hastings (19th).
