Florida was well represented at the recent Harris Chain Bassmaster Elite Series: Shaw Grigsby won, Chris Lane finished 7th and Terry Scroggins posted a 10th. There might have been one more Florida pro inside the Top 12 if not for some misfortune. Rookie Lee Sisson (Winter Haven) missed the cut by 3 ounces and finished 13th.
Sisson, a longtime lure designer who's credited with several Bagley designs, started Lee Sisson Lures in 1985 but recently sold the company in order to compete at the tour level.
At the Harris Chain, he weighed a stout 14-04 on day 1, crumbled with 6-09 on day 2, then rebounded with 18-11 on day 3.
"I had several patterns going," Sisson told BassFan. "Everybody saw the big fish that Shaw saw. There was no secret there. But if you didn't get a high draw, you weren't going to get to fish them. One of my patterns was fishing an Aruku Shad through eel-grass patches at the mouths of cuts going back into the canals. I also found some fish by using the side-scan out in open water to find small clumps of hydrilla a few yards around. They were like fish magnets. My third pattern was lily-pad stems and stumps at the end of Little Harris."
As evidenced by his day-1 and day-3 weights, the patterns were strong. What happened on day 2?
"I blew two engines and never got to my spot," he said. "First, I got to about 200 yards from where I caught my big fish in the lily pads and the engine blew. I had a friend bring me an old replacement boat and at 2:00 I was dead in the water again. I only caught two fish and barely made the 50-cut. We were having to idle through real shallow, debris-filled vegetation and we were sucking up a lot of stuff. A lot of people had engine problems. Evidently I didn't clean mine as well."
When asked to look back and identify one or two things he might have done differently to make the Top-12 cut, he said: "I went from 14th the first day to 46th the second day to 13th the third day. Talk about a roller coaster. It was a rookie heartbreak. But looking back, I'd have gone a little easier on my motor and made sure the stuff was cleaned out. I was on the fish to make the cut. There was no way I was going to catch Shaw, but that second day, if I'd weighed 14 pounds, I might have been Top 5. To have that opportunity in a rookie debut, then have that (engine problem) happen, it's kind of a bummer."
Sisson headed down the road and is currently practicing for this week's St. Johns Elite Series. About his first day of practice there, he said: "I had the toughest practice day I've ever had in my life. And it's supposed to be right – everything's supposed to be right (for a big spawn). But it's the toughest I've ever seen it and I didn't see a lot of smiles coming off the water yesterday. Everybody was all excited because it was supposed to be a big-fish deal. They might show up, but right now it's tough."
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