When Matt Herren reflects on his 13th-place finish at the St. Johns River Bassmaster Elite Series, he’ll remember the fish that came off on day 2 and potentially cost him a shot to fish the final day.
“I had an opportunity on day 2, but I lost a real quality fish,” he said. “That was the difference. It was a big one.
"That’s just fishing. I had a good week overall. It was a real struggle all week push-poling all over those eelgrass flats looking for quality bedding fish. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t able to find enough.”
The Alabama pro got off to a strong start, weighing a 6-pounder on day 1 to anchor a 14-14 stringer. He followed that up with an 8-pounder on day 2 that keyed a 19-12 sack that pulled him into 6th place. Day 3, however, saw his weight drop off 8-02. He finished 1 pound out of the 12-cut.
When he wasn’t looking at beds, he was flipping docks north of Palatka. Both of his big bites came off beds, though.
“You had to wait on the tide to get right before you could see anything,” he noted. “The tides this week were really wrong. You had about a 2-hour window after it got right.”
His most productive bait around docks was the Reaction Innovations Sweet Beaver (hematoma). When working beds, he used the Reaction Innovations Kinky Beaver (hematoma) – “Those tidal fish could not stand that thing,” he said – and a Santone Lures Piglet shakey-head jig rigged with a Reaction Innovations Smallie Beaver (hematoma).
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.
