In many sports, it’s not how you start an event, but how you finish that matters most. It’s one of the etched-in-granite rules of tournament fishing.
Matt Reed couldn’t have asked for a better start to the Douglas Lake Bassmaster Elite Series. The Texas pro weighed 21-14 and was firmly planted in 2nd place. He was on the type of quality fish that he believed would allow him to remain in contention. The next 2 days, however, were a different story.
He failed to crack 12 pounds on each of the two subsequent days and finished 2 ounces out of the 12-cut. He still managed a 13th-place finish and earned enough points to push him into the Top 50 in the Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year (AOY) standings with four tournaments left.
“I got enough bites (on day 1) that I felt like I could continue to catch them, but I just couldn’t,” he said. “They just never positioned right and I didn’t have enough stuff to fall back on. It’s one of those tournaments you hated to go into damage-control mode, but I did. I went for a limit (at the bank) and went out there tried to do what I needed to do.”
His best fish were suspended in 33- to 43-foot depths over 50 to 70 feet of water. On day 1, he pulled a YUM Money Minnow rigged on a jighead through three separate schools to trigger reaction bites. He also caught fish on a big flutter spoon. However, increased boat traffic and fishing pressure kept the fish from coming up with the same frequency on days 2 and 3.
“These fish seem to be the most boat-shy deep fish I’ve ever dealt with,” he said. “If I could get them to move up there, I could catch them, but I could never get them to position right again after the first day.
“I think it was the boat pressure. During practice, you could idle around and find numerous schools of them and they’d be positioned correctly. The longer the week went, they just wouldn’t move up there. We had a great spectator crowd and tons of follow boats. That’s great for the sport, but it wasn’t good for my fish.”
He didn’t employ the deep-cranking tactic that most in the Top 12 relied on because he didn’t feel he could get a plug to pull through his key depths.
“The fish I was fishing, I really didn’t think I could get a crankbait to them,” he said. “And in all honestly and maybe it’s my lack of understanding of our rules, but I thought long-lining was illegal. I’m not complaining, but I didn’t know we could do that. That took my crankbaits out of my arsenal, I thought.
“I should’ve known better and dug into it deeper to know that it was legal. It is a very gray area, especially when you’re doing it with your big motor. I should’ve known it was okay, but I thought it wasn’t okay.”
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.
