Brandon Card had a chance to put away the Bassmaster Elite Series Rookie of the Year award last Friday during the second day of the Oneida Lake season finale. He was hooked up with a 4-pound smallmouth, but while bringing the fish in, it decided to jump one last time and shook the hook and swam off.
It left Card with four fish for the day and caused him to finish 60th, missing his third straight weekend cut. It also forced him to endure a day of not fishing while knowing fellow rookie Cliff Prince was out on the water on day 3 trying to make up the 15 points between he and Card in the standings.
“Saturday was terrible,” said Card, who punched mats the first 2 days with soft plastics rigged under a 1 1/2-oz. Jethro Baits tungsten weight pegged with a Jethro Stop-itz. “Having only four fish on Friday, I was pretty mad to be honest. On Saturday, I just took it easy. I was fine it and wasn’t aggravated anymore. I didn’t watch BassTrakk or anything until I got to the weigh-in because I didn’t want to get all keyed up about it.”
When Prince came on stage with only two fish in his bag, Card knew the ROY title was his.
“It means the world to me,” he said today while fishing the St. Lawrence River in northern New York, which will host an Elite Series event next year. “It’s what all the rookies shoot for. What was cool is that I had the lead early and held on to win. Cliff came on strong, though, from Toledo Bend to the end. He really put the heat on me.”
In the end, Card leaned on the strength of his first five tournaments (average finish of 25th) to capture the title. When asked about the possibility of slipping into some sort of sophomore slump next year, he was quick to mention fellow Tennessean Ott DeFoe, who won ROY honors as well as the All-Star event last year, then finished 2nd in the AOY race this season.
“Everybody’s going to step up their game now,” he said. “I don’t want to show up next year and be a slouch and turn into a guy who had a good first season and then was never heard from again. I’m going to put in my work this offseason and go into next year as if it was my first year.”
The main obstacle he had to overcome this season was finding fish and formulating a tournament strategy in the 3 days of practice prior to Elite Series events.
“That’s something that takes some getting used to,” he said. “It can be pretty difficult to get a tournament plan together in that time. Another part of the learning curve was getting used to the northern lakes and figuring out how to catch them up here since I don’t have a whole lot of experience with that.”
The icing on the cake this season, though, was securing a trip to his first Bassmaster Classic next February at Grand Lake in Oklahoma. He earned it by finishing 22nd in AOY points.
“It’s unbelievable,” he said. “That was probably my first goal when I came out here this season. I’m glad I accomplished that and won Rookie of the Year.”
He recalled attending the 2004 Classic in person when Takahiro Omori mounted a furious rally to capture the title at Lake Wylie.
“That had to be one of the best Classics ever,” he said. “Being there in person and watching that, it’s been something I’ve been dying to get into.”
