Matt Herren's miserable season took another bad turn Saturday when he incurred a zero on day 3 of the Alabama River Bassmaster Elite Series and finished in 50th place. He caught four keepers early in the day that combined to weigh about 10 pounds, but was forced to release them when his disabled boat could not be repaired about 30 miles downriver from the launch in Montgomery, Ala. and he had to have it towed to the service trailer.
"I hit a submerged floating log," he said Sunday morning. "Neither of us (he nor his marshal) even felt it, but it broke the strings in the water intakes. The service crew came down and we thought they were going to be able to fix it, but when they couldn't, it was too late to get a back-up boat.
"The wood got sucked up in there and they couldn't get it out, so we had to go back to the service trailer. When that happens, you have to release your fish and restart your day and all that, and there wasn't time to do that. It was just a bad deal.
"If it'd been a hard log, it probably would've just deflected and everything would've been okay," he continued. "But it was one of those soft, mushy, rotten things and it just exploded."
The veteran from Trussville, Ala. has made the 50-cut just twice in five events this year and has yet to log a finish better than 46th.
"I could write a book on the (bad) things that've happened this year. To top it off, I got home last night and went to get something to drink and the refrigerator had quit working. I mean, give me a break!"
