(Editor's note: This is the first of several installments in a new series titled Cup Q&A. These interviews focus on pros who qualified for next week's Forrest Wood Cup, to be held in Hot Springs, Ark. at Lake Ouachita.)
One subplot in the Forrest Wood Cup field is the reunion atmosphere for several Arkansas legends
who retired from tour-level BASS competition to fish FLW events.
Next week's Cup will feature Larry Nixon (Bee Branch), George Cochran (Hot Springs), Ron Shuffield (Bismark), and Mark Davis (Mt. Ida).
Cochran won the FLW Tour Championship – the precursor to the Cup – in Hot Springs 2 years ago. That event was at Lake Hamilton, where he lives.
But this time at Ouachita, it's Davis who gets the overall nod as the true local. He's spent close to 30 years fishing the lake, and next week marks his first league championship since the 2004 Bassmaster Classic, and his first FLW championship since 1998.
BassFan: You'll be fishing the Cup on your home lake next week. How do you feel?
Davis: I'm tired. I can't sleep at night. I'm real excited.
Cochran overcame the local curse 2 years ago. And Boyd Duckett won this year's Classic on home water. What are your thoughts? Are you at an advantage next week, or a disadvantage?
I really know this lake intimately. When I say that, I mean from top to bottom. That could honestly be a help, but it could also be a detriment.
Sometimes when you know too much, you don't settle down. What I have to remember is, although it's my home lake and I know a lot about it, the challenge is I still have to go out there, settle down, buckle down, and do a good job of fishing.
In the end, it's all about what you do on gameday. No matter how much knowledge you have – all these nostalgic places you know would produce fish – you have to settle on an area, and a pattern, and buckle down, and do a good job of fishing. That's the challenge for any guy who's a local.
What exactly do you mean by settle down? Are you saying you can't run-and-gun?
The fishing's going to be tough. In fact, I'm going to say it this way: The fishing's going to be extremely difficult. And the trap the local will get caught in, in an event like this, is instead of getting in an area – instead of picking out one area of the lake and just getting in there, putting the trolling motor down with a nose to the grindstone and doing a good job of fishing – he'll keep trying to make something great happen.
He'll keep looking for that glory hole that probably doesn't exist. If it does exist, it most likely won't happen for you or anybody else.
It's difficult to do sometimes, but you have to settle down, pick an area, slow down, and fish hard. You have to realize that fishing's going to be tough anywhere you go on the lake. So the trap you fall into as a local is when you don't ever really settle down and fish hard in one certain area.
So your strategy is going to be to pick a part of the lake to fish?
I think that's the key right there – pick a section of the lake and fish it.
Do you think the event will be won deep or shallow?
It'll be won deep. The lake's falling 4 inches a day, and the water's pretty clear, although we did have some rain a month ago. It's not shaping up to be a shallow bite at all.
I could be wrong, and I may be way off-base, but I'll tell you right now – it'll be won in the deep grass. That's not any big secret. It's the way the event should be won.
With an offshore grass bite, will that spread the field, or will the fishing be tight?
This lake fishes absolutely huge. It's full of structure (like) humps and long points. It's got acres and acres of fishable water, and I'd be surprised (to see) guys fishing next to one another. I think it fishes that large. This lake would actually have a 200-boat field just fine.
For Davis, 'it would mean everything to win' the Cup.
You said the fishing's going to be "extremely difficult." Does that mean it's going to be a limit tournament, or a kicker tournament? Meaning, can you win it with limit-fish, or will you need a kicker every day?
It's going to be a kicker tournament. A kicker here is a 4 or 5. One (of those) a day could definitely do it. The limit fish run 1 1/2 to 2 pounds.
Talk for a moment about your experience on the lake.
I began guiding here at the age of 16, and I'll say that from the time I was 16 until I was 31 – when I won the Classic and quit guiding – I averaged 175 to 200 days a year on the water. So I averaged 175 days a year for 15 years on this lake.
Then there were another dozen years after where I fished the lake probably 100 days a year.
(Note: That math works out to around 4,000 days on Lake Ouachita.)
What would it mean for you to win next week?
I'd be big-time stoked about it. I've been looking forward to this event ever since it was announced.
It would mean a lot for anyone's career, but for me, it would mean everything to win this event. It really would.
You're picked as an early favorite. Who else would you put on that short list?
I think you've got five guys who could be a factor here. I may be forgetting someone, but there's George (Cochran), Larry (Nixon), Rob Kilby, Ron Shuffield, and you've got Scott Suggs.
Of that group, I think Suggs probably knows the lake better than those other four.
In the Classic, spectator boats are a major factor. In fact, a lot of Classic pros practice with potential spectator traffic in mind. Will that be a factor next week at Ouachita?
I don't think, with the way we're going to be fishing, that spectator traffic is going to be as big a consideration. In a lot of the Classics it is. But punching 20-foot hydrilla in open water? I don't see it.
So is it a consideration? Yeah. Is it a major consideration? I don't think so. Although this is a tough lake, the lake itself – the makeup of it and the structure you're over – it sets up very well for a summertime tournament."
Notable
> Davis' best FLW championship finish was 4th (1997, Ferguson). His only other appearance in the event was the following year, when he finished 28th at the Mississippi River.
> He's a former Classic champion (1995) and three-time BASS Angler of the Year (2001, 1998, 1995).
