Potomac Was Roller Coaster Ride For Bubble Boys

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

The Potomac River FLW Tour was an important event to a lot of different competitors on various levels.

At the top of the points standings, the Angler of the Year race came down to day 3 as Scott Martin slipped past John Cox and Bryan Thrift to capture his long-awaited first AOY crown.

A little further down the ledger, those around the 15th spot in points knew if they could wiggle their way inside the Top 15 it meant they’d be locked into next year’s Toyota Texas Bass Classic, an invitation-only event based on performance from the previous season.

Even further down the standings, specifically around position 39, is where most of the stress was concentrated as that’s where it was determined the cutoff for Forrest Wood Cup qualifiers would likely fall. The Top 35 in points were locked in, but with four anglers already comfortably inside the Top 35 having qualified through other avenues, it opened up four additional spots via the points.

Coming into the Potomac, there was a three-way tie for 39th involving Terry Bolton, Charlie Ingram and Mike Surman with 733 points. There was a 58-point difference between Brandon Hunter in 33rd and Clent Davis in 47th, a sizeable deficit in one event remaining, but not an impossible gap to overcome.

Bolton, Hunter and Davis were among the group of six pros that saw their Forrest Wood Cup fates altered over the course of the first 2 days at the Potomac. Below is a closer look at the three anglers who fell out of the Cup – Bolton, Hunter and Scott Suggs – and the three that made it in – Troy Morrow, Clark Reehm and Davis.

On The Outs

Brandon Hunter
> Points standing before Potomac: 33rd
> Potomac result: 142nd place
> Final points standing: 55th
> Hunter says: Shortly after it became apparent that Hunter’s shot at making the Forrest Wood Cup were starting to evaporate, he received a text from a close friend.

“Brent Ehrler texted me right away and said it’s part of the game and that it happens to the best of the best, too,” Hunter recalled after his former practice and travel partner reached out to lift his spirits.

Hunter was wrapping up his second year as a Tour pro at the Potomac and figured an 80th-place finish or better would net him his first Cup berth. It never materialized as he struggled mightily throughout and finished last.

“The most disappointing part was wrapping my head around how I completely missed the boat and finished dead last,” he said. “I know I’m a better fisherman than that. I know practice was brutal for everybody and two or three bites a day in 14 hours was thought to be good. I thought there would be a lot of that on day 1.”

He wound up with two fish for 3-08. Day 2 yielded just one bite, which he threw back, resulting in a zero and a 142nd-place finish.

“I’m a deep-water fisherman,” he said. “I live on the Tennessee River so that’s my strength. I’ve struggled with grass lakes, but one thing I learned is I need to cover more water. I should’ve learned that as a co-angler.”

Hunter said one of his mistakes was not spending enough time in certain areas.

“If I see muddy water, I’d pick up the trolling motor and leave,” he added. “Another thing was the tides. I’ve been there a couple times as a co-angler, but I wasn’t the one making those decisions. Tidal fishing is different. It’s not the Tennessee River. My timing was down. I’m still trying to scratch my head and learn from what I missed.”

Scott Suggs
> Points standing before Potomac: 37th
> Potomac result: 96th place
> Final points standing: 46th
> Suggs says: Since the Forrest Wood Cup was held at Lake Ouachita in 2011, Suggs has made it a point to spend at least a week at Ouachita each August since then, knowing that FLW would eventually bring its marquee event back to the lake.

Unfortunately, he’ll have to wait until the Cup comes back a fourth time to put his research to use.

“It was just one of those deals,” he said of his Potomac River finish. “I really don’t know what happened. I’m over it, though.”

In practice, he figured out a pattern that yielded 10 to 12 bites a day and after hearing of the struggles of many other competitors, he was optimistic once day 1 rolled around.

“I have a deal that I’ve done over there forever that’s worked, but when I got back to the dock, my wife was waiting for me and she said, ‘They wrecked ‘em,’” Suggs said. “I was like, ‘What!?’”

He weighed 9-04 the first day and followed up with 10-06 despite having to scrap his primary plan since his best area had muddied up. Still, he couldn’t climb far enough to retain his spot in the Cup.

“I felt more prepared and in better shape this year than I had in a long time,” he said. “I didn’t want to rely on anyone else. I felt good about the year. I have no excuses.”

“The conditions hurt what I was doing. I was fishing away from everybody, but my key play on day 2 was all mud. I regrouped, but couldn’t get the quality bites I needed.”

Terry Bolton
> Points standing before Potomac: 39th (tie)
> Potomac result: 135th place
> Final points standing: 62nd
> Bolton says: When the schedule was released last year, Bolton had a feeling of dread about winding up the season at the Potomac. Despite plenty of experience there, he’d never really figured out the tides and grass.

He came into this year’s season finale with a good bit of momentum going after a Top-20 at Lake Eufaula and a Top-10 at Lake Chickamauga.

“I went into the two ledge tournaments last year and did terribly,” he said. “I forced myself to rethink my strategy and I recovered nicely this year and made the cut at both.”

Still, the challenge of the Potomac loomed. He didn’t have a dynamic practice, but was starting to get more bites each day.

“It was getting better, but I knew from the previous two events there, I’d fished in the grass and I’d always catch fish, but I’d never catch the big ones and I’d lose that battle,” he said.

He opted to develop a pattern that didn’t center around vegetation and was getting bites fishing rocks and docks, but a costly move on day 1 got him out of his rhythm.

“I got in an area where I thought I’d catch a couple, but the tide was dead low,” he said. “Eventually, I got to where I wanted to be and jumped a 3 1/2-pounder off. After that, I decided to leave, but I tried to come back at three other occasions and each time there was somebody there netting a fish

“Once I left there on day 1, I got in a bad rotation. I felt like I was late to everywhere I went. I made a tactical error. After two events of making good decisions, I made a bad decision at an inopportune time.”

While the Potomac sealed his Cup fate, Bolton said he’s more bummed about his 125th-place finish at Smith Lake earlier this season.

“It wasn’t like I was in left field at Smith,” he said. “I was doing the right thing and had a great practice. I just picked the wrong creek. I’m probably more disappointed in that event than I am about the Potomac.”

Rising Up

Clark Reehm
> Points standing before Potomac: 43rd
> Potomac result: 45th place
> Final points standing: 37th
> Reehm says: Reehm said he had his two worst days of the week during the tournament, which put him on edge about gaining enough ground to qualify for the Cup.

“I thought 13 to 16 (pounds) off hard cover was doable,” he said. “I kept trying to make the grass and running the tides work, but I was catching 2 1/2- to 4-pounders on hard cover, so I thought I could get 13 a day.”

He figured the 11-08 he bagged on day 1 would put him decent shape, but he didn’t realize that 30 pros were going to catch between 11 and 12 pounds. He was 57th after day 1 and had wiggled up to 40th in points, unofficially, at that point.

“There were guys in the 20s (in points) that stumbled, but the four guys right behind me caught ‘em on day 1 so it kind of skewed things,” he added. “I knew I could get 11 pounds again no doubt and I figured none of them would be able to duplicate what they had.”

By 11 a.m. on day 2, he had roughly 11 pounds and was stuck on that total at 1:30.

“I said to my co-angler, ‘Can I make it any more dramatic for myself,’” he joked. “That’s when you start thinking of all of those fish through the season. I had six fish in my livewell when I checked in on day 2 at Toho so that 2-pound penalty cost me 25 to 30 points. That was was going through my mind. I lost a 2 1/2-pounder at Eufaula, which doesn’t seem like much, but when you weigh in a 1 1/2-pounder it’s significant.

“All of that goes through your mind until you catch that definitive fish. When you catch that fish on day 2, where you know you’ve just made $10,000, you get a chill up your back. For me, I didn’t get that fish until there were 5 minutes left in day 2. I caught a 3-pounder on a Senko on a stretch of a dock that culled a 1 1/2-pounder. If I don’t catch that fish, I don’t make it.”

Troy Morrow
> Points standing before Potomac: 45th
> Potomac result: 30th
> Final points standing: 38th
> Morrow says: Morrow found himself in 2nd place after day 1, trailing only Adrian Avena. He figured making the Cup was a lock.

Then the afternoon of day 2 rolled around and he had just three fish in the livewell.

“You start feeling the crunch as you start getting close to the last couple hours,” he said. “It affects the way you fish. I fished too fast.”

He couldn’t finish his limit, but the three he had weighed 9-03 to give him 24-09 overall.

“They weighed more than I thought, but I was still pretty sure I’d blown it at that point,” he said.

Morrow waited around the weigh-in for a couple co-anglers that were camping near him so he kept tabs on the leaderboard on his phone. Upon returning to the campground, he couldn’t take the suspense any longer.

“I pulled out a notepad and computer and did the points,” he said. “I did them twice actually. I came up with 38th so I figured I was in. It was a bit of a roller coaster ride, but my whole season was like that. I’m usually pretty consistent, but this year was more volatile.”

Clent Davis
> Points standing before Potomac: 47th
> Potomac result: 21st place
> Final points standing: 39th
> Davis says: Since starting the season with 130th- and 124th-place finishes at Lake Toho and Smith Lake, respectively, Davis seemed to be an afterthought as far as making the Cup. He roared back into contention with three straight Top-35 showings before heading to the Potomac.

When he finished 21st, he advanced eight spots in points up to 39th to officially become the last man in.

“I didn’t believe it,” Davis said. “I honestly didn’t, I but felt like I deserved it coming from where I was. I’m extremely excited about it.”

Davis noted the irony that his first FLW fishing experience was as a co-angler – he drew Suggs as the pro – at the 2010 Lake Ouachita FLW Tour.

“I didn’t even know who Scott Suggs was, so that tells you how much I knew about bass fishing,” Davis said. “Now, I think the world of him.”

Asked to recall a key fish or sequence from the Potomac, he quickly referred to the afternoon on day 2.

“I had four fish at 1 o’clock and left my primary area,” he said. “I went over to a community deal and talked to (Scott) Canterbury and Cody (Meyer). Cody had three and Scott had four, so I went up that creek and just put my head down. I caught a 3-pounder on a frog after not catching a fish on a frog all week.

“Between 1 and 3, I caught 15 keepers and culled everything I had. That frog fish changed my whole day and definitely got me in the Cup.”