Buddy System: Eelgrass Kept Gross’ Attention

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

The sign Buddy Gross was looking for came just before dusk last Monday. That’s when he saw one blade – a single blade – of eelgrass floating in the water. He initially thought it may have just drifted out from shore. It’s not a prevalent species of vegetation on Pickwick Lake, but he knew if he found more, it could lead him to some fish.

“It never dawned on me that there was going to be clumps of it,” he said. “When I started finding clumps, that’s what I love to do so that’s what I did. The next day is when I started fishing it a little bit. I spent the whole day looking for more with my side-imaging. Once I saw it on there, I knew what it was because I fish it so much at Guntersville.”

When he found the eelgrass, he immediately knew the bait to reach for – a bucktail hair jig. That’s right, the man who won last week at Pickwick did it predominantly by throwing a hair jig into eelgrass and coaxing post-spawners who were attracted to the grass by spawning shad nearby.

It wasn’t the best pattern for catching quantity, but it sure produced the quality he needed each of the first three days. He kicked off the event with 25-08, then followed up with 21-03 and 22-12 to open a lead of 14-11 entering the final day. When his best two areas didn’t produce a bite on Sunday, he scrounged up two fish for 4-14 to close with 74-05, edging Michael Neal by 3-01.

Here’s how he did it.

Practice

Gross paid little to no attention to the outcomes of the Wheeler Lake Elite Series or the Kentucky Lake FLW Series because he wanted nothing in his mind that would blur his focus on what was happening at Pickwick.

“I was focused strictly on what was going on at Pickwick,” he said. “I’m really bad at watching things on TV or the web and wanting to be a part of them, so I didn’t pay attention to them.”

In practice, he put in by the Natchez Trace bridge and went down the lake from there, “to the first wide spot in the river.”

“I stayed on the lower end looking for schools and didn’t find them,” he said. “I said, ‘I’m not doing this and put my eggs in this basket when the schools were so small.’ I’d found some singles and two fish on a schooling place and I started to think what if I have to share that spot with 10 or 15 other boats. The hard part was when we’d get back to the room, Michael would say, ‘They’re growing. Every day, they’re getting bigger.’”

He spent part of Monday idling more, but still wasn’t satisfied with what he found. That night, he found the eelgrass.

“For me, if I’m going to do that kind of fishing, I want a pretty good-sized school, and I never did see it,” he added.

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 25-08
> Day 2: 5, 21-03
> Day 3: 5, 22-12
> Day 4: 2, 4-14
> Total = 17, 74-05

Gross had only a few areas he wanted to fish on day 1, but windy conditions out of the west prevented him from getting on two of them. No problem – he proceeded to catch six keepers, the best five of which weighed 25-08, and that was with a 2-05 largemouth among the group.

“I thought it would run out every day, but it kept producing,” he said, referring to what developed into his best spot that he didn’t fish until an hour into day 1.

“There was a window of opportunity that if I’d have gone out there earlier, I had a chance to catch a real big bag,” he added.

His primary tactic was casting the 1-ounce hair jig past the eelgrass clumps and letting it fall to the bottom. He’d then crank the reel five turns and pause it, the he’d crank it four more turns and let it fall.

“If I hit the eelgrass, I’d bump the reel one more time to pop it clear and when it’d fall after that I’d usually get a bite,” he said. “I kept that bait moving pretty good.”

For about a third of the day, he changed it up with a Tennessee River Tackle Tremor Head with a Super Fluke trailer.

He extended his lead on Friday with a 21-03 stringer as he again only caught six keepers in windy conditions fishing the same area from day 1. He lost a couple hours of fishing time as he had to give Neal a ride back to the ramp after Neal’s boat broke down. Still, Gross’ lead had swelled to nearly 9 pounds entering the weekend.

He turned the tournament into a blowout on Saturday with a 22-12 effort that pushed his advantage into double figures.

“I could’ve caught more on Saturday,” he said. “I think I could’ve loaded up. That’s a tough deal. I try to save fish and I’ll go back and they’ll be gone, or I’ll catch them all thinking they’d be gone and then they’re still there the next day. I wish I’d have caught more because you never know.”

His good fortune ran out on the final day as neither of his best two spots produced a bite. Instead, he resorted to a spinnerbait to catch the two fish that ultimately clinched the win after Neal mounted a strong rally in the afternoon.

Winning Pattern Notes

> Gross’ best area was in the Kroger Island vicinity, but it was the subtleties of it that made it key.

“Where the main land of the island stops, the bar continues on,” he said. “There’s a ridge with a ditch on the back of it and the river’s on the other side of the ditch. On that ridge, those clumps of eelgrass would be scattered. They weren’t in a straight line. There would be one here and over there and over here. They were twice the size of the tubs we stand around at in the bag line.

“I would mark every one of them. I’d make one pass so I could get everything straight so I’d get everything between the eelgrass and the break. That’s when I did my damage. I’d then go up and turn in and come back up and throw parallel across them. Then I’d go on the other side and throw out.”

He was convinced there were some shell beds mixed in among the scattered eelgrass clumps.

“When they bit early in the morning, sometimes I’d get a small piece of shell that would be on the nose of the hair jig,” he added.

Winning Gear Notes

> Scrounger gear: 7’3” extra-heavy Hammer Fishing Rods All American Elite Rod Series casting rod, Lew's Tournament Pro casting reel (6.8:1 ratio), 17-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, 1- and 1 1/4-oz. Tennessee River Tackle Tremor Head, Zoom Super Fluke (white).

> Hair jig gear: Same rod, same reel, same line, 1-oz. Hog Farmer Bait Company Big Buck Hair Jig (white).

> When around hydrilla, he often threw a 5” Fringe Tackle hollow-belly swimbait (shad) rigged on a 1/4-oz. Owner Flashy Swimmer.

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – “I stayed in a small box. I didn’t go much above Kroger Island and I didn’t go much below the bridge. That’s a 5-mile box. I have learned that if you run all over the lake I’m losing fishing time. I promised myself I wouldn’t get spread out like that anymore. It’s going to bite me some time, but I’m putting my line in the water a lot more than those guys who are bouncing around. Two of the days in this tournament, within 15 minutes, I had 18 pounds. That’s huge. I didn’t know it was going to be as good as it was.”

> Performance edge – “My Hammer Rods. They’re so sensitive and they’re so light. They have the Winn grips that in the cold weather, they warm up and in the warm weather, they stay cool. They are just a good rod. They’re parabolic so I don’t lose fish anymore. If I lose a fish, it’s my error.”

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