By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor
To win the latest edition of the Bassmaster Classic at Lake Hartwell, the consensus among anglers was that largemouth would likely be the dominant species. With the water elevated and warming up in recent weeks – and with plenty of new shallow cover for them to operate in – it was a logical mindset.
The lake is also known for its spotted bass population, but they tend to relate to the unpredictable offshore movements of the lake’s blueback herring.
As practice wore on, Jordan Lee grew more wary of the largemouth with the myriad of conditions thrown the anglers’ way. He felt like the spots could be more reliable.
“During practice, I realized with as many ways as I fished and things I covered, the largemouth bite wasn’t great,” Lee said. “I looked for spotted bass, but I didn’t kill the spots. It was easier to get bit doing that. I didn’t think spots would win, but knew it would be easier to catch a few.”
As with any tournament, though, there’s always an X-factor and for Lee, that was high skies and rising temperatures. The prolonged sunny periods during the tournament, especially on days 1 and 3, positioned fish around boat docks to where he could target them with a nail-weighted, wacky-rigged soft stickbait.
As the event’s final stages played out Sunday, Lee discovered docks in a down-lake pocket that were laden with fish underneath them. Three culls in the afternoon are what carried him to the win.
After an 18-10 bag had him in 3rd after day 1 Friday, Lee stumbled slightly with a 12-02 bag of all spots on Saturday, but still found himself in 6th place entering day 3. He was 6 1/2 pounds back of leader Jason Christie and had nary a thought about winning. Too many things had to happen – namely, Christie had to struggle and others had to stumble as well – to clear a path for him.
A 16-05 stringer anchored by a couple afternoon 3-pounders changed that. It was a tougher day lake-wide for the 25 competitors on the final day, especially for those targeting shallow largemouth, perhaps a result of an overnight storm system that moved through the area late Saturday evening.
Lee just went about his dock-skipping business, though, as if he were back home at Smith Lake.
When Lee weighed in Sunday, he knocked Brent Ehrler out of the lead in an eerily similar scenario to the culmination of last year’s Classic in Houston. Gerald Swindle was next to the stage and fell short of Lee’s mark of 47-01. Same with James Elam, Micah Frazier and Edwin Evers.
All that stood between Lee and a second straight Classic win was Jason Christie, the no-BS superstar with a mantle full FLW Tour and Elite Series trophies, but no Classic or AOY hardware. The leader after days 1 and 2, Christie had struggled on day 3 and failed to fill out his limit. The door to history was open for Lee.
Christie’s four fish weighed 8-11, just over a pound less than what he needed to overtake Lee. And that was it – the 26-year-old became the third angler to win consecutive Classics and the sixth man to win multiple Classics.
Lee’s winning weight was the lowest of the three Hartwell Classics, which came as a surprise to some who thought it would take more than 50 pounds to prevail last week.
In two weeks, Lee will be at the Sabine River near Orange, Texas, for the resumption of the Elite Series season. In the meantime, he’ll bask in his latest unexpected triumph.
“As far as the way I fished this week, it’s not typically the winning pattern,” he said. “I had a lot of spotted bass. I probably had half spotted bass. That typically doesn’t win tournaments here. It was my best stuff.”
Here are some details about how he got it done.
Practice
The conditions at Hartwell less than a month ago were trending toward a shallow-water tournament with the potential for some sight-fishing. A prolonged cold front arrived prior to the start of practice to blunt that progression and bring a range of scenarios into play.
“I really focused on the main lake from the launch to the dam,” he said. “That’s where I banked on for the tournament. I felt like the winning fish were there. I knew that rivers would get pressure and I know that it’s hard to win in a creek or up the river with stained water.
“I knew it was going to be tough to get bit. I had fished boat docks down the lake and mid lake and didn’t get any good signs. I stuck with it. I got just enough bites – a couple here and there – to keep me doing it. I was just banking on it getting better.”
Lee said he didn’t have a confidence-inducing practice, partly because he didn’t uncover much in the way of a productive pattern and partly because practice took place an entire week ahead of the tournament. He adopted a junk-fishing mentality.
“I’d heard that before about this lake,” he said. “My practice was not good. I got a bite here or there. I tried to learn from those. There wasn’t a lot to it.”
He eventually located a few spots that were reliable, but never did he tap into what he felt could be a winning pattern.
“I fished new water every day and I had fun,” he said. “That was my main goal coming here. A lot of people asked me if I was nervous or had any more pressure coming into the tournament. It was the opposite. I just wanted to have fun and fish the way I thought was my best chance of doing well. That’s what I did.”
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 18-10
> Day 2: 5, 12-02
> Day 3: 5, 16-05
> Total = 15, 47-01
Each morning, Lee started on a flat just south of Knucklehead Island and was able to break the ice with some keeper spots with a jerkbait or a small swimbait.
“It was a little feeding spot with a little flat on it,” he said. “I found it on Google Earth before practice.
“I was calling those fish out of deep water. I was sitting in 35 to 40 (feet) casting into 10. There was some bait on my graph. It was just a key spot where I could pull up and start out the morning and get bit. I didn’t know that going into the tournament, but that was a key spot for me.”
From there, he keyed on an old roadbed where spots would school up.
“It was a road bed with a little depression in it,” he said. “There was a school of spots there, no giants, but all 2 1/2-pounders.”
With the sun high in the sky Friday, Lee’s three best bites came off docks, but they were random and not something he could go back to.
“They came off three random docks and I had to fish 30 or 40 docks to catch those three,” he said. “They were 2 1/2, 3 1/2 and a 6. That first big bite gave me the confidence to stay with it.”
He tallied 18-10 and had himself in 3rd.
The clouds moved in on day 2 and the dock bite was non-existent so he relied on the roadbed spot to account for his 12-02.
He started the final day with a couple keepers on a jerkbait. By 9:30, he’d caught seven keepers and had a modest limit, including two largemouth caught of shallow grass in the back of a pocket. Then came a 3-plus hour lull during which he tried to get the dock bite fired up.
“I fished a lot of docks that weren’t productive,” he said. “I don’t know how many I fished without getting bit, but it was a lot. I thought that was my best chance in this tournament. On this lake, I knew boat docks would be a player because they usually are.”
Last year, motor trouble on the final day of the Classic prevented him for rotating through secondary areas. It turned out to be a blessing as he throttled a massive stringer with a jig to corral the winning fish.
At Hartwell, he didn’t have any mechanical mishaps and he was able to run freely navigate the innumerable pockets around the lake in search of docks with
Eventually, he pulled into a pocket on the lower end and noticed right away the water was the warmest he’d seen all week.
“They were just there,” he said. “It’s like they’d just shown up.”
He caught a 3 1/2-pounder, then a 3-pounder and a solid 2 1/2 to account for three key upgrades.
“I knew what I wanted to do coming in,” he said. “In my mind, I had a game plan with how I wanted to catch them and the weather played out perfect.
“It was a tougher bite than what was expected. Looking back, it played right into how I was catching them. It wasn’t a big fish bite as far as spots go.”
Winning Gear Notes
> Neko rig gear: 7’2” medium-heavy Quantum Vapor PT spinning rod, Quantum Smoke S3 spinning reel, Quantum Smoke Inshore spinning reel, 30-pound Seaguar Smackdown braided line, 8-pound Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon line (leader), #2 VMC Neko rig hook, Strike King Ocho, other soft-plastic stickbaits (green-pumpkin or green-pumpkin blue), 3/32-oz. unnamed nail weight.
> “Light line around docks is scary, but I didn’t break off at all,” Lee said.
> Swimbait gear: Same rod as Neko rig, same reel, 8-pound Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon line, 1/4-oz. Owner ballhead jig, 2.75” Strike King Rage Swimmer (pearl flash).
> Vibrating jig gear: 7’4” heavy-action Quantum Vapor casting rod, Quantum Smoke S3 casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 17-pound Seaguar AbrazX fluorocarbon line, homemade vibrating jig (white/chartreuse), 4.5” Strike King KVD Perfect Plastic Blade Minnow blade minnow (white)
> Jerkbait gear: 6’10” medium-heavy Quantum Vapor casting rod, Quantum Tour S3 casting reel (6.1:1 ratio), 10-pound Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon line, unnamed jerkbait (bone).
The Bottom Line
> Main factor in his success – “Nobody thought the spotted bass were going to play (a factor). I went into not with the mindset to swing for big largemouth. I wanted to chip away and be comfortable with my fishing. I fished with moment. Those early spot places were key because I could start the day with 2 1/2-pound bites. When the dock deal wasn’t producing I stuck with it. The way the weather played out is the reason I won. If it was a cloudy, rainy day, I wouldn’t have won. It was sunny and hot and perfect for the docks. I didn’t know where it was going to go down, but I knew it was going to happen somewhere.”
> Performance edge – “I have a (Lowrance) HDS 16 Carbon on dash and two Carbon 12s on bow. That set up is just confidence for me. I can clearly see what I’m looking at. That spot had a lot of bait. I was seeing fish coming up and streaking on the graph. When I saw that I backed out a little bit. The key with the spots was I’d catch one and my graph would light up and they’d follow me in. When that happened, I typically backed off a bit and it seemed like the fish stayed in that area. I was able to capitalize and catch a couple like that, too. The StructureScan, to me, is the clearest. I found several offshore places like roadbeds. It’s a definitely a key to me. I ran different colored trails every day, in practice and in the tournament just to see how many pockets I went int. I ran all over the lake, just searching.”
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