The last time Frank Scalish fished the Bassmaster Classic was 2002, when he won the BassFan Rookie of the Year award and finished 31st in the BASS points.

His next several years on the Bassmaster Tour were punctuated by highs and lows and he just barely missed the Classic in 2005. Then, he fell out of the Elite Series after a rough-and-tumble 2007 season and spent the next two seasons (including this year) fishing the Bassmaster Opens.



His career made a huge leap forward this season when he astoundingly fell just short of a cycle (1-2-3).

After a 3rd-place showing at the Chesapeake Northern Open, he turned in a 2nd at Champlain then another 3rd last week at Erie.

When it all shook out, Scalish won the Northern points by a massive 120-point margin to secure a Classic berth this February at Lay Lake, as well as an invite back into the Elite Series.

Of course he'll fish the Classic, but he's still undecided about the Elites. It takes money to fish at that level, so instead of wading for his beloved steelhead the next few weeks, he's manning the phones in his quest to return to the tour level.

The interesting thing about his points dominance, he said, was he made wild departures from normal patterns at each venue. Those crucial moves put him on fish that were relatively untouched, and boosted his confidence to move outside expected norms.

Here's a look at how Scalish swept the Northern points, as well as his thoughts on the Classic and the Elites.

Chesapeake: Ditch the Grass

"When we went to the Chesapeake, all the research and everything I heard was you've got to fish the grass," Scalish said. "So I fished for 3 days in the grass and never got a bite."

He shifted into panic mode, then drew himself out of it by running up the river to fish structure, which is his specialty. He caught several good largemouths on rockpiles and some giant smallmouths on a ledge. "The fishing was tough, but in the back of my mind I knew that if I could get five a day, they'd be good ones," he said.

"The first day I blew it out. I had 23 pounds and change, so I was pretty comfortable the rest of the tournament. I wound up coming out of that tournament with a 3rd place, which made me feel really good about the rest of the season, because that was the one tournament I was afraid of."

Champlain: Go Shallow

As a structure specialist, Scalish couldn't wait to unload on Champlain. He has scores of waypoints marked from years of competing at the popular venue and went into the event with the mindset to "blow it out."

But after several days of practice on his best deep stuff his thoughts changed.

"I never got a good fish out there, ever, and I freaked out," he said. "But like I did at the Chesapeake, I said, 'Man, I've got to go fish places I've never been before.' The next day I just picked an area of the lake and launched my boat. It was foggy and I slid the boat out and idled around. I saw a fish boil, but I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was a gar.

"I saw another one boil and I kept fishing and thought, 'Well, I'll stay in here and if I see another swirl I'll see what it is.' Sure enough one swirled. I threw a Pop-R out there, a fish blew up and it was a 4-pound smallmouth. I said, 'What the heck? These big smallmouths are just out here roaming these flats.'"

He continued to probe the area and caught several more jumbos and decided to spend the tournament fishing 4 1/2 to 5 feet deep. He finished 2nd and never wet a line in water deeper than 18 feet.

Erie: Go Shallow Again

After those 2nd- and 3rd-place finishes Scalish headed to Erie needing to catch a limit each day to reach the Classic. That was his goal, and thoughts of winning Erie didn't even enter his mind, he said.

True to his season, though, he spent 3 days fishing his best deep stuff out of Sandusky and nothing worked. He couldn't even catch the limits he needed to reach the Classic. Time to venture forth once again.

"I picked up a map of the lake, looked at it and thought, "I've never fished this area of the lake before, so I'm going there,'" he said. "And when I was coming back from Texas a month earlier I was talking with Mark Zona, and he said that sometimes they get real shallow that time of year. 'If you're near some shallow stuff, don't run away,' Zona told me. I thought about that, and how I caught them real shallow at Champlain when they shouldn't have been there."

Scalish structure-fished for 2 practice days in his new area with good success, then the lake slicked off and he probed the shallows. He threw out a spinnberbait and "started mashing 5-pounders up shallow."

"Never in my imagination would I be doing that on Lake Erie – at least this time of year," he said. "So my gameplan was to slide in there for 15 or 20 minutes in the morning to check, because I didn't think those shallow fish would be there again, then go to my deep fish."

He hammered the shallow fish on day 1 for 21 1/2 pounds to land in 6th. Day 2 was canceled due to wind, and on day 3 his shallow area was blown out, although be managed to catch three there. He then went to his deep fish and ended the day with 19 1/2 pounds to finish 3rd and smoke the Northern points.

A 'Roller Coaster'

When the Erie scales closed, Scalish was bummed that he didn't win. But as everything set in, his accomplishments this season rose to the front of his mind.

"I won the points by 120," he said. "That's a blowout. I was really proud of that. It took a lot of hard work, and fishing lakes that I'm familiar with in ways I hadn't fished them before. It was pretty wild, and it's been an emotional roller coaster. At Erie my main goal was to make the Classic and win the points. When I realized the kind of fish I was on, I changed my focus to winning the tournament.

"Honestly, I wanted to win (Erie) so bad that I kind of lost sight of what I accomplished and it was kind of a letdown for me. I was ready to scream and cry one minute, then so mad the next minute. Then I rushed home because a bunch of people there were going to have a party for me and I never really thought about it. But when I woke up the next morning I just couldn't believe what I accomplished."

The Next Steps

As noted, Scalish's first and only Classic appearance was in 2002. He finished 46th and admits he was too caught up in the whole atmosphere – a common rookie trap.

This time around, he vows to change that approach. He's a more mature fisherman, and he's "going down there to win." As he told BassFan, his "only focus right now is to win the Classic." He'll thus visit the lake well before the cutoff period to map some of the structure he so likes to fish.

But he does have other projects happening right now, namely the quest to put together enough support to fish the Elite Series next year. He's a father first, he said, and he won't put the family in the red just to return to the tour level. He has one of the best and longest-running non-endemic deals in the sport with OSI Pro Series sealants and adhesives, but it'll take more than that to bankroll an Elite Series swing.

"With the economy the way it is, it's like starting from the beginning again," he noted. "I'm revamping portfolios and trying to recoup the demographics and media I've lost track of the past few years. I want to fish the Elites, but I've got a dollar figure in mind – where exactly I need to be (with sponsors) to fish them. I'm not going to fish them to go broke. With four kids, it has to be a job, and you have to make money doing your job.

"BASS is requiring a deposit by the first of December. I know the exact dollar figure I need to be able to fish and maintain the bills at home and keep the kids going to school. If I get above that, awesome. But I can't go below that. I just won't."

Notable

> Scalish is one of the few tour pros who runs a Legend boat.

> His only BASS win was at Erie – out of Buffalo for the Northern Open in 2004.

> As a Cleveland-area pro, he's deadly on Erie. For a BassFan Pro Fishing Tip with Scalish about controlling depth and "feel" on the Great Lakes, click here.