It's not too often we see a wire-to-wire victory at the tour level, especially in the spring. The competition is so extreme and the weather so unpredictable, to dominate across a 4-day tour event is a true rarity.
But Jason Christie did it. He led each and every day of the recent Hartwell FLW Tour Major in South Carolina and finished with a 4-day, 70-11 total.
It marked Christie's first tour-level victory, and it stands out for several reasons.
First, it countered the conventional thought that run-and-gun's the only way to win at a blueback-infested lake. Christie sat and fished a spawning area with a spinnerbait and plastics and the bluebacks, still out in the main lake, simply weren't a factor.
Two, it showed that there's more to fishing a winning area during the spawn than just finding it. Fourth-place Ramie Colson, Jr. and 12th-place Dan Morehead fished the same backwater, but couldn't touch Christie's total.
It took some savvy spinnerbait fishing for Christie to blow the field away.
And it's fitting that an Oklahoma pro won with a spinnerbait – Oklahoma, to this day, remains the Fertile Crescent of American spinnerbaiting.
Here's a closer look at how he did it.
Practice
Christie saw Hartwell for this first time on Sunday when he launched for the start of official practice.
"I thought the fish would be around (the time of) spawning," he said. "Even though most of Hartwell didn't set up to my liking as far as style, a few parts of it were very similar to places I fish back home. And one creek set up just like that.
"It had lots of flat water about a foot deep and had a couple of deeper sections that were 3 feet. I liked it, but I'll be the first to tell you I was surprised by what I caught there (during competition). A saw a few good fish in practice, but I didn't think it had the amount to hold up for 4 days."
Competition
> Day 1: 5, 22-04
> Day 2: 5, 20-04
> Day 3: 5, 13-06
> Day 4: 5, 14-13
> Total = 20, 70-11
The weather changed dramatically across the 4-day event. Near-record highs during practice gave way to a cold front on day 1. Then day 2 delivered bluebird conditions with little to no wind. Day 3 offered heavy clouds, downpours and thunder, while day 4 presented clouds and rain.
"Basically I caught 75% of my fish out of that one area," Christie noted. "The first day when I rolled in, I had 18 or 19 pounds in 30 minutes. And Morehead on the other side had a good sack, Ramie had a good sack. There was a lot of fish in there."
Over the course of the 4 days, Christie relied primarily on a spinnerbait – the first 2 days he fished it at or near the surface. The final 2 days, he slow-rolled it.
Oftentimes fish would chase or otherwise reveal themselves on the spinnerbait. In that case, he'd know right where the fish was bedding and would anchor the Power-Poles and pitch a Texas-rigged plastic.
He said the backwater was in the mid-lake area and "one of the keys was it was pretty much landlocked. It was divided from the lake by a road and riprap with one small opening. I think that made the water a lot warmer, so a lot of fish there were spawning, coming in to spawn, and maybe even (some were) post-spawn."
A few additional notes from Christie about his pattern:
Winning Gear Notes
> Spinnerbait gear: 6'6" medium-heavy 6-power Falcon Cara rod, Quantum Smoke casting reel (5.3:1), 20-pound Silver Thread fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Booyah spinnerbait (chartreuse/white with a single gold Colorado blade).
> Texas-rig gear: 7'3" heavy-action Falcon Cara Reaction Swimbait rod, Quantum Smoke casting reel (7.3:1), 20-pound Silver Thread fluorocarbon, 4/0 XCalibur hook, 3/8-ounce XCalibur tungsten weight, Yum F2 Mighty Bug (green-pumpkin) and Yum F2 Wooly Hog (green-pumpkin).
The Bottom Line
Notable
> Oklahoma's produced a strong crop of pros, both historically and of late. Christie said that's because the competition there is so fierce, and because the state's fisheries are so diverse. "It's an awesome fishing state. There are several guys in Oklahoma – I can't name them all – who could easily fish pro. If you can compete in teams in Oklahoma and especially in the BFLs there, then you can compete just about anywhere. A lot of the lakes are really different. The only thing there's not a lot of is grass."