By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

Joey Nania tasted tournament success at a young age – the native of Washington state was a two-time Junior Bassmaster World Champion, winning the 11 to 14 age division in 2005 and the 15-18 bracket in 2008. He moved to Alabama and began fishing at the triple-A level a couple of years after that second triumph, but it took him until just recently to capture another B.A.S.S. trophy.

Now a Coosa River guide and co-host of the Sweetwater TV show on the Sportsman Channel along with MLF Pro Circuit competitor and frequent BassFan contributor Miles "Sonar" Burghoff, Nania topped the field at the Pickwick Lake Bassmaster Central Open with a three-day total of 58-02. He finished exactly 1 pound ahead of runner-up and day-2 leader Lonnie Cochran.

The victory garnered him a $53,750 paycheck. More significantly to him, it earned him a berth in the 2022 Bassmaster Classic at South Carolina's Lake Hartwell.

"Making the Classic fulfills one of my biggest dreams," he said. "I love Lake Hartwell and when I get there I'm going to focus on having fun on the water and taking in every moment. To me, a bad day on the water is when you get stressed and spun out and you don't have fun. If I make sure I have a good time and stay calm and fish to the best of my ability, I can usually do well.

"Coming from (the Pacific Northwest) where the bass are always eating perch, bluegill or crawdads, has been such a learning curve. I chose to move to Alabama because there's so many lakes that are all different – if you learn to catch them in Alabama, you can catch them anywhere. I fish 20 different lakes here and they're all unique."

Pickwick, which requires a three-hour drive to get to from his home in Cropwell and which he's spent about 15 days on over the past half-decade, is one of his favorites.

"I live on Logan Martin and I love it because I've had so many 100-fish days, but for pure fun-fishing, Pickwick is the place. If you figure things out, you've got an opportunity to catch a really big bag."

Steady Throughout

Nania didn't catch any massive bags during the event – his daily weights were 21-11, 17-13 and 18-10. He went into the final day in 3rd place, trailing Cochran by 4-05, and didn't think his day-3 stringer would be enough to cop the trophy.

"I'd done all I could and I idled in a couple minutes early, ready to let the chips fall," he said. "When I got (to the ramp) people were treating me weird and I thought 'there's no way I'm leading this thing.'

However, Cochran had caught just 13-05 after boxing 25-03 the previous day.

"It just all came together for me," Nania said. "It happened because it was meant to be."

He fished a grass-oriented program, focusing on offshore hydrilla and milfoil in the vicinity of Koger Island. A Z-Man ChatterBait JackHammer produced most of his fish over the first two days.

His opening-day bag included an 8-02 bruiser that he caught in the midst of a thunderstorm – one of eight fish he connected with over a span of 10 casts.

"The key was finding the healthiest grass that had some kind of protection – a depression or maybe a shallow bar a couple hundred yards above it," he said. "It'd had the flood (about a week earlier) and a lot of grass gets ripped up in the current."

While leaving the launch on day 3 he saw a shorebird feeding on a point and decided to pull up and make a few casts with a jerkbait. He boated four keepers in 15 minutes, including a couple of 2 1/4-pounders.

"That allowed me to settle down and go fishing, but then I got to my ChatterBait area and I went two hours without a bite."

He shared practice information with Wesley Gore, a first-year Opens competitor who discovered a place that had stumps mixed in with the grass. Nania mostly left it alone the first 2 days, pulling just one run-of-the-mill keeper and one slight upgrade from it. With Gore out of the event after day 2, he fully exploited it on day 3.

Conditions were slick-calm, which made the ChatterBait ineffective. He'd seem some lampreys attached to some of the fish he'd caught, so he switched to a Z-Man Mag FattyZ worm on a 3/16-ounce shaky-head, usually dropping it directly on the tops of the stumps.

The first fish he caught on the shaky-head was a 4 1/4-pounder. He went on to add a 6, a 3 and a 2 3/4 to work his way up to his winning weight.

Gear Notes

> His ChatterBait was a 3/4-ounce version in green-pumpkin shad with a Z-Man Razor ShadZ trailer (smoky shad). "Those fish see a million ChatterBaits because it's the best grass searchbait, but most guys were throwing the brighter colors like white, chartreuse of spot remover," he said. "I used green-pumpkin shad because I like the dark blade and the heavier weight kept in down in the strike zone. I just wanted to tick the grass and the stumps.

> On day 2, he caught a few fish on a Carolina rig and flipped up one with a jig.

> The jerkbait that produced his four early fish on the final day was a 6th Sense Provoke 106X.