By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
If you watched much of the live-streamed coverage of the MLF Bass Pro Tour this year, you saw quite a bit of Alton Jones Jr. in action. The 29-year-old Texan finished among the Top 15 four times in seven outings (including the REDCREST Championship) and made it at least as far as the Knockout Round on every occasion.
"To me, it was a fortunate year," said the 29-year-old Texan, the son of longtime tour pro and former Bassmaster Classic champion Alton Jones. "I made a lot of good decisions and I think a lot of it was kind of a natural progression and learning something every day. With our format, the tournaments are spread out over a long time from practice to the Championship Round with days off and limited practice.
"The key is for me is trying to get into a groove and then staying confident when I do get in it."
Practice Never Ends
Jones, who achieved his second career runner-up finish in the season finale at Lake St. Clair in September, said his main objective at tournaments now is to never quit practicing.
"My biggest thing is to practice every day, even if it's championship day," he said. "Of course, I'm not (exclusively) practicing and fishing all new water, but I try to spend some time every day looking to expand on what I have. A lot of that comes from having less than two days to practice. You look at a body of water like St. Clair and however many acres are in play and you've got like 20 hours to break it down. That's not much time.
"In practice (for the St. Clair event) I found one place where I got seven or eight bites in one pass and all I knew was it was the best thing I'd found to that point. I ended up fishing within about two square miles of there and throughout the tournament I ended up finding a lot of sweet spots in that general area. Most of them weren't massing groups – it was usually like three to five fish – but there were a few places where I found 20, 30 or 40 fish and I found a group on the last day and was the best one I'd found all week.
"I don't want to get too focused on trying to find the motherlode," he concluded. "I just want to put myself in the best areas where I have a chance for success and then go with the flow during the tournament."
Looking for the 'W'
The 7th-place finisher in this year's Angler of the Year (AOY) race, Jones is eager to notch his first tour-level victory.
"I'll take the 2nd-place checks as they come, but I really would like a trophy," he said. "My goal (for 2022) is to win my first BPT event. I'm very grateful and thankful for the consistency – that's how you get longevity in this sport and it's incredibly important – but I'm tired of just coming close. I'm ready to win one.
"I like the schedule for the most part. I really like the first one in Monroe, Louisiana on lakes that nobody's really been too and nobody's a local and there's not a lot of history. I'm also really excited about Lake of the Ozarks because it should be a spawn-ish time there and I'm happy that we're going to Lake Palestine, which is an hour and a half from my house."
Like his father, he's a superb sight-fisherman. Outside of that, he doesn't consider himself a master of any particular technique.
"It's hard to rate myself, but I guess I'd say I'm a little bit of a jack of all trades at this point. I do use (Garmin) LiveScope a lot, no matter where we are or what time of year it is.
"Utilizing electronics and being comfortable with them is so important now. It's not like I see every fish that I catch on them, but in every tournament they can result in a couple of extra fish and those can be the difference between winning and losing."
Notable
> Jones said that being the son of a tour pro and serving as his father's practice partner for many years dramatically reduced his learning curve. "If I hadn't had that and I'd gone to a place like St. Clair my rookie year, being from Texas, it would've just been 'Oh, my gosh,''' he said. "But I'd been there several times and also to places like Champlain or Ontario or Okeechobee at different times of the year. What it does is it takes that first edge of intimidation out. It's not like I know where to go to find fish all the time, but I have a vibe for what to expect and I know what I'm getting into."
