For awhile there, it looked like guys were doing everything they could to avoid winning the FLW Tour Angler of the Year (AOY) award during the final regular-season event at the Detroit River.
Andy Morgan and Glenn Browne were Nos. 1 and 2 on the points list going in, but both faltered on day 1 (Morgan was in 175th place and Browne in 192nd) and fell out of contention. That opened a wide doorway for Luke Clausen and Bryan Thrift, who came in at 3rd and 4th in the points and caught respectable bags the first day.
But that duo managed only about 10 pounds each on day 2, and they plummeted to join Morgan and Browne in the bottom half of the 200-angler field. David Dudley, who was 38th after day 2, came all the way up from 5th place in the points to snatch the AOY.
BassFan caught up with Morgan and Browne late last week – about a week after they'd let golden opportunities to claim one of the sport's most prestigious titles slip away. Both were still angry about what transpired in Michigan, but were willing to talk about what went wrong and what they might do differently if they had it to do over again.
Morgan's Confidence was Shaky
Morgan had a 22-point lead over Brown going into Detroit. He put together a pretty good practice, but he couldn't carry it over to the tournament. The Tennessean thinks at least part of the problem was time – he couldn't accomplish the same things in 6 hours of fishing during the competition days that he had in his marathon (12 hours or longer) practice sessions.
Also, the groups of quality smallmouths on lakes Erie and St. Clair have nomadic tendencies. Just because you locate them in a particular place one day doesn't mean they'll be there the next.
"I never had a lot of confidence that I could catch them if they weren't on the places I found them (in practice)," he said. "I don't know a lot about smallmouths and what they do, and I didn't have the confidence to grind it out.
"With largemouths, I have the confidence to sit there and know I'm doing the right thing, even if I'm not. With smallmouths, there's that little bit of doubt in the back of my mind, and you don't want that when you're trying to do this for a living."
His gameplan went awry early on day 1. He thought he could pick up at least one keeper on a spinnerbait in the early-morning hours on St. Clair, but managed just one short fish in 20 minutes.
"I was rocking on my heels already. So I went to an area in the middle of the lake where I was pretty sure I could catch some, and I fished for 25 or 30 minutes without a bite."
With about an hour to fish, he had only two 2-pounders in his livewell. So he ran over to the Canadian shoreline and picked up a tube.
"I could see the bottom, and I cast to every black spot I saw. I finished my limit in 45 minutes, but I broke off the only decent bite I got."
His 10-02 bag left him near the bottom of the 200-angler field, and he'd need a miracle of some sort to win the AOY from there. It didn't happen.
He went to Erie on day 2 in search of a monster sack, but managed just four keepers all day – two of which were largemouths he caught in the Detroit River after he'd returned from the big water. He opted to throw them all back rather than endure the weigh-in process, and thus took a zero for the day and a 192nd-place finish.
"Even after a week, I'm still as (mad) about it as I was when I left. It's one of those things that sticks with you – it was a bad couple of days and a bunch of bad decisions.
"I didn't think I had that river option, but it turns out I did. I hate smallmouth fishing. I'll bet I didn't catch five bass on a spinning rod all year – I didn't have to."
He plans to take out some of his anger on the fish at South Carolina's Lake Murray during the Forrest Wood Cup in 3 weeks.
"I can't wait to get my real rods out, and I'm going to catch their (butts) there."
Glenn Browne put his co-angler on good fish on day 1 at Detroit, but he couldn't catch many himself.
Browne: 'Not My Kind of Fishing'
As if being buried down toward the very bottom of the standings after day 1 wasn't bad enough, Browne had to suffer the indignity of being schooled by his co-angler.
"He caught 12 or 15 keepers and I caught three," the Floridian said. "We pulled up at a little spot at the mouth of the river (on the way out to St. Clair), and I caught two on a spinnerbait and he caught three decent ones.
"From there we went to the shoals and humps, and it got ugly. We were both dragging gobies and minnows, and at the end of the day I was fit to be tied. It was one of those deals where our baits were only 5 to 10 feet apart, but that's all it took. That's just not my kind of fishing."
Like Morgan, he felt he'd made good use of his practice time and wasn't discouraged by what he'd found.
"I thought I was around the right ones, but sometimes things aren't meant to be. I've had some sleepless nights since, knowing I only had to finish about 100th. I hadn't had a finish that low in the last year.
"Hindsight is 20-20 and if I'd known Andy was going to fall that bad, I'd have picked up a spinnerbait and never laid it down."
He caught only a couple of keepers on day 2 and, like Morgan's fish, they never saw the scale.
"I just pitched them. I didn't want to go across the stage and talk about it, and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. You have to take the bad with the good.
"It's hard, though, because you work so hard to get yourself in position to have that opportunity, and then you just absolutely blow it. It was my best year ever (he ended up 12th in the points), but the ending was tough to swallow. I had five tournaments that were pretty stellar, but one big bomb changes a lot."
As far as he's concerned, the Forrest Wood Cup can't get here fast enough.
"I'm really looking forward to that. I'm (ticked) off, and I'm going there looking for blood."
Notable
> With their respective Detroit finishes, both Morgan and Browne lost ground in the BassFan World Rankings. Morgan slipped four spots to 7th, and Browne backstepped from 29th to 32nd.
> The way things played out, Morgan would have won the AOY with a finish of 114th or better. After he stumbled, Browne needed only to finish 98th or higher to claim the crown.
> Both mentioned that they're happy that the 2009 Tour will conclude at Lake Champlain, where largemouths are a known quantity and will be a viable option.
