Short Kept Grinding Until He Had First Tour-Level Win

Kevin Short looked at a lot of potential fishing locations on the Iowa portion of the Mississippi River on a postseason trip way back in September. He looked at quite a few more during the official 3-day practice period last week.

After all that scouting was done, he had only one small area that he had much confidence in. It held up for him through 4 grueling days, and he went on to claim the biggest victory of his career.

The journeyman from Arkansas averaged a little less than 11 pounds a day en route to winning the Mississippi River Bassmaster Elite Series – the lowest-weight event in the 4-year history of the circuit. He was in 6th place after day 3, but caught his best sack of the event (11-13) on the final day to climb all the way to the top.

His 43-03 total eclipsed runner-up Kelly Jordon by 10 ounces, and the victory moved him up to 10th place in the Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year (AOY) race with one tournament left in the regular season. Here's how he did it.

Practice

Short boated only one keeper fish during practice, and that happened in the first hour of the first day. He caught it on a spinnerbait, and then put a piece of rubber tubing over the hook so that he could easily shake off all ensuing takers.

"I had multiple bites and they'd hold on long enough for me to feel their size," he said. "I knew I was getting quality bites.

"I started looking for concentrations of fish. I wasn't worried about how big, but where."

He visited the little slough in Pool 18 (one lock upstream from the launch pool) that he'd spend all 4 competition days in on that first morning. He got three bites and he never went back until the morning of day 1.

"That pool was a dead-end slough that ran up off one of the main chutes off the main river – sort of a chute off of a chute," he said. "Several other guys who made the Top 12 ended up within a quarter-mile of there in different sloughs. Shaw (Grigsby) and Billy (McCaghren) were just below me and if it hadn't been for the trees, we could've seen each other."

He'd found the place on his trip last fall, but couldn't get into it due to the low water level.

"Where it was and the way it was laid out, it was obvious that it'd be a place where fish would move into to spawn. Of course, I had no idea that they'd be spawning (during the tournament). I thought they'd have been done, but if there was enough water and something for them to eat, they'd be hanging around.

"I was a little surprised when they were still spawning, but when I made that realization, it only made sense. The water (temperature) was in the upper 60s and on river systems, the fish spawn way later. The first fish I hooked, I could tell by the way it bit that it was on a bed, even though I couldn't see it because of how dirty the water was."

The cut was about 150 yards long and 20 yards across at its widest point. Both sides were lined with large laydowns and treetops.

"The real key to the area was that it was about a foot deeper than the places most other guys were fishing – it was about 4 feet deep in the center. It seemed to hold more fish and I felt it would hold up longer with the water falling. The water probably fell close to a foot from Monday to Sunday."

He spent the rest of practice on a quest to find other locales that presented the same conditions. "I never was able to, except for one little place right around the corner."

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 10-10
> Day 2: 5, 11-04
> Day 3: 5, 9-08
> Day 4: 5, 11-13
> Total = 20, 43-03

Short was the first angler to reach the slough on the morning of day 1, but he was joined by Jeff Kriet shortly thereafter. They shared it for 3 days until Kriet failed to make the Sunday cut (he ended up 37th).

"I started down the right side and he started down the left, and everything was cool for the entire time," he said. "We talked back and forth, swapped baits and kind of worked together.

"He's weird, but I like him. We'd fished together at the Toyota Texas Bass Classic and gotten along well. There's probably nobody I'd rather have had in there with me."

He flipped up his entire bag on day 1 and landed in 18th place. He started out flipping on day 2 and caught one decent fish, and then started throwing a small crankbait.

He wasn't getting bit, so he went around the corner into the adjacent slough, which was considerably smaller than his primary cut. He caught four there on the crankbait and moved up to 8th place.

Day 3 dawned under overcast skies and he couldn't get anything going with the flipping stick in the morning. He caught three keepers on a spinnerbait from his main cove, then went to the one around the corner and was surprised to find Mike McClelland there. They swapped some information, and then he went back to his main spot and picked up two more keepers on the crankbait.

That bag moved him up two places in the standings, but he trailed leader and fellow Arkansan McCaghren by nearly 5 pounds with 1 day left. It would be a glorious day.

The crankbait produced all five of his keeper bites on the final day. The first came at 8;30, the second about an hour later and the third around noon.

"I really began to wonder if I'd caught all the catchable fish that were in there," he said. "But honestly, I didn't have anywhere else to go and I felt I could catch a couple more if I just hung in there and waited it out and kept beating and banging around.

"I did catch a couple more, and they were nice ones."

He took over the top spot on the leaderboard when it was his turn to weigh-in, and then marveled as none of the five anglers who'd began the day in front of him could top his final weight.

He said he can't describe precisely how he felt when it was over.

"I probably had a deer-in-the-headlights look. Everything was in slow motion. I was like, 'What just happened here? Did this really go down?'''

Pattern Notes

> His flipping baits were a Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Craw and a Strike King Coffee Tube. He said it was critical that he add a glass rattle to the tube. "It was the weirdest deal, but those fish on the beds would not react to it without the rattle. If I missed one and lost the rattle and threw the bait back in there without it, they would not touch it."

> He normally flips with braided line, but couldn't get bit with it and had to resort to fluorocarbon. "I have no idea why that was. It was another one of those weird deals."

> On his crankbait, he had to switch from 17-pound fluorocarbon to copolymer to keep the bait higher in the water column. If the bait reached the bottom, it would pick up some of the millions of decaying leaves there.

> He said that adding a Zoom G-Tail Ringer worm as a spinnerbait trailer prevented a lot of non-keepers from biting.

Winning Gear Notes

> Flipping gear: 7'11" medium-heavy St. Croix Legend Xtreme rod, Ardent F500 Flip-N-Pitch casting reel, 20-pound Vicious fluorocarbon line, unnamed 3/8-ounce tungsten weight, 3/0 Reaction Innovations BMF or 3/0 Gamakatsu EWG hook, Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Craw (junebug) or Strike King Coffee Tube (watermelon-copper).

> He used the Reaction Innovations hook with the Speed Craw and the Gamakatsu with the Coffee Tube.

> Cranking gear: 7' medium-action St. Croix Premier fiberglass rod, Ardent XS1000 casting reel, 17-pound Vicious copolymer line, WEC E1 crankbait (chartreuse classic).

> Spinnerbait gear: 7' medium-heavy St. Croix Legend Xtreme rod, Ardent XS1000 casting reel, 15-pound Vicious fluorocarbon, 1/4-ounce Strike King Premier Elite spinnerbait, Zoom G-Tail Ringer worm trailer (chartreuse-pearl).

> He replaced the blades on the spinnerbait with a No. 3 (gold) and No. 3 1/2 (copper) blades and installed an "old school" green and white vinyl skirt.

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – "Experience and mindset – just being a damn good grinder. Before we ever left out of the marina at 6:00 on Thursday, half the field was done – they wanted to catch one fish, get their points and go home. Like Rick Clunn says, it's easier to win when half the field has been eliminated before takeoff."

> Performance edge – "Having a fast boat. In river tournaments where you're making long runs, a boat that can save you 5 to 10 minutes a day is gold. The only people who could keep up with me in my Bass Cat/Mercury were other guys running a Bass Cat/Mercury."

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