It Might Take 100 Pounds To Win At The St. Johns

(Editor's note: Former B.A.S.S. emcee Keith Alan lived and breathed the tour for a half-decade. This year, his Alan Report will break down each B.A.S.S. tour-level stop to help BassFans get the inside scoop.)

It’s a rare instance on the Bassmaster Elite Series when the weather conditions play perfectly into the hands of the anglers. In fact, typically those picture-perfect days are sandwiched in between some nasty weather. It’s the Murphy’s Law of tournament fishing.

While forecasters called for the weather at last week's Harris Chain event to feature overnight lows in the 40s and highs in the 60s, Mother Nature apparently never got the memo. The result was that Thursday’s cold front actually started on Wednesday evening with rain and wind that continued through Thursday afternoon. By Friday, the clouds and wind were gone, and that helped the water temperature rise enough to bring waves of bass into the canals to spawn.

While many in the field were surprised that the weather held and the fish replenished, the pattern played right into the hands of expert sight-fishermen like Shaw Grigsby, Grant Goldbeck and James Niggemeyer.

So what can we expect this week at the St. Johns River? For starters, the weather has stabilized. If the weatherman’s prediction holds, we will have plenty of sunshine with highs in the low 80s all week. Factor in Saturday’s full moon, and this one is shaping up to be a bed-fishing tournament of epic proportions. Several pros feel this one has the potential to crack the 100-pound mark.

The Playing Field

The St. Johns River is a huge body of water. It runs from Melbourne, Fla. (southeast of Orlando) all the way up to the Port of Jacksonville in the northeast part of the state, where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. The 99 Elite pros will have more water available than they could possibly cover in 3 days of practice, including miles of winding riverbanks and creeks, along with several noteworthy pools such as Crescent Lake, Kerr Lake, Rodman Reservoir (the only true impoundment in the mix) and Lake George, which has three natural springs pumping 72-degree, gin-clear water that it a great place to look at them.

Whether you are a sight-fisherman or not, according to Kevin VanDam, you'd better be fishing around those spawning areas. To the four-time Classic champ, that doesn’t necessarily mean looking at them, it simply means being in the right areas.

Fishing in a Crowd

Believe it or not, with all that water, the St. Johns could still fish relatively small. Expect a good portion of the field to make the run to Rodman and Lake George. If there is a spawning flat or cove that looks like it has a lot of potential, chances are there will be more than one angler on it.

As a group, these guys are the best in the world at locating fish. The best spawning areas will have a crowd, guaranteed. Good luck finding anything to yourself in those areas, unless your name is Terry Scroggins and you know a secret cove somewhere, since you’ve lived there and fished the place your entire adult life.

River Rats

After a day on Lake Pickwick last year, Kevin Short told himself, “It’s a river, stupid. Fish it like one!” He went on to ply his craft as one of the country's best moving-water anglers and won his second Elite Series event.

So will guys known for their river-fishing skills excel on the St. Johns? It has miles of winding creeks and backwaters and plenty of current and tide coming from the ocean. In theory, a guy like Short, Bill Lowen or Scott Rook could fish it like a river and be effective.

According to Florida pros Scroggins and Bobby Lane, you fish it like a lake. Then again, neither of those guys are known for their river-fishing chops.

Who’s the Man?

If it were not shaping up to be a bed-fishing tournament I would have said Scroggins and Peter Thliveros have a huge advantage, since this is their home water. In fact, I still wouldn’t be surprised if Scroggins goes all Tommy Biffle on the field and knocks their lights out daily without even going to half of his spots, the way that Biffle did on Ft. Gibson last year and Mike McClelland did on Grand Lake a few years ago when the Elite Series stopped in his backyard.

The outlook would likely be brighter for Scroggins if things were shaping up to be more of a grind than a smash-fest. Expect to see several bags over 25 pounds. Likewise, in a spawning tournament, I don’t see Peter T. wanting to get into the crowds. He’ll fish it his way and let the chips fall where they may.

The Lane Brothers

Now a resident of Guntersville, Ala., Chris Lane grew up fishing Florida lakes, and he knows how to contend on them. He had a great tournament at Harris and plans to take his momentum and his technique right to the St. Johns. There’s no reason to expect he can’t achieve similar results.

Older brother Bobby had a dismal showing at Harris. He expected that the spawners would get picked off early and the overnight lows would back them off the beds for the rest of the week. As we witnessed, it never got as cold as expected and the sight-fishermen sacked ‘em.

Don’t expect to fool Bobby Lane twice – not in these parts. He knows what the fish are doing and I expect to see him fishing on Sunday. He wants redemption.

Double Trouble

You didn’t really expect a list like this to exclude the most dominant angler in the sport, did you?. Well, I’ve got news for you – he’s got company. Apparently, that sixth sense for fishing, that competitive drive and that air of confidence are VanDam family traits. So the bass fishing world now has its eyes on two VanDams, Kevin and his 22-year-old nephew Jonathon.

In case you weren’t paying attention, last week JVD finished 5th, one spot behind Uncle KVD, in his debut on the Elite Series. Think he might be intimidated by that big St. Johns River? Think again. In 2008, as he started his campaign to qualify for the Elites, he finished 3rd on the St. Johns – 15 pounds ahead of Scroggins.

There is no question that the kid has talent, and while there are no sure things in fishing, you can bet that the rest of the field does not want to see another VanDam on the roster.

The Sight-Fishermen

When it comes to looking at them, there is a group of anglers on a level playing field. In addition to Shaw Grigsby, I would put James Niggemeyer, Kelly Jordon, and Dean Rojas in that mix. If the frog bite is on, nobody is better at it than Rojas. If that technique excels, I expect Fred Roumbanis could even be a factor with frogs and wakebaits in and around those spawning areas.

Grigsby, one of the best sight-fishermen in the world, excelled doing what he does best last week, and this week the conditions for sight-fishing are even better than they were at Harris.

So you think back-to-back wins would be impossible for the veteran Florida pro? Consider this: In 2000 he won consecutive events at Toho and Seminole. Over a decade later he's just earned his ninth career victory (and first since that double-dip) and is preparing to compete on a venue that's less than an hour from his house.

With conditions playing to his strengths, we could see a repeat of history for Shaw. The bass fishing world love to see that happen for one of the best ambassadors of the sport, and as Jim Carey stated in the movie Dumb & Dumber, I’m saying there’s a chance.

Keith Alan spent the better part of the last decade traveling, working and fishing with the pros. His company, Ultimate Fishing Experience, offers on-the-water fishing clinics and trip-of-a-lifetime experiences with the biggest names in fishing.