All Of Cox's Decisions Turned Out Golden

Just about every decision John Cox made at the Red River FLW Tour turned out to be the right one. The way everything panned out, it seemed as if he were predestined to win before the first cast was made.

The rookie from Florida fished the first 3 days of the event out of a 17-foot aluminum boat with a 75-horsepower motor, which allowed him to access places that other

competitors couldn't reach in their full-size fiberglass rigs. He fully capitalized on that advantage on days 1 and 2 to build a massive lead at the midway point on a venue that was extremely stingy due to a recent high-water event.

He displayed a big dose of the Midas touch on day 3, when he abandoned his honey hole because of the receding water level. Beaten to his preferred location by another competitor, he found an area that produced a day-best 12 pounds.

He shook off a period of anxiety and self-doubt on the final day to close out a wire-to-wire win with more than 5 pounds to spare. The $100,000 prize provided a much-needed financial boost and the 200 Angler-of-the-Year points pulled him into contention for a berth in the Forrest Wood Cup with two regular-season events to go.

Here's how he did it.

Practice

Cox and team-tournament partner Keith Carson, who won the co-angler division at the Red, discovered the general area that Cox would exploit over the first 2 days while practicing for the Fishers of Men National Championship in 2009. The specific locale, which they found while preparing for this event, was on the other side of a large, 30-foot pipe that was impassable in a standard boat.

It was a pond off of Pool 4 (one lock down from the launch pool) that becomes inundated only at times when the river is high. He said it's actually two small impoundments with five fingers branching off to the sides, and the entire complex consists of maybe 30 acres. A lot of quality fish had moved in during the recent flooding and had become virtually trapped.

Cox and Carson didn't actually go through the pipe until the final practice day.

"As soon as we got in I bombed a cast with a Z-Man ChatterBait and caught a 3 1/2-pounder," he said. "The next cast I caught a 4, and then two casts later I caught a 2. Then I put a piece of rubber over (the hookpoint) and we covered the pond with the trolling motor on high, looking for the sweet spots where the fish were staying.

"I shook off 20 fish, easily."

He then sweated out the off day on Wednesday, hoping that the falling water wouldn't get too low to allow him back in on day 1.

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 14-10
> Day 2: 5, 14-00
> Day 3: 5, 12-01
> Day 4: 5, 7-13
> Total = 20, 48-08

After a 2-hour run from the launch in his underpowered rig, Cox got through the pipe with relatively little difficulty on day 1 – he said it took perhaps 5 minutes to negotiate the small boat from one end to the other. For a reason he was unable to discern, the fish had moved underneath some vine-like vegetation and he had to extricate them with a flipping stick.

The pipe was a much more formidable obstacle on day 2 and required about 45 minutes (along with a lot of elbow grease and creative maneuvering) to traverse. The fish had moved to the outside edge of some hydrilla, and he and his co-angler both had good limits inside of an hour.

His second straight sack in the 14s gave him an advantage of more than 7 pounds, but he knew the overflow pond was history. He'd have to make alternate plans for the weekend.

He'd intended to spend most of day 3 in a backwater spawning area he'd discovered in practice, but found Glenn Chappelear already there when he arrived. He went to another pond close to the launch that seemed to have promise due to the presence of a lot of healthy hydrilla, but he'd gotten just one bite there during practice.

It was much more generous the second time around. He junk-fished his way to a 12-pound sack, catching his five weigh-in fish on five different baits, and expanded his lead to 8 1/2 pounds with one day to go.

Driving an FLW-provided Ranger on the final day, he'd managed just a single mediocre bed-fish by lunchtime. Thoughts of the 2010 Okeechobee Eastern FLW Series, when his 10-plus-pound advantage was vanquished by Scott Martin on the last day, began to creep into his head.

"I was holding my breath because I thought I was about to pass out," he said. "I was thinking I was going to lose another one of these and I didn't want that to happen."

He rallied to catch three keepers from the pond near the launch in the last hour to seal his initial tour-level win.

Winning Gear Notes

> Flipping gear: 7'6" heavy-action Airrus XL rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier casting reel (6.4:1 ratio), 50-pound Power Pro braided line, 3/4-ounce Dandy Baits jig (green-pumpkin/glitter), Zoom Super Chunk trailer (root beer/green flake).

> Chatterbait gear: Prototype 7'4" medium-heavy Airrus rod, same reel, 30-pound Power Pro braid, 3/8-ounce Z-Man ChatterBait (chartreuse/white).

> On day 3, he caught one weigh-in fish each on the jig, a 3/8-ounce Terminator spinnerbait (white/chartreuse with gold and silver double willow-leaf blades), a Zoom Speed Worm (watermelon red) and a Zoom Fluke (watermelon seed). All except the spinnerbait were thrown on a 7'3" medium-heavy Airrus Ultra XL spinning rod with an Abu Garcia Revo Premier spinning reel spooled with 10-pound Power Pro braid.

> For bed-fishing, he employed his flipping setup, but with 20-pound Berkley Trilene 100% fluorocarbon line and a Bitter's Baits craw (blue sapphire).

The Bottom Line

Main factor in his success – "Getting into that pond was what gave me the lead on everybody, then when I couldn't go back on the third day I found a place where they were eating good. Everything was happening in my favor and I couldn't make any wrong calls."

Performance edge – "Everything played its part and I had to use it all."

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