Scroggins Looks For Another Fast Start At Home

By Todd Ceisner
Special to BassFan

There are few pros who would view a runner-up finish in a Bassmaster Elite Series tournament as a disappointment. There also aren’t many pros who would look back on a 6th-place finish in the Toyota Tundra B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year (AOY) race and come away with a somewhat empty feeling.

Terry Scroggins isn’t like many pros. He’s consistently among the top sticks around and every season, his goals are lofty, his expectations high. So it stands to reason why the Florida lifer was left wanting more from his 2011 efforts. After all, he held the AOY lead with two events left and failed to close the deal.

“It was a good year,” he said. “It wasn’t what I was looking for. When all was said and done, I think I fell a little short. It kind of hurts to finish that high and not get the job done.”

Say what you will about his 2011 efforts, Scroggins is anxious to get going on the coming year, when he'll fish his eighth straight Bassmaster Classic (ninth overall) and open the season with a run of tournaments on familiar waters.

Arkansas Unraveling

Few pros got off to a hotter start last year than Scroggins.

Following a 4th-place finish at the Okeechobee FLW Tour Open — his first career FLW Tour event — in early February, he overcame a slow start at the Classic and took 16th. He then opened the Elite Series regular season with three straight Top-10s — 10th at Harris Chain, 2nd at the St. Johns River and 8th at Pickwick — a stretch that put him solidly in 2nd in the AOY points chase behind Alton Jones.

While it ultimately had little effect on the outcome of the AOY race, Scroggins' runner-up finish at the St. Johns— his home water — still rings hollow for him.

“It was a little frustrating,” he noted. “When you have a tournament on your home waters and you don’t capitalize on it, it's disappointing. I feel like I had the fish on during that tournament that I lost and that probably cost me the tournament. At the same time, (eventual winner) Edwin (Evers) lost quite a few of them, too. Anywhere else in the country you finish 2nd, you’d still be disappointed by finishing 2nd, but you still did well to finish 2nd. Being at home like that, though, anything short of winning just isn’t good enough.

“I didn’t feel any pressure,” he added. “Being at home, everyone expects you to catch them. I’ve fished that river for 30 years.”

Following Pickwick, he logged three more Top-30 finishes at Toledo Bend (29th), West Point (25th) and Murray (25th) to overtake Jones for the AOY lead, with the Arkansas River and Lake Wheeler remaining.

He says the gravity of leading the AOY chase didn't factor into his thinking or preparation for the Arkansas River, which turned out to be “just a big disaster,” he said.

“It really wasn’t on my mind,” he added. “I’ve always been able to put any kind of pressure like that out of my mind. I might think about it when the tournament starts, but once it starts and you start fishing, I really don’t think about it.”

His only missed 50-cut of the season resulted in an 84th-place finish and dropped him to 6th in the AOY race.

“I felt like this year I had a good practice and just made some of the wrong choices there,” he said. “I was going to Pine Bluff and there’s no doubt about it — that’s the best place on that system, but the problem was it seemed like half of the field was going down there. It wasn’t that big of an area and I only got to fish about 3 hours out of the day because it took so long to get there. I just made some of the wrong choices on the first day there and on the second day, I made a decision not to go back down there and that was a poor decision as well.

“I don’t know if I could have beaten Kevin (VanDam) if I’d have made the right decisions there, but it would have been a lot closer.”

Home Cooking

Scroggins could not have drawn up a more convenient and favorable schedule to start 2012 if the FLW and B.A.S.S. tournament organizers had handed him a pen and calendar and asked him to fill it out himself. Five of the first six events on his competitive slate will take place in Florida.

Last week he fished the Harris Chain Southern Open to get his year started, then he's heading to Lake Toho for the PAA Tour Team Challenge, where he'll team up with Gerald Swindle.

“That's going to be a fun event,” he said. “We get to hang out for the week and see if we can’t win a boat.”

Following a week off, it's off to the Okeechobee FLW Tour Open, where he'll look to improve on his strong finish a year ago and get some insight for the Elite Series event in late March.

“I’ve only fished five major tournaments there,” he said, referring to the Big O. “I’ve got a 1st, a 2nd, a 3rd, and a 4th.”

After fishing the Classic on the Red River in Louisiana, it'll be back to the Sunshine State to open the Elite Series slate at the St. Johns and Okeechobee

“I’m pretty excited about the start of the season,” he said. “Anywhere you travel in the country fishing these tournaments, you’re always going to be on someone’s home water, so for them to come to your home water, you need to take advantage of that. Number one, you try to win the event, but number two, you get as many points as possible. It’s like a bonus round.”

Classic Take

Scroggins opted against taking a scouting trip to the Red before it went off-limits leading up to the Classic. He's confident the official practice days will give him ample time to size up what he feels will be the handful of areas that will produce come tournament time.

“I think it’s going to be very similar to the way it was before,” he said. “The Red River really fishes small. There are three or four or five areas on each pool that everybody’s going to fish in and everyone’s going to bunch up. It’s a tournament where you’re going to have to do something a little different. Everybody is going to be fishing around everybody, so you’ll have to make some key changes to try to catch some bigger, key fish.”

He finished 26th in the 2009 Classic at the Red, but he's confident he'll be in the mix this year.

“I feel good about it,” he said. “It’s the Classic. Everybody gets pumped up for the Classic. At the same time, you go into it knowing you’re not going to have anything to yourself. There will be no secrets.”

Notable

> Scroggins won't be the only St. Johns ringer on tour this year – longtime friend Cliff Prince will be a rookie in the Elite Series following his 4th-place finish in the 2011 Southern Open standings. “He knows about as much about it as I do, so it’ll be interesting,” Scroggins said. “He should do fairly well out on the Elite Series as well. Being a rookie and getting to start the year at home, that’s got to be a plus.”

> Scroggins also had this to say about the current state of the fishing industry: “I think it’s starting to move forward a little bit. We’re dealing with a tough economy and the economy still has a long way to go. No matter what, though, people still love to fish. They’re not going to quit."