Hackney Was In His Element At Texoma

By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

With a 30-point lead in the Angler of the Year (AOY) race and no finishes outside the money cut through six events, Greg Hackney obviously hasn't had a lot of trouble getting bites on the Bassmaster Elite Series this year. Nonetheless, he described the recently concluded BASSFest at Lake Texoma as his most challenging derby to date.

"It was my hardest tournament to get bit all year – it was easier to catch limits everywhere else we've been," said Hackney, who's seeking his second points title in the past 3 seasons. "At this one there was no guarantee that I was going to catch five every day.

"It was the hardest both mentally and physically. Everybody was saying that with the high water in all those bushes I'd be right at home, but I was scared of it because I knew it was a place that could bite me. I was fishing a technique that's probably my favorite, though – heavy cover with a big jig – and if I'm going to have to grind, that's the way I want to do it."

He notched his sixth career tour-level victory by amassing a 66-02 total over 4 days at the massive impoundment that was further swollen due to heavy rain along the Texas-Oklahoma border region. He boxed 17-15 on the final day to hold off runner-up Brandon Card, who caught a tournament-best 21-02 to surge up from 6th place.

Following are some of the details.

Practice

Hackney encountered an enormous shad spawn on the first morning of the 3-day practice period and naturally assumed that the baitfish reproduction ritual would be a big factor in the competition. He quickly discovered, however, that the bass were paying little heed to it – there were so many shad around from the prolific spawn of 2015 that the bass could eat whenever it suited them.

"Even in places where they weren't spawning, there were millions of them," he said.

The lake had been 9 feet high earlier in the spring and then dropped 6 feet before returning to its previous level. He assumed the drawdown must've pulled some fish away from the banks, so he began running main-lake points near the main-river channel.

"The more I fished, the more I realized that it was all about a channel in general. It didn't matter if it was a creek or a river and it didn't have to be a main-lake point as long as it had a major drain going into a big area.

"I fished anywhere the channel made a turn or wherever a small drain ran into a big one. They were big, flat places, but they had a deep ditch draining into them."

He found his best action in willow trees and brush that were situated a ways from the bank – places that would've been wet even with the lake at its normal level. They were suspended from the surface to 4 feet down on green-leafed vegetation that stood in 7 to 9 feet of water.

"Once I got keyed in on that deal I started getting the better bites," he said. "All of them I got that were over 3 pounds came off that stuff.

"There was a drop-off everywhere I caught them, and it was the old bank line. Rick Clunn (who finished 7th) was fishing the same thing, only he was doing it with a spinnerbait. Normally the banks are steep – I could tell that from graphing – and the water getting that high formed a ledge."

Competition

> Day 1: 5, 15-10
> Day 2: 5, 20-02
> Day 3: 5, 12-07
> Day 4: 5, 17-15
> Total = 20, 66-02

It took Hackney several hours to dial into the bite on day 1 and he ended up with a sack that put him among the initial Top 12, but about 4 1/2 pounds off the pace set by day-1 leader Casey Ashley. It was the following day when he established himself as a prime contender.

The 20-02 sack he weighed on day 1 bested Ashley's from the previous day be an ounce and pushed him to the top of the standings. It contained a 5-pounder and two 4s and most of it was compiled within 45 minutes of his first cast.

He suffered a setback on day 3 when he returned to that same pace, only to discover that it hadn't replenished.

"There just wasn't enough fish after I caught them off that key stuff," he said. "I got keyed in late on the first day and I really didn't beat the area up until day 2 – it was actually two big areas.

"I fished conservatively on day 3 and didn't run any new water – I only fished areas that I'd practiced in because I knew I didn't need much weight to make the 12-cut."

He started the final day in a place that had produced some decent quality in the afternoons and picked up a 4-pounder (which would be his biggest specimen of the day) and three run-of-the-mill keepers. He pulled up and began running new water that had the same characteristics as the locales that had been producing for him and eventually ended up on a stretch that he'd been watching all week on his journeys back and forth from the launch to the place where he was staying.

"It'd been muddy, but every day it got clearer. When they started pulling water hard (through the dam), it cleaned up.

"It was a large area that was connected to the one where I'd caught the 20-pound bag. It had all the right ingredients, but the mud had kept me and the other competitors out of it. It was a textbook situation and it hadn't been fished."

He stayed there from 11:30 until quitting time and estimated that he enticed 15 keeper bites. He quickly discerned that the fish had moved off of the green-leaf stuff and set themselves up on more woody-type cover.

"I've seen that before – when the water starts coming out of the trees, it sours the leaves or something and the fish get away from the green stuff. I got lots of bites (Sunday) on trees that had no leaves. A lot of that stuff started showing up with the lower water and it was just outside of where I'd been getting bit."

He lost his two best bites – both in the 5-pound class – and figured those miscues would cause him to finish in a position other than 1st, but it turned out that the 3 1/4- to 3 3/4-pounders that made it into his livewell were enough to thwart Card's big rally. Meanwhile, the two anglers who were ahead of him to start the day (Ashley and Gerald Swindle) turned in sub-par performances.

"I still had a 2 1/2-pounder about 10 minutes before I had to come in and I caught a 3 3/4," he said. "I still think I'd have won without that fish, but that made it a lot easier.

"When I bagged them up (back at the launch) I was thinking I had 17 pounds. I didn't have any giants, but I didn't have any little ones. It was a good bag for not having a big one."

Winning Gear Notes

> Flipping gear: 7'11" medium-heavy Quantum Tour Tactical Hack Attack flipping stick, Quantum Smoke 200 HD casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 50-pound Gamma Torque braided line, 1-ounce Strike King Hack Attack Heavy Cover flipping jig (blue or Alabama craw), Strike King Rodent trailer (bluebug or double header).

> He used the blue jig in the low-light conditions of the morning and then switched to Alabama craw when the sun got high.

> He said the Rodent trailers were critical because they increased the profile of the jigs and caused them to fall extremely fast, which seemed to be what the suspended fish preferred. "I could get more bites on plastics in practice, but the big bites came on that big profile," he said. "I had the mentality that if I could get four or five bites a day on it, three of them would be big ones."

The Bottom Line

> Main factor in his success – "Probably just confidence in my equipment and a lot of confidence in that style of fishing."

> Performance edge – "The new 200 HD reel is great for flipping. It's really beefed up – it's a big reel with a light frame and big handles on it. It seems to handle braid real well because it's super-smooth and easy to free-spool."

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