Cochran Wins Big, 6 Ounces Shy Of 100

Today George Cochran boated the biggest limit of the tournament – 29-11, and his fourth consecutive 20-plus limit – to win the Guntersville Bassmaster with 99-10, just 6 ounces shy of triple digits. Stacey King was a pound out yesterday, but today finished a distant 2nd with 90-01.

King had 21-06 today, and Kevin VanDam moved up a spot to 3rd with the day's only other 20-plus bag (23-02) for 87-03 total. Chad Brauer fell back to 4th with 17-12 today and 83-13 total. Mike Iaconelli and Zell Rowland stayed where they were yesterday – 5th and 6th – and neither boated a limit for the second day in a row. They finished with 66-01 and 60-10 respectively, making the spread between 6th and 1st a ridiculous 33 pounds.

Slightly more favorable weather in the form of a little more wind and clouds helped the fishing today, but heavy local fishing pressure and spectator boat traffic hampered the patterns of some competitors.

Cochran Riding High

If winning at the tour level is getting harder and harder, how about winning with 100 pounds – or close to it? As you might expect, Cochran will be having no trouble staying awake for the long drive to Table Rock. He's pumped.

"It really did me a lot of good," he said. "I hadn't won one in quite a while, and when you get older you wonder if you still have it. You might not believe this, but I've won a few tournaments (including two Bassmaster Classics), and this one probably means more to me right now than just about all of them. Because I'm 53 years old, and I wanted to win a regular Tour event.

"I've won Invitationals, Classics and an FLW, but I wanted to win (a Bassmaster Tour event) – mainly because when you're fishing for a living and you haven't done anything for 5-6 years, you can get swept under the table a little bit. So this gives me a little more confidence and makes me feel good for all my sponsors. When you win a big tournament like this, they all know it and it really helps you."

In this event, he said everything went his way. "I used a technique I learned about 6 years ago from an old fisherman in Arkansas. I fished a Strike King Wild Shiner in bone/green back, and I'd reel down and then lit it sit there for 5-6 seconds. When I saw my line jump, I'd set the hook." (The details of his winning pattern will be up soon.)

"Today I was throwing 5-pounders back," he said. "It was an awesome day. I caught 11 bass over 5 pounds. I don't think I've ever had a day like that in my life."

King 'Pretty Happy'

"I'm pretty happy," King said about finishing 2nd. "I never really had enough bites or was on big-enough fish to catch George, but I'm pretty pleased to catch 90 pounds and come in 2nd."

King caught "a ton" of fish today. "I had 30 fish, probably 25 keepers and 15 over 3 pounds. I hammered them all day, but never had a big bite." His biggest was close to 5 pounds. "I really wasn't on big fish all week," he noted. "I caught an 8-07, but really that was the only big one I hooked. I was just on a ton of fish in 3 1/2- to 5-pound range."

That doesn't sound too bad. "It was a ball," he said.

Since his other wins were in March, did he get foiled by a leap year this year? "That had to have made a difference (laughs). I'm not upset about losing to George. He's a great guy and did great out there. Catching 100 pounds of bass is awesome."

> On the spectators today: "I had quite a few boats with me all day long, and they were very courteous, very nice people. I really appreciated that they stayed back, and they rooted me on too. We had a good time."

VanDam Okay With It

"The reality is that after the day I had yesterday, I couldn't really hope to do much better than that," VanDam said. "If I'd caught a really big stringer then maybe I would have moved up to 2nd, but I couldn't win by any means."

He noted that he "got bit a lot more regularly today" (about a dozen keepers), but "just didn't catch many big ones" aside from the big bass of the day, an 8-05.

The heavy local boat traffic affected him a little. "I ended up pretty much abandoning an area I'd been fishing," he said. "I just felt that to catch what I needed to catch, I couldn't do it with all those people around. You can't let any (spots) rest, and more people were fishing (his water when he was there and when he left) today than yesterday. A lot of people don't know (not to), but the reality is that this is one of the greatest bass lakes in the country, if not the greatest lake, and on a nice sunny weekend like this one people go fishing. Half the people who fish the lake probably didn't know a bass tournament was going on – but the other half were at the weigh-in. We had a really good crowd."

Brauer Content

Brauer put up 17-12 today, his worst limit yet, but felt he did all he could do. "When you get that close you want to win, but when you catch almost 84 pounds and finish 4th, you have to take your hat off to the guys who found some better fish. It's incredible to catch that amount of fish and not even be close to winning. To still get beat by 16-17 pounds, there's nothing you can do about it. So I don't feel too bad about getting beat."

He felt the conditions were "similar to yesterday. I knew the sun was hurting me a little bit. The fish I was targeting were suspended around docks, and (with the sun) they sucked up underneath into the shade. I was trying to catch them on a suspending jerkbait, but it was pretty tough to get underneath that shade. I tried some other stuff and couldn't get them to bite it.

"Today I caught most of what I weighed when we had a little cloud cover, but then I struggled ," he said. "I knew I had my work cut out for me, and I knew that with what I had I didn't have a chance to win, but I was glad do have what I had."

Iaconelli Happy With Points

Iaconelli went from boating two 24-pound limits to just 17-08 total over the last 2 days. Today he had just three fish for 11-06.

"I struggled the last 2 days," he said. "I can give you a million excuses, but (mostly) the weather and wind conditions yesterday and today were totally different (than days 1 and 2). Also, the spectator boats and fishing pressure in (his) area got ridiculous. I probably had 35-40 boats in there yesterday fishing or watching me. It was bad, but I'm not crying about it. You have to be able to adapt to things and I just didn't adjust."

Even so, he stayed in that area yesterday and most of today. "When you catch almost 50 pounds in an area, you want to stay with those fish. I tried to figure out other ways to catch them today, but then it died. At about 10:00 or 11:00, I started throwing a 'Trap and just went fishing.

"I'm proud of myself for keeping my head in it," he said. "When I woke up this morning, I knew my odds of winning were very slim. But I knew that every fish I caught would count in the (Bassmaster) Angler of the Year (AOY) standings. So I'm stoked. I'm headed for Table Rock, and all I'm thinking about is staying in the hunt for AOY."

Notable

> In this tournament, 1,089 bass were caught for a combined weight of 3,649-02 – roughly an average weight of 3.35 pounds per fish. Where do you want to spend your vacation?

> For comparison purposes, Rowland's winning 4-day total at Santee Cooper last year was 98-09.

Final (Day 4) Standings

1. George Cochran – Hot Springs, Ark. – 20, 99-10 – $103,000
Day 1: 5, 20-12 – Day 2: 5, 25-05 – Day 3: 5, 23-10 – Day 4: 5, 29-15

2. Stacey D King – Reeds Spring, Mo. – 20, 90-01 – $39,000
Day 1: 5, 18-10 – Day 2: 5, 28-02 – Day 3: 5, 21-15 – Day 4: 5, 21-06

3. Kevin VanDam – Kalamazoo, Mich. – 20, 87-03 – $25,000
Day 1: 5, 26-03 – Day 2: 5, 20-02 – Day 3: 5, 17-12 – Day 4: 5, 23-02

4. Chad Brauer – Osage Beach, Mo. – 20, 83-13 – $21,000
Day 1: 5, 20-09 – Day 2: 5, 26-03 – Day 3: 5, 19-05 – Day 4: 5, 17-12

5. Michael Iaconelli – Runnemede, N.J. – 15, 66-01 – $15,000
Day 1: 5, 24-03 – Day 2: 5, 24-06 – Day 3: 2, 6-02 – Day 4: 3, 11-06

6. Zell Rowland – Montgomery, Texas – 13, 60-10 – $14,000
Day 1: 5, 21-09 – Day 2: 5, 26-06 – Day 3: 1, 3-07 – Day 4: 2, 9-04

Big Bass
> Day 4 – Kevin VanDam – Kalamazoo, Mich. – 8-05 – $1,000
> Day 3 – George Cochran – Hot Springs, Ark. – 7-00 – $1,000