Bass Fishing Apr - May 2020 | Page 83

It seems pretty accurate to say that you have some level of natural abili- ty, though. It’s unusual for somebody in their mid-20s to be as successful as you have been, specifically against competition that can be called “the best in the world.” I think I’m just a pretty good judge of when I’m around good water. I can usually tell pretty quick if I’m in a good spot. I can get a few bites and feel it out a little. So sometimes I feel like I can read the water good, and sometimes I feel like I make one or two good decisions during a tourna- ment that may change that tourna- ment for me. It’s not anything crazy, though, like I get this feeling that tells me exactly where I need to be, or what I need to be throwing. Whenever I have good tournaments, it’s because my decision-making is good. I’ve decided that I need to make a 45- minute run back down to a spot, and it turns out to be the right decision. But I think you can say that about everybody who does good in a tour- nament. The decisions are usually what make you win or lose. In the big events you’ve won, did you think you were going to win them early, or not until late? Most of my wins, I hadn’t really thought I was going to win going into the tournament. That’s usually how it works for me: It just kinda happens. I never have all these offshore juice holes like Jacob Wheeler. I can’t ever predict that I might win. Most of the time, I’m like, “Oh, this is good.” I’ll find a place halfway into the tournament, and that turns out to be the difference-maker. You’ve mentioned before that you fish your best when you’re just mak- ing it up as you go, true? That’s true, for the most part. I kinda have to be “feeling it” for me to be comfortable in a spot. If I get to a spot, set the trolling motor down and am not feeling it, I have to move. I’m not very good at just staying around a spot and grinding it out if it just doesn’t feel right. You’re pretty well known as being easygoing and hard to rattle. Do you ever get spun out? I don’t know about “spun out.” I don’t think I’ve ever gotten so flustered that I’m spun out. I can definitely rush sometimes when I’m trying to find fish in a hurry, but to me there’s a difference between being spun out, and just trying to find them fast. I probably look spun out sometimes if you follow me for a full tournament day and I’m trying to find fish fast. I probably look like a mess. You’re getting ready to fish an event in Florida. Didn’t you fish your first major, post-college event there a month before your first Bassmaster Classic in 2014? I sure did. That was at Toho. And you didn’t do great, if I recall. No I did not. I did pretty terrible: 110th or something, I think (it was actu- ally 105th). But then five years later, you won the first-ever Bass Pro Tour event on basi- cally the same body of water. How do you explain that progression from the 100s to winning just a few years later, against a pretty stacked field? I don’t know how to explain that, but it was a big learning curve to figure out how to catch ‘em in Florida. It’s just so hard to figure out what the fish relate to down here. Places like Okeechobee and Kissimmee, everything all looks the same when you first start fishing there. It all looks good, and it’s overwhelming. A place like Okeechobee; you have this huge lake, and it’s not like you can go out and just fish down any ol’ grass line and catch fish. You have to be in perfect water, which might be just a 50-yard stretch. There are some key ingredients that go into a good area in Florida, but it’s pretty hard to know all that when you’re from out of town. So how/when did you start to get over that “overwhelmed” feeling? Every time you fish a lake, you learn something new. I just started to pick up on things every time I came back to Florida. Now, I’m no expert, but I learned APRIL-MAY 2020 | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING.COM | FLWFISHING.COM on Kissimmee that any kind of submer- gent grass is real important because it cleans up the water and fish relate to it a lot. I had to learn to look for that grass, and how to fish it right. The fish just act so different here in Florida. You have to figure out how they react to the weath- er, what baits you can catch ’em on – all of those things that are different here than anywhere else. Are there any other well-known fish- eries where you’ve had a steep learning curve? Oh yeah, lots of them. Lake St. Clair is one of those. It’s a phenomenal place to fish, but the first time I fished it, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I hadn’t talked to anybody and really didn’t have anybody to “show me the way,” so I got there and felt like I was on the moon. That one was confusing for me. Even as phenomenal as that lake is, it has its own kind of conditions where you have to know what to look for. I’ve only fished it maybe two or three times total, but I understand it a lot more than I did the first time. What do you think you’re really good at, technique-wise? Oh, man, as far as techniques go, I’ve done good in tournaments a lot of different ways. I’ve done good flipping, throwing a ChatterBait. I feel like I can kind of do everything decent. I like to think that I’m good at spring tourna- ments, when fish are shallow on beds. I think you have to be diverse these days. Maybe 20 years ago you could be really great at one technique and win some money, but, man, if you can’t fish all kinds of different techniques now, it’s tough to keep up. All right, then what are you NOT good at? I don’t love flipping a big jig. It’s kinda intimidating to me to have to flip a 1-ounce jig. I’ve just never done it much. And big, giant swimbaits. I don’t think I own anything bigger than 6 inches long. I could never throw one of those in a tournament. Heck, even fun fishing, I don’t know what I’m doing with those big swimbaits. 81