NATURAL-LEE
A true student of the game,
Jordan Lee spends as
much time on the water as
any of his peers and has
learned some valuable
lessons as a result.
exactly how to get into it, but he did
remember that the water needed to be
higher than normal to get into it, which
it was.
Once in the pond, Lee hit a window
of big female bass staging up to
spawn. He caught six big bass weigh -
ing 36 pounds to rocket to second in
the Knockout Round and into the
Championship Round.
At Stage Two at Okeechobee, Lee
zeroed on day one. Once in the hole, he
decided he needed new water with new
potential to make something happen.
“The main lake was so beat up from
big wind and fishing pressure,” he
recalls. “I had fished the Taylor Creek
canals back in college, and the more I
thought about them, the more they fit
the bill for something different: They
were off the beaten path, protected
from the wind and stable. It seemed
like the perfect gamble to take.”
Once he locked into the canal sys -
tem, Lee said it “felt right” – better than
anywhere else he had fished on the
main lake. He proceeded to go from the
bottom of the SCORETRACKER® to the
very top, catching 32 pounds and win -
ning his Elimination Round for an auto -
matic bid into the Championship Round.
“What’s weird about this sport is
sometimes your biggest personal victo -
ries are not necessarily wins on paper,”
he says. “I didn’t win Eufaula or
Okeechobee, but when the chips were
down, I trusted my gut, and when I got
to those gamble spots, it felt so right. I
made huge comebacks in both events;
experiences like that are what forge
confidence.”
Lee’s gambles continued at
Sturgeon Bay, when he led the points
race by just seven points going into the
final event. On the first day, Lee trail -
ered all the way to Rowley’s Bay to
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