WHY PROS BOMB
JAMES NIGGEMEYER
TOURNAMENT AND FINISH : 2019 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit on Lake Toho , 137th place LESSON LEARNED : If it looks good , explore it .
When you do well on a fishery multiple times running the same pattern , it ’ s easy to put on the blinders . That ’ s exactly what happened with James Niggemeyer at Toho in 2019 .
“ I have a decent track record at Toho , especially that time of year ,” Niggemeyer says . “ It ’ s almost always spawn-related , whether it ’ s fishing shallow for pre- , spawning or post-spawn fish . So that ’ s what I focused on , and I totally missed the offshore grass bite .”
What really gets Niggemeyer is that he noticed the lush offshore hydrilla flats while driving back and forth to the ramp during practice . It looked as good as anything he ’ d seen , but he figured the timing was wrong .
“ I remember thinking , ‘ They couldn ’ t possibly be out in that . They just spawned ,’” Niggemeyer recounts . “ I forgot the spawn is so long in Florida , and I was so wrong .”
Buddy Gross ended up winning the tournament off a onecast spot in the offshore grass . Meanwhile , Niggemeyer says he stayed up shallow and simply never got any quality bites .
“ I caught plenty of fish , and I just kept thinking what usually happens in Florida would : that you catch a bunch of small fish and eventually you get one or two big bites ,” Niggemeyer says . “ I never did . All the big fish had moved out to that grass .
“ Since then , if I come across anything that looks good – even if it ’ s the wrong time of year – I at least investigate it .”
PHOTO BY CHARLES WALDORF
PHOTO BY CHARLES WALDORF
TERRY BOLTON
TOURNAMENT AND FINISH : 2020 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit on the Mississippi River , 172nd place LESSON LEARNED : Pay attention to changing conditions .
After 26 years of fishing professionally , you might think something like watching conditions would be a given for a pro . Even successful veterans like Terry Bolton can miss out on things , though , especially when they ’ re subtle .
“ There were a couple things I missed in that tournament , but the biggest was the water levels ,” Bolton says .
Bolton had a poor practice , as the water levels in the river were dropping , but he found a spot he figured he could catch a small limit come the start of the event . The problem was that , by the first day of the tournament , the water had started to come back up , and he failed to notice .
“ I drew an early number and got to my area first , but the fish were gone ,” Bolton recalls . “ The rising water had moved my fish , but I didn ’ t realize the water had come up until late in the day .”
He then compounded the problem on day two when he “ chose the wrong area .”
“ I decided to fish this massive grass flat , figuring the fish would move up in it ,” Bolton continues . “ Well , they did , but water had risen so much the fish had gone up so shallow I couldn ’ t reach them , and it took me so long to get in the flat that I was basically stuck there .”
Adding insult to injury , Bolton remembers idling around the Black River the last day of practice and noticing some offshore structure that “ looked really good ” – something right in his wheelhouse , being that he calls Kentucky Lake home . Because it was late in practice , he didn ’ t explore it .
“ I come to find that ’ s where Tom Monsoor won the tournament , on that offshore stuff ,” Bolton laments . “ I remember seeing that and just thinking , ‘ Well , you were right , you dummy .’”
40 FLWFISHING . COM | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | DECEMBER-JANUARY 2021