Morrison hooked into some largemouth lunkers at Stop 1 on Sam Rayburn and recorded a Top-10 finish .
These nice spotted bass helped Morrison finish in
12th place at Stop 2 on West Point Lake .
north ,” Morrison said . “ I was learning at a good pace , but I could definitely be learning faster and putting some more hours in .”
On the surface , the Sunshine State ’ s shallow , grassy , largemouth-filled lakes might seem like the complete inverse of the deep , clear waters of New York , where smallmouth often win tournaments . But Morrison quickly discovered that the skills and strategies he ’ d honed at home translated to Florida . Cipoletti was blown away .
“ I met up with him at the end of a day , and I watched him put together like a 49-pound bag ,” Cipoletti recalled . “ It was the craziest thing I ’ ve ever seen . I watched his whole process , and it felt like somebody who had perfected their method . He
PHOTO BY JODY WHITE
had a whole system of scanning forever , for four hours , and finding all of the juice , and then going back through scientifically , methodically — with the wind , against the wind . And I watched him put together that insane bag , and I was like , this is crazy . And the thing is , he did that every day for the next few weeks . He put together like 45-plus-pound bags on a lake that everybody had said was on the downslide . And then he won every local tournament in Florida that he entered .”
His confidence bolstered , Morrison decided to enter all three Toyota Series Northern Division events in 2023 plus take his first crack at competing on a new southern body of water . He settled on a Toyota Series event at Texas ’ Sam Rayburn Reservoir in May .
Morrison stacked up 66 pounds , 12 ounces of bass at Stop 6 on the Detroit River to secure his AOY and ROY titles .
PHOTO BY JODY WHITE PHOTO BY JODY WHITE
46 MAJORLEAGUEFISHING . COM | OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2024