Gross paid little to no attention to the outcomes of the Wheeler Lake Elite Series or the Kentucky Lake FLW Series because he wanted nothing in his mind that would blurry his focus on what was happening at Pickwick. "I was focused strictly on what was going on at Pickwick," he said. "I'm really bad at watching things on TV or the web and wanting to be a part of them, so I didn't pay attention to them." In practice, he put in by the Natchez Trace bridge and went down the lake from there, "to the first wide spot in the river." "I stayed on lower end looking for schools and didn't find them," he said. "I said, I'm not doing this and put my eggs in this basket when the schools were so small.' I'd found some singles and two fish on a schooling place and I started to think what if I have to share that spot with 10 or 15 other boats. The hard part was when we'd get back to the room, Michael would say, They're growing. Every day, they're getting bigger.'" He spent part of Monday idling more, but still wasn't satisfied with what he found. That night, he found the eelgrass. "For me, if I'm going to do that kind of fishing, I want a pretty good sized school and I never did see it," he added.
Competition:
Gross had only a few areas he wanted to fish on day 1, but windy conditions out of the west prevented him from getting on two of them. No problem - he proceeded to catch six keepers, the best five of which weighed 25-08 and that was with a 2-05 largemouth among the group. "I thought it would run out every day but it kept producing," he said, referring to what developed into his best spot that he didn't fish until an hour into day 1. "There was a window of opportunity that if I'd have gone out there earlier, I had a chance to catch a real big bag," he added. His primary tactic was casting the 1-ounce hair jig past the eelgrass clumps and letting it fall to the bottom. He'd then crank the reel five turns and pause it, the he'd crank it four more turns and let it fall. "If I hit the eelgrass, I'd bump the reel one more time to pop it clear and when it'd fall after that I'd usually get a bite," he said. "I kept that bait moving pretty good." For about a third of the day, he changed it up with a Tennessee River Tackle Tremor Head with a Super Fluke trailer.
He extended his lead on Friday with a 21-03 stringer as he again only caught six keepers in windy conditions fishing the same area from day 1. He lost a couple hours of fishing time as he had to give Neal a ride back to the ramp after Neal's boat broke down. Still, Gross' lead had swelled to nearly 9 pounds entering the weekend. He turned the tournament into a blowout on Saturday with a 22-12 effort that pushed his advantage into double figures. "I could've caught more on Saturday," he said. "I think I could've loaded up. That's a tough deal. I try to save fish and I'll go back and they'll be gone, or I'll catch them all thinking they'd be gone and then they're still there the next day. I wish I'd have caught more because you never know." His good fortune ran out on the final day as neither of his best two spots produced a bite. Instead, he resorted to a spinnerbait to catch the two fish that ultimately clinched win after Neal mounted a strong rally in the afternoon.
Winning Pattern:
Gross' best area was in the Kroger Island area, but it was the subtleties of it that made it key. "Where the main land of the island stops, the bar continues on," he said. "There's a ridge with a ditch on the back of it and the river's on the other side of the ditch. On that ridge, those clumps of eelgrass would be scattered. They weren't in a straight line. There would be one here and over there and over here. They were twice the size of the tubs we stand around at in the bag line. "I would mark every one of them. I'd make one pass so I could get everything straight so I'd get everything between the eelgrass and the break. That's when I did my damage. I'd then go up and turn in and come back up and throw parallel across them. Then I'd go on the other side and throw out." He was convinced there were some shell beds mixed in among the scattered eelgrass clumps. "When they bit early in the morning, sometimes I'd get a small piece of shell that would be on nose of the hair jig," he added.
Winning Gear:
Scrounger gear: 7'3" extra-heavy Hammer Fishing Rods All American Elite Rod Series casting rod, Lew's Tournament Pro casting reel (6.8:1 ratio), 17-pound P-Line fluorocarbon line, 1- and 1 1/4-oz. Tennessee River Tackle Tremor Head, Zoom Super Fluke (white).
Hair jig gear: Same rod, same reel, same line, 1-oz. Hog Farmer Bait Company Big Buck Hair Jig (white). When around hydrilla, he often threw a 5" Fringe Tackle hollow-belly swimbait (shad) rigged on a 1/4-oz. Owner Flashy Swimmer.
Main factor: "I stayed in a small box. I didn't go much above Kroger Island and I didn't go much below the bridge. That's a 5-mile box. I have learned that if you run all over the lake I'm losing fishing time. I promised myself I wouldn't get spread out like that any more. It's going to bite me some time, but I'm putting my line in the water a lot more than those guys who are bouncing around. Two of the days in this tournament, within 15 minutes, I had 18 pounds. That's huge. I didn't know it was going to be as good as it was."
Performance edge: "My Hammer Rods. They're so sensitive and they're so light. They have the Winn grips that in the cold weather, they warm up and in the warm weather, they stay cool. They are just a good rod. They're parabolic so I don't lose fish anymore. If I lose a fish, it's my error."
Pickwick Lake Winning Pattern BassFan 5/10/16 (Todd Ceisner)
Swimbait gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Cashion Rods CRT casting rod, Ardent Apex Elite casting reel (6.5:1 ratio), 20-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, 1 oz. True South Custom Lures swimbait jig, 5 1/2" Big Bite Baits BB Kicker Shad (blue gizzard)
Hair Jig gear: Same rod, same reel, same line, 1 oz. homemade bucktail jig (Tennessee shad),
Main factor: "The background I have in offshore fishing and having been here before. I knew what areas of the lake layed out better for me so I knew which ones I wanted to concentrate on more. I also knew where the fish were going so it was up to me to find where they were now."
Performance edge: "My Cashion rods. I've gotten comfortable with them and in the wind the first day, they were not biting very hard. Most of the time on these offshore deals with swimbaits they really thump it, but these would barely load up. I never lost a fish this week that would've hurt me."
Pickwick Lake 2-5 Patterns BassFan 5/11/16 (Todd Ceisner)
Swing-head jig gear: 7'6" heavy-action Abu Garcia Veracity casting rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier casting reel, 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line, 7/16-, 5/8-, 3/4-oz. unnamed swing-head jigs, Zoom Z Craw (green-pumpkin), Zoom Magnum Trick Worm (green-pumpkin), Gene Larew Biffle Craw (green-pumpkin).
Cranking gear: 7' medium-action Abu Garcia Venerate casting rod, same reel, same line (10-pound), Berkley Dredger crankbait. The Dredger is a new addition to Berkley's hardbait series and will be introduced at ICAST. Suggs likes it because it has a small profile, but can still achieve depths down to 20 feet. "It might be the most unbelievable crankbait I've ever thrown," he said. "For something with that small of a profile to get it down to 20 feet, it's virtually effortless reeling it."
Main factor: "A lot of people tried to fish offshore in practice. I did a whole lot of idling and looking. I did the same thing, but once I found what I was looking for I'd leave it and go back to it and thoroughly fish it to see if I could get bit. I know Mark (Rose) and some other guys found schools out deep, but there just weren't enough of those places. Even better, I had places to myself."
Performance edge: "I really relied on my Lowrance electronics. The way that wind blew and the fine lines you had to follow to make sure you weren't moving off your stuff, that was the biggest key - being able to stay on a place."
Spinnerbait gear: 7'2" medium-heavy Phenix casting rod, Daiwa Tatula Type R casting reel (6.3 ratio), 20-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, 3/4-oz. Nichols Lures double willow spinnerbait (shad), Reaction Innovations Little Dipper trailer (white trash). Horton would position his boat off the bank in about 13 feet of water, then throw his spinnerbait toward the bank. He said most of the fish he caught with it came in 7 to 8 feet about halfway back to the boat. They were feeding on spawning shad. "I could feel the blades hitting the shaded on my retrieve," he said. "Then I'd twitch it and get hit."
Cranking gear: 7'11" extra-heavy Phenix and 8' extra-heavy Phenix casting rods, same reel (5.1:1 ratio), same line (10- and 15-pound), Strike King 6XD (green gizzard shad), Strike King 10XD (citrus shad).
Main factor: "I found a couple schools deep, but I didn't know if I'd get to start on them early. They don't always bit early. Around 11 a.m. Tuesday, I caught a 5-pounder on a bluff wall where the shad were still spawning. What that let me do was to start on a deep place to see if they were biting with a chance to get a big stringer. When I didn't, I knew I had time to go catch a couple off the shad spawn. I started deep every day but Sunday and I really felt like I put together a good stringer on that shad spawn. I caught a 5 every day and Saturday I caught two 4s. The whole tournament centered around that one 5-pounder I caught Tuesday. It let me gamble. It's just a miracle that I started on three different deep holes this week and didn't catch them. A week from now, if we were here, I'd catch them out there."
Performance edge: "Those Daiwa reels helped me a bunch along w my Phenix rods. It means a lot when you have great gear. You just fish a lot better."
Spinnerbait gear: 7'2" medium-heavy Witch Doctor Tackle casting rod, Daiwa Tatula casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 20-pound Yo-Zuri Hybrid fluorocarbon line, 3/4-oz. Gambler double willow spinnerbait. The spinnerbait was his morning bait because of the shad spawn. "As long as there was wind, I could catch them, he said. "Once it died, I went to the crankbait."
Cranking gear: 6'10" medium-heavy Witch Doctor Tackle casting rod, same reel, same line (15-pound), Yo-Zuri 3DB Square Lip crankbait (chartreuse black). The Yo-Zuri plug is designed to run 4 feet and Surman would crank the grass edges and rip it and pop it when he felt it grab the grass. His two biggest of the week - a 7-14 on day 1 and a 5-pounder on the final day - came on the crankbait.
Main factor: "Getting those quality bites in practice and knowing the big ones were in the grass and staying with it and fishing slow. Any time I ran around I never improved. I knew the right thing to do was to stay and fish thoroughly. It didn't work two of the days, but it did on day 1 and 4."
Performance edge: "I spent my whole week looking at my Lowrance. The key was finding those tiny indentations in the grass or where it would stop. Plus, I can't get there and back without my Ranger and Evinrude."