Nick Hatfield Wins MLF Bass Pro Tour Heavy Hitters
Shop Nick's Winning Pattern, Baits & Gear
Tennessee pro Nick Hatfield scored his first BPT-level win and did it primarily from one spot. a prominent main lake point near the Smith Mountain Lake State Park that ended up producing much better than he expected. Hatfield also hit a few similar points nearby and cashed in on the feeding flurry each morning. He found those points in practice, did the forward-facing stuff, and caught a few like that. He also rotated through your typical herring baits but couldn't catch many of them. It developed as the tournament happened, but he realized he didn't need forward-facing and could drag up shallow and catch them as long as you could keep your bait out of the rocks.
One of his primary weapons was a 3.8-inch Geecrack Bellows Gill on a free rig with a 4/0 Hayabusa hook with a 3/8-ounce drop-shot weight. Among his other baits were a 7-inch minnow on a 3/16-ounce Scottsboro Tackle Hellfire Finesse Jighead with a 4/0 hook, a 5/8-ounce SPRO Aruku Shad, and a Scottsboro Tackle Line Through Swimbait. All baits were in various shad patterns.
