Grae Buck Wins Bassmaster Open Oneida Lake
When he's not out fishing bass tournaments, Grae Buck earns some extra money working part-time for his father's landscaping company. He's forced to do less and less of that as time goes on. "Hopefully by next year, I won't have to dig anymore holes," he said.
The 2019 campaign was easily the best of his three seasons on the FLW Tour for the 29-year-old resident of Harleysville, Pa., mostly due to his runner-up finish at Cherokee Lake in April. Then last week he notched the most significant victory of his career as he won the Oneida Lake Bassmaster Eastern Open, achieving his long-held goal of qualifying for the Bassmaster Classic. Oneida is about a 3 1/2-hour drive from his home, but it's his favorite tournament venue. It's been real good to him this summer - he won a BFL there a month earlier by employing the same pattern that garnered him the Open triumph. "The water temperature dropped from 84 to 72 over that month and (the big smallmouths) just moved a little shallower," he said. "I also changed the color of my dropshot bait because they seemed to be keying more on the shad than the perch fry they'd been eating before." His 50-10 total for three days outdistanced the runner-up, Australian Dean Silvester, by about 2 1/2 pounds in a derby in which the weights were extremely tight from the get-go. He boxed more than 17 1/2 pounds on each of the first two days and sealed the win with a 15-06 stringer when the bite toughened on day 3.
More of the Same
Buck said that Oneida is the place where he learned to catch smallmouth. The first local club he joined visited the lake frequently for tournaments and he and his wife took numerous trips there when both were members of the fishing team at Penn State University. "I was pretty confident that my pattern from the BFL would still be strong, although I didn't know if I could win this one with all smallmouth," he said. "I don't do much largemouth fishing up there, but of somebody goes out and catches a couple of 20-pound largemouth bags, you can't make that up solely with smallmouth." That didn't happen - there wasn't a single 20-pound stringer caught during the event. Bradley Dortch's 19-02 haul on day 2 was the derby's heftiest bag, and he managed just a single fish on the final day en route to a 12th-place finish.
Eight to 12 feet was his key depth range in the BFL, but that dropped to 6 to 9 for the Open. He found three places during practice - all where rock and grass came together - and each produced for him during the tournament. "Those spots are where the bait gathers," he said. "Either perch or alewives will be in the grass and the gobies and crayfish will be in the rock. "The places where I caught them in the BFL, I never caught a fish. There was an algae bloom in certain areas and it shut that bite off."
Using a combination of the dropshot and a Ned rig, he boated approximately 15 keepers on each of the first two days. That number dropped to eight on the final day. "I lost two good ones - it was the only day I lost any fish. The first one was a 3 1/2-pounder in the first 10 minutes and the other one was on the Ned rig later in the day. "I absolutely thought those were going to cost me (the win) because I thought I needed close to 17 pounds to have a shot at it. I weighed all my fish as I was going and I knew I had just over 15, and those would've given me probably 16 3/4. I would've been pretty comfortable with that."
His previous biggest win came at a BFL Regional on the Potomac River in October 2015. That one was actually worth more money ($65,000 vs. $34,400 at Oneida), but the Classic berth more than makes up the differential to him. "I worked in pond and lake management for three years after college and the (BFL Regional) win allowed me to quit that job and pursue a pro fishing career. This one's different, though, because of the Classic. To have it happen on Oneida is perfect."
He'll spend much of the fall and winter preparing for the 50th edition of the Classic, which will take place at Lake Guntersville in March. The lake goes off-limits to competitors on Jan. 1. "I'll probably spend a week there just idling and trying to get more familiar with it," he said. "I fished the Tour event there my rookie season (he finished 50th out of 165 competitors in February 2017) and the Costa championship last year (58th out of 196 in November), so I have some time on it and I know how it lays out. "That's my favorite time to be fishing - I love pre-spawn largemouth."
Winning Gear:
Dropshot gear: 7'3" medium-action Dobyns Champion Extreme rod, Ardent C-Force 3000 spinning reel, 18-pound Ardent Gliss braided line (hi-vis yellow), 8-pound Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon leader, size 2 Hayabusa DSR hook, 1/4- or 3/8-ounce Eco Pro Tungsten weight (pear-shape), Cornerstone Baits Shimmy Shot (ghost).
Ned rig gear: 7'2" medium-light Dobyns Xtasy rod, same reel and main line, 10-pound Seaguar Tatsu fluorocarbon, 1/10-ounce Hayabusa Brush Easy jighead, Z-Man Finesse TRD (green-pumpkin or 'the deal').
Bassmaster Eastern Open Oneida Lake Winning Pattern BassFan 9/10/19 (John Johnson)
