Hank Cherry's Classic Winning Gear & Patterns 2-5

It was fortuitous for Hank Cherry that he had a mechanical issue with his trolling motor on the official practice day for the Bassmaster Classic at Lake Guntersville. After having the problem addressed by service technicians, he put his boat back in the water, with the first order of business to test the device. He traveled just a few hundred yards from the launch to the Brown's Creek causeway and caught a 5-pounder while putting the motor through its paces. He proceeded to fish there throughout the derby, sans the company of fellow competitors, and won the 50th anniversary of the sport's most famous event with a three-day total of 65-05. A big portion of that came on day 1, when he caught a tournament-best 29-03 stringer (tied for third-heaviest in Classic history) to put nearly 8 pounds of separation between him and the rest of the 53-angler field.

His advantage was reduced to 4-12 after a 16-10 effort on day 2, but after a sluggish start to the final day he ended up boxing 19 1/2 pounds to win by 6-11 over runner-up Todd Auten. The victory, his first at the sport's top level for the 46-year-old from North Carolina, was worth $300,000, pushing his career earnings mark with B.A.S.S. and FLW combined past the $1 million mark. "The biggest factors were just patience and not having anybody around me - knowing I didn't have to split those fish up," he said. "At this time of year that's one of the best-known places on the whole lake, but there was nobody there. Once I realized that, my confidence skyrocketed." Following are some of the specifics of his program.

Been There Before:

It wasn't the first time that Cherry had exploited that causeway. He used it to register a 17th-place finish in a Bassmaster Elite Series tournament in 2015 that Skeet Reese won. That event took place a month later on the calendar, but experienced a similar weather pattern. "The fish had been on beds and then a hard wind and cold came in," he said. "I didn't end up finding it until the end of the first day and I caught four for 19 pounds. "Last year (when he finished 8th in the Elite Series event in June) I stayed in the upper part of the lake and I never ventured down that far."

The causeway is about three-quarters of a mile long with riprap along both sides. There's a shallower grassy area at one end, and it was there that he caught the bulk of his massive opening-day stringer as it surrendered a 7-02, a 6-pounder and a 5 3/4. He caught another 7-02 off the causeway. The sweet spots along the causeway were places where large rocks had tumbled into the water, forming high spots. "They could just sit there and ambush gizzard shad," he said.

On day 2, he pulled two of his weigh-in fish off the grass flat on a bladed jig, two off the causeway rocks with a jerkbait and one off a dock with a conventional jig. He made one late cull from a dock on the final day, but everything else came from the rocks. He went the first two hours of day 3 without a bite and temporarily surrendered his lead as contenders who loaded up early and jockeyed in and out of the top slot in the standings. He reestablished command, however, with a flurry of catches between 9 and 10 o'clock, with one of those a 5-pounder. He sealed the deal when he caught one that weighed nearly 6 pounds shortly past noon.

"My cameraman was doing the weights and he had me down for like 16-10 or 17-05," he said. "I kept thinking that it was still too close. At 2:10 I got rid of a 2-pounder with the cull off the dock that got me another pound, and after that I felt pretty good." He said he had quite a few spectators in his area, but none of them were fishing. "One guy tried to, but he was promptly addressed by some locals that he needed to move on."

Winning Pattern:

Cherry said his cadence with the jerkbait in the still-chilly water was painstakingly slow, with long pauses between the double pops. "People ask me how I can (work) a jerkbait so slow, but I just try to think of the right rhythm in my head for that situation. You'll eventually get one to react."

He was heavily dependent on his Garmin electronics. "With LiveScope, I could actually follow the herds of gizzard shad and I could tell when I would see a fish if it was going to bite or not. There were several key fish that I caught that I saw coming to get the bait because it's happening right there in live action. If you do not have Garmin LiveScope, you are definitely missing out."

Winning Gear:

Jerkbait gear: 6'10" medium-light Abu Garcia Veracity rod, Abu Garcia Revo STX casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), 15-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon line, Megabass Ito Vision 110+1 (GP stain reaction OB).

Bladed jig gear: 7'4" medium-heavy moderate Abu Garcia Veracity rod, same reel, 20-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, 1/2-ounce Z-Man/Evergreen ChatterBait Jackhammer (red/green-pumpkin), various grub trailers of the same color.

Conventional jig gear: 7'6" medium-heavy Abu Garcia Fantasista Premier rod, Abu Garcia Revo EXD casting reel (8:1 ratio), 20-pound Berkley Trilene 100% Fluorocarbon, Picasso Dock Rocket Hank Cherry Jig (green-pumpkin/orange), Berkley PowerBait MaxScent Chunk trailer (green-pumpkin with tips of tails dyed chartreuse).

Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville Winning Pattern - BassFan 3/12/20 (John Johnson)

Heading into the Classic, one of Todd Auten's dream scenarios was for him to be able to sling a vibrating jig around grass all three days. It's his favorite technique and one that he's refined through the years at and around Lake Wylie, S.C., where he resides, and also over the course of his career, which has been marked by quiet consistency. Auten got his wish at Guntersville as pre-spawners were glued to grass beds for most of the week despite the water being cooler than he'd hoped. Typically, he prefers water in the 50s for a vibrating jig to be effective, but a heavy concentration of bait where he was fishing seemed to offset the water being so cold. "I came in hoping it'd be a ChatterBait bite, but in practice the water was 45 degrees and I've never caught one in water that cold," he said. "It is Guntersville, though, and they do hit moving baits. I've caught them on (lipless crankbaits) when it's been 42 degrees, so that's why I threw that more in practice. "I'd planned to fish docks and deep stuff, and I knew there'd be a grass bite somewhere, but that's like finding a needle in a haystack I didn't find it until late on the third day of practice."

The key components to where he fished were bait and water temperature. "I think the main reason those fish were in those beds was there was bait in there and because the water was dirtier, which helped it warm up quicker," he said. "I noticed on the last day of practice the water was 56 degrees and bait was flipping everywhere in dirty water. That had to be the reason they were in there and fish were in there with them." Auten started in the same spot each day and it treated him differently each day, but eventually he'd compile a notable stringer. "On day 1, it turned really muddy from all the rain," he said. "I didn't have the confidence in it, but I caught a great big one. Then I couldn't get bites because of the wind and it turned the water to chocolate milk." He opted to bail on the spot and head up to Honey Comb Creek, where he'd caught a 4-pounder in practice. He wound up getting eight bites there and fortified his day-1 stringer.

On day 2, he planned to head back upriver, but never had to because the water had cleared up on his starting spot and he was able to generate consistent action. "I knew they'd bite sometime," he said. "I'd catch one every so often and that made me stay. I felt like I was protecting the place and was catching quality." To target the grass, he would position his boat over four to five feet of water and throw into 2 1/2- to 4-foot depths. The grass clumps came up about 18 inches from the bottom and in some places they were as tall as 2 1/2 feet. "It wasn't solid grass," he said. "Just clumps with some solid places mixed in. The fish were more in the scattered stuff and it was easier to fish that way. I could pull my bait through there and tick the grass. When I'd feel it get hung, I'd jerk it and it seemed that ripping it produced a lot of strikes." When the wind got cranking, Auten opted for the lipless rattlebait because the "grass was more laid over." When it calmed down, he went with the vibrating jig for more of a silent presentation. Auten caught 10 of his weigh-in fish on the vibrating jig and the rest on the lipless crankbait.

Gear:

Vibrating jig gear: 7'1" medium-heavy Douglas Rods XMatrix casting rod, Daiwa Tatula SV 100 casting reel (6.3:1 ratio), 20-pound monofilament line, 1/2-oz. Z-Man/Evergreen Jackhammer ChatterBait (fire craw), Zoom Z-Craw Jr. (Cajun craw).

He also mixed in a 1/2-oz. Strike King Red Eye Shad (crawdad) on the outside edges of grass lines using the same tackle set up as outlined above.

Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville 2-5 Pattern - BassFan 3/11/20 (Todd Ceisner)

In practice, Stetson Blaylock put together a crankbait program and started to build confidence in it. Then on the official practice day (two days before competition began), he couldn't buy a bite on the Norman Speed N prototype. He knew he'd have to lean on backup plans and that wound up being areas in the backs of creeks where fish would school. For those spots, he leaned on a lipless crankbait. "The cold weather backed them out," he said. "On Wednesday, it was warmer and breezy and the water warmed up and they pushed back in, but I knew if I wanted a chance to win, I had to try to make the crankbait thing work." He thinks the fish he was catching in practice were on their pre-spawn migration and it took a bit for some new fish to move into those areas amidst the changing weather and water conditions.

"The key decision for me was where I started on day 1," he said. "I caught a quick limit and that set the tone so I was able to calm down and fish. I knew cranking grass wouldn't get all of the bites, but I had a solid limit to work up from there." Eelgrass was his vegetation of choice, but he also hit some ditches and high spots. The key depth range for Blaylock was 4 to 6 feet. He was hitting six to eight spots per day and throwing hard baits at every stop. His two best fish on day 3 fell from a Rayburn red Boo-Yah Hard Knocker lipless crank. "I think I still would've finished second if Hank hadn't caught 30 on day 1," Blaylock said. "That tells me I was not on the winning fish. That's how I live in my career, though. You find what you can find and roll with it. If you go do your job and it's your time, you'll win."

Gear:

Cranking gear: 7'4" medium-heavy H20 Express prototype cranking rod, H20 Express Ethos HS casting reel (6.6:1 ratio), 20-pound Seaguar InvizX fluorocarbon line, Norman Speed N (chili bowl).

Lipless cranking gear: 7'3" heavy-action H20 Express crankbait rod, H20 Express Tac-40 casting reel (7.3:1 ratio), same line (17-pound), 1/2-oz. Boo-Yah One Knocker (bling), 1/2-oz. Boo-Yah Hard Knocker (Rayburn red).

Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville 2-5 Pattern - BassFan 3/11/20 (Todd Ceisner)

Feider's attention was also trained on grass, although in his case hydrilla was the common variable to his areas. "There was eelgrass everywhere on the bars, but the areas I keyed on were hydrilla," he said. "It didn't look good, but it was twice as tall as the eelgrass." And that offered more cover for bass looking for stopping points on their pre-spawn migration. Most of his bites came in five to six feet of water and he tried to keep the bait above the grass. He never got a bite after getting the bait hung and then ripping it free. He noticed a quick handle turn of the reel coupled with a pop of the rod triggered several bites.

"Every place I caught them in the tournament was a place I'd gotten bites in practice," he added. "I had three key stretches in practice, but the first two days of competition two of them were too muddy so I had to beat up one stretch on those days. On day 3, I got to fish all three and got more bites." He's convinced that had the event been a four-day tournament, Monday would've produced some bigger weights. "That's where the winning fish were," he said. "I wasn't worried about points so even if I blanked I'd go back there and do it again."

Gear:

Vibrating jig gear: 7'4" medium-heavy Daiwa Tatula Elite AGS crankbait/vibrating jig casting rod, Daiwa Tatula SV TW103 casting reel (7.1:1 ratio), 17-pound Sufix Advanced fluorocarbon line, 1/2-oz. Z-Man/Evergreen Jackhammer ChatterBait (clearwater shad), 3.25" BioSpawn Exo Swim trailer (Feider shad).

Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville 2-5 Pattern - BassFan 3/11/20 (Todd Ceisner)

Like Blaylock, Micah Frazier was zeroed in on grassy places in pre-spawn staging areas. He said most everything he found in practice held up during the tournament and if it were a four-day tournament, he thinks he could've piled up the weight. "Another day and I would've wrecked them," he said, noting the fish didn't turn on in one of his key areas until midday Sunday. "I didn't really even look at bridges or rock much because I've never been able to get that figured out."

The biggest challenge he overcame was staying in contention despite his best area being unfishable on day 1. He resorted to cranking grass on a handful of spots over the first 1 1/2 days. "I had a few different areas and I thought it was a pattern, but it morphed into more of a three- or four-spot thing where it was predictable," he said. The key depth for his bait was about five feet and he got most of his bites over top of submerged eelgrass.

"The type of grass didn't seem to matter," he said. "Half of them were in eelgrass and half had a mix of hydrilla and eelgrass. When I found just hydrilla, I couldn't get a bite for some reason." The spot he intended to fish on day 1 was blown out by the rains that came through Wednesday night and Thursday, but he didn't write it off completely. He revisited it on the afternoon of day 2 and the water had cleared up, allowing him to catch an upgrade that he weighed in. On the final day, he camped in that area and caught 18-00 on a 5-inch paddletail swimbait rigged on a jighead. The key was getting the swimbait down toward the top of the eelgrass in 18 inches of water and easing it out.

Gear:

Cranking gear: 7'4" medium-heavy moderate Abu Garcia Veracity casting rod, Abu Garcia Revo Premier casting reel, 20-pound Sunline Super FC Sniper fluorocarbon line, Norman Speed N (chili bowl).

Frazier hung #2 Gamakatsu G-Finesse treble hooks on the crankbait, which will be introduced at ICAST in July.

Swimbait gear: 7'3" medium-heavy Abu Garcia Veracity casting rod, same reel, same line (16-pound), 3/8-oz. unnamed jighead, 5" YUM Money Minnow (shad).

Bassmaster Classic Lake Guntersville 2-5 Pattern - BassFan 3/11/20 (Todd Ceisner)