Hackney’s Roll Continues With Classic and Shootout Berths
Louisiana pro Greg Hackney has made a name for himself by consistently finishing tournaments in the upper ranks of competitors, so it was no surprise to anyone when he won the points during the Bassmaster Southern Open circuit in November.
(PRWEB) January 24, 2005 -- Louisiana pro Greg Hackney has made a name for
himself by consistently finishing tournaments in the upper ranks of competitors,
so it was no surprise to anyone when he won the points during the Bassmaster
Southern Open circuit in November.
The ranking wasn’t worth any money,
but it did send him on to the Bassmaster Open Championship held on Monroe’s
Ouachita River on Dec. 2-5.
The stakes at that tournament were high — the
top five finishers clinched an early berth at the 2005 Bassmaster Classic.
Hackney didn’t even break stride, leading two of the four days and finishing in
second place to grab that Classic ring.“The conditions were awful,” he lamented,
pointing out that the Ouachita jumped 6 feet between practice and the end of the
tournament.“It just kept coming up every day,” Hackney said.
The two-time
Classic angler said he found his fish in a lake about 26 minutes north of the
launch on the second day of practice.“It seemed like I caught the first of the
fish that moved up with the water,” Hackney said. “They were all suspended in
the tree limbs.” Although he didn’t catch many, the bass were quality
fish.
“I only practiced two days, and I took the third day off,” he said.
“When I found those fish, I knew where I was going to spend the entire
tournament.” On the first day of competition, Hackney rocketed to the lake and
began hitting flooded trees with his Rattleback jig. “I fished the old bank,” he
said. “They were some good fish; there just weren’t many to be
caught.”
He scratched out a five-fish limit for 16 pounds, 9 ounces, but
said he probably could have done better if he had stayed in the most-productive
spot. “There were a bunch of other boats in there with me, and I knew if I
stayed in one spot, they would know right where I was fishing, so I just blew
through there and kept going. There was the potential to catch 20 pounds in
there.”
Hackney went right back to the same stretch the following day,
and just kept banging the same trees. “I could tell the second day the bites
were disappearing,” he said. On the first day, Hackney had 11 bites; on the
second his lure only got hit by three keeper fish. But he still didn’t have any
competition for his productive stretches. “There were guys in there, but they
were just fishing. They hadn’t figured out what was going on,” Hackney said. “I
had everything that had fish to myself.”
His second day catch of three
keepers garnered him only 9 pounds, 7 ounces, but that was enough to keep him
more than 2 pounds in the lead. The field was cut to 10 after Day 2, so his odds
of grabbing one of the Classic berths was sharply enhanced. Hackney stayed right
with the plan, heading right back to the same stretch of the same lake. He did
make a slight change: He added elbow bush to the areas that held
fish.
“All the fish that had moved on the bank were on those elbow
bushes,” he said. “But they weren’t on all the bushes, only the ones with leaves
still on them.” Most of the bushes had lost their leaves, but those that still
held onto greenery often held hungry fish. “When I first started fishing them,
when you’d throw into that canopy, the bush would just shake,” Hackney said.
“Those fish were coming after (the jig).”
His bites increased on day
three, and he was able to bang out a limit. The size of the fish had fallen,
however, and he put only 7 pounds, 13 ounces on the board. That allowed Texas
angler Bradley Springer to edge into the lead by 1 pound.
The rising
waters finally impacted Hackney on Day 4. “When we started, the new bank was
right inside the trees,” he said. “By the end of the tournament, there were
places that the water stretched 200 yards to the new bank.” These flooded trees
were thick, making many of the bass moving up with the water unreachable. “You
just couldn’t maneuver,” Hackney said. He still managed four bass, but his total
weight only tallied to 8 pounds, 1 ounce. Springer, meanwhile, put an 11-pound,
2-ounce stringer on the scales to widen his lead to just more than 4
pounds.
Hackney, who has won only one Bassmaster event (the Arkansas
Central Open in 2002) but has logged three second-place and 15 top-10 finishes,
won a 250-horsepower Mercury Opti-Max valued at $15,000. But he also secured his
place in the 2005 Pittsburgh Bassmaster Classic — and he weighed in the heaviest
stringer during the tournament. That 16-pound, 9-ounce stringer earned him the
right to fish the Bassmaster Shootout, where his odds of winning will be one in
13.
Hackney said he was pleased to have locked in the Classic and the
Shootout, but added that he wasn’t planning to change his fishing
style.
“Just making the Classic isn’t going to keep this thing (Hackney’s
career) going,” he said. “I want to keep on keeping on. “I still need to earn
checks at these tournaments.” Of course, Hackney’s style isn’t conservative to
begin with. “I’m a pretty big gambler anyway,” he said. “I gambled on these
fish, and said this is where I’m going to fish the whole
tournament.”
Hackney’s next tournament will be Jan. 19-22 when the FLW
Tour stops at Lake Okeechobee. He then begins the 2005 Bassmaster Tour circuit
Jan. 27-30 on Florida’s Lake Tohopekaliga.
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By Andy
Crawford
Louisiana Sportsman magazine
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/1/prweb196486.htm