Carolina Favorite Prevails Again

Casey Ashley, 2015Bassmaster Classic Champion

Yesterday seemed familiar. As local favorite Casey Ashley hoisted the 2015 Bassmaster Classic trophy, I couldn't help but think about a similar scene, seven months ago, when Anthony Gagliardi won the Forrest Wood Cup on his home waters of Lake Murray. The sport's two championship events, both held on South Carolina waters, were both won not only by in-state anglers but by legitimate local anglers.

If you follow pro bass fishing at all, you already know all about Ashley's win, and you likely know the details of his pattern and quite a bit about his road to victory. Having gotten to watch it unfold and to be close to all that was happening, though, I have to offer a few impressions.

One of the coolest aspects, in my mind, is the fact that Ashley's preparation for this event has been going on since 2008. In a way it goes back even further, because he has fished tournaments with his dad since he was 8 years old and he can't even remember the first time he ever fished Lake Hartwell. However, in 2008, when the Bassmaster Classic was first held on Lake Hartwell, Ashley took note of the event's enormous success and became convinced it would return to Hartwell at some point. Since that time, he has been a student of the lake, and he was quick to point out that he's learned an enormous amount about it from many top local anglers over the past several years.

Ashley also talked about learning so much from his dad, who began handing over boat control and decisions for team tournaments when Ashley was in his early teens and who would question decisions to force Ashley to think about them and to learn. Ashley's dad also put also put together the locally popular spinner heads Ashley used to win the Classic.

I also enjoyed seeing Ashley's calm confidence and his patience in answering the same questions again and again throughout the tournament. It seemed everyone wanted him to feel the weight of being the local favorite, but he didn't allow that. He wanted to win and did all he could to prepare himself to win, but he never accepted the weighty notion that he was supposed to win. He said that it was only after he put his boat on the trailer on day three, when everything was taken out of his hands, that he got nervous.

Going back to those similarities with Anthony Gagliardi, Casey Ashley will be an outstanding champion who will represent the sport exceptionally well.

Gagliardi & Company: My Take as a Nearby Observer

FLW photo by Jeff Samsel

It seems some fuss has arisen about Anthony Gaglardi fishing close to a local angler on Lake Murray during the final morning of the Forrest Wood Cup, with some folks contending that Gagliardi was unsportsmanlike or unethical. Everyone has the right to an opinion, but I don't think any of the folks making those contentions were there at the time. I was, so I thought it might be fitting to offer my take.

From the onset, I'll acknowledge that the other angler was in the area first. Also, it's public water, and he had every right to stay and fish. Many anglers likely would have stepped back, knowing what was as stake for someone else, but that's a personal choice. That said, Gagliardi didn't claim otherwise. He never asked the other angler to yield or did anything to try to push him away. He simply joined him fishing the area.

Regarding the question of moving in on someone else's spot, I believe an important distinction must be made. The other angler was not fishing a defined hotspot, such as a sweet spot on top of a hump, a specific brushpile or a dock. He was working an area where the bass were schooling. On virtually any lake where fish school on the surface, whether those fish are largemouths, stripers, white bass of something else, anglers commonly run those school together. The whole cove doesn't belong to the first angler on the lake. And while I couldn't hear every word spoken, by my understanding, the other angler didn't object to Gagliardi fishing near him. He didn't like the of armada of onlookers that saw his area, and that would have been the same whether they actually had fished 100 yards from one another or 10 feet apart.

Gagliardi also didn't crowd the other angler. He did move to the same area, but the other angler actually did far more pushing tight to Gagliardi's boat and shadowing every shift, based on what I saw. Again, though, they were fishing schoolers, so they both adjusted positions based on where the fish were breaking.

Closely related, I think Gagliardi's comment in the press conference that he threw over the other angler a couple of times made it sound like he was being a bully and felt self important because of the tournament. That wasn't the case. They both threw across one another a couple of times. That happens sometimes when you're chasing schoolers and one suddenly comes up. You only have a moment when bass are eating herring, so you react. A fish comes up, and you cast to it. Occasionally that puts you across the other angler, or, if the fish are sort of between you, your baits might land simultaneously side-by-side.

Most importantly, Gagliardi never said a harsh word. Even when told that he needed to "get a real job," he didn't counter with anything negative. He simply told the other angler that he'd caught fish there the previous day and was going to stay and fish that school, and then he quietly went about his business. He represented FLW and tournament bass fishing well, as I know he will continue to do as Forrest Wood Cup champion.

Final Morning - Forrest Wood Cup

Boats are launching in the darkness just across the way, and soon they'll be coming around to the docks where they'll stage to take off for the final day of competition in the Forrest Wood Cup.

Only 10 remain, and with the uncertainty of the bite it's legitimately possible that anyone who made it to today could cone away world champion and half a million dollars richer.

Only 2 1/2 pounds separate the top 5, which includes threes Carolina anglers. Leading the pack is Brent Ehrler, one of three former Forrest Wood Cup champions in the Top 10.

The wind is blowing only slightly and stars are plentiful above an hour and a half before takeoff.

I'll be following one top anglers this morning, although I don't have my specific assignment yet. Yesterday I watched Bryan Thrift, which was a grand lesson about efficiency. Other mornings I've followed Casey Ashley and Anthony Gagliardi. All three are in the top 5.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens on the water and especially in the weigh-in this afternoon.

My First Murray Trip & Stripers

Move-in week is going on now at the University of South Carolina, which tells me that my first-ever look at Lake Murray occurred around this time of year, 29 years ago.

I'd been on campus less than a week, maybe only a couple of days, when I met a friend who would become a future roommate. We met at an evening function for freshmen, and soon got talking about fishing. Turns out he was from South Carolina, had a boat on campus and knew a fair amount about Lake Murray fishing, including the fact that the striped bass were schooling most mornings.

So well before dark the following morning we met somewhere on campus, I hopped in his truck, and we headed for Lake Murray. We put in well down the lake and rode to the middle of a big cove on the Lexington side, where he told me we would hang tight and watch for fish busting the surface or birds diving. Just to get it out of my system, I made a couple of casts with one of his rods, each of which was rigged tandem with a chugger and light hair jig. Then I put it down and waited, as he had suggested, in case we needed to make a quick run.

That morning marked the first and last time a striper school has ever come up all around a boat I was in. We didn't have to run anywhere, because fish were busting bait on top in every direction around us. I learned that day (and I've since confirmed several times) that schooling stripers make me forget how to cast a baitcaster.

I missed a couple of hard strikes before hooking up, and we each wrestled a fish from the school before it went down. Details elude me now, but I believe it was true double. Both fish weighed 5 or 6 pounds, although I thought mine weighed twice that when I was fighting it. I believe a couple other schools come up that morning. I can't remember whether we caught any more fish.

I only know that Lake Murray left me with a very good first impression.

Cool & Misty Columbia?

Word from the water is that yesterday's high in Lake Murray Country never broke out of the 70s and that it was misty and almost cool feeling. Having spent a couple of summers in Columbia, which were hotter than most summers in Florida when I was growing up, that's kind of hard for me to imagine in mid-August. Seems it's true, though.

Apparently the water temperature has dropped about 5 or 6 degrees since the end of the allowable pre-practice time for the Forrest Wood Cup a couple of weeks ago, and the shallow and deep bites have picked up. How that will translate to tournament days, which are still a few days way and are supposed to be sunny and hot, no one knows for sure. With conditions projected to change so much between now and the tournament, David Dudley calls the fish he is catching now "liars," which have the potential to confuse matters more than they teach.

One more day of practice, and I should be in Columbia before it is over. I'm driving down tomorrow and plan to arrive in time to drive around a bit and talk to the pros during media day and will be reporting what I learn on FLW's Forrest Wood Cup page, where plenty of written and video updates are already being posted.

View from the Water: Forrest Wood Cup

2013 Forrest Wood Cup champion Randall Tharp on morning
No. 1, before a single cast had been made.

By far my favorite place to watch tournament action is from the water. Although the computer or a media room provide more big-picture news, reading reports simply isn't the same as seeing how anglers are working cover, what their body language says, how the water looks and the air feels and such.

Normally, I can't really do that. Not for more than a day, anyway. Stories need to be written, and if I'm physically at en event it usually makes more sense to spend maybe a day on the water and invest other daytime hours either working on the computer or doing other things that are associated with the event.

Last year, during the Forrest Wood Cup, I got to spend a bit of time on the water, and it was cool learning a bit about how the Red River fishes during the summer and seeing the contrasting strategies of working backwaters and the main river.  I even watched Randall Tharp fish for a while. At time I had no idea that he was working on what would turn out to be the winning strategy.

This year it's my job. A this year's Cup, which begins on Thursday on South Carolina's Lake Murray, I'm contributing to FLW's live coverage, so I'll be on the water reporting back what I see, probably all four days.

Be sure to keep the Forrest Wood Cup page bookmarked and watch the FLW Twitter feed for a fabulous flow of images, stories, notes and video clips, including iON footage from the pros' boats.

Today is Walmart Pro Day (12-2) and Chevy Pro Day (5-7) in Columbia, so most pros are in town and things officially get started in a couple of hours. Practice begins tomorrow morning!

Final Cup Preparations

Yesterday David Dudley posted a photo of himself preparing gear for the Forrest Wood Cup -- at his boat with compartment doors open and boxes and rods everywhere. Practice begins Sunday morning, four days from now, so I suppose there's a lot of that going on. Gear sorting, hook sharpening, forecast studying, pre-practice pondering, strategizing... And for any angler who prepped everything early and is fully ready, a lot of waiting and anticipating.

Forty-five pros qualified to compete. One will walk away world champion and half a million dollars richer. Sixteen are fishing the Forrest Wood Cup for the first time. Others are veterans, some with Cup and Classic experience. A handful have even won the Cup before.  Some are traveling from far away and have never seen Lake Murray. Anthony Gagliardi lives on the lake.

For now, everyone is even, and when they blast off a week from tomorrow, they'll all be tied for first and last place with zero pounds. Word is that it will be a grind.

I'll be there to see first-hand what different anglers make work. But first I have some preparation of my own to do: camera cards to clear, batteries to charge, stories to write, junk to pack...  Better get to it, I suppose.

Forrest Wood Cup Fast Approaching

The start of the Forrest Wood Cup is less than two weeks from now, and practice is only a week and half away. Seems fast approaching to me, but I suppose that's probably so for most of competitors, as they anticipate competing for the world championship and bass fishing's biggest prize of 1/2 million dollars.

This year's Cup is extra intriguing to me because of the venue of Lake Murray and Columbia. Having gone to school at the University of South Carolina and only living a few hours away, I've enjoyed some fun days fishing on Lake Murray and know the lake somewhat well at least.

Of course, the more you cover bass fishing, the more friends you make in the sport, so there are several anglers I'll be watching closely as the competition unfolds. I'll also be contributing to the FLW coverage, along with blogging, posting photos and such, so I'll be in the middle of everything going on from start to finish.

Like any fishing fan, I'm curious about the patterns that unfold and which anglers figure out the fish. The nearly universal word from pre-practice was that fishing was very tough, but someone always figures out something.

Last time the Cup was in Columbia it was a junk-fest, with top anglers beating banks and throwing a lot of stuff. Docks and frogs played a big part in the winning pattern and in the strategies of most top finishers. That said, the deep fish that relate to herring offer a wild card. The general word is that you can't count on those deep fish day after day, but if someone finds something shallow that's dependable AND hits the deep fish just right even one day, that could be big.

We'll find out soon.

The best place to keep up with the action is on FLW's Forrest Wood Cup website, and coverage of story lines is already well underway. I hope you'll also keep an eye on what I post on this blog, on the Jeff Samsel Fishing facebook page, on Twitter (@jeffsamsel) and on Instagram (jeffsamsel).

Better yet, plant to be in Columba Aug. 14-17 and see for yourself how the championship unfolds!

Murphy on Murray

Dark skies and little breeze made Lake Murray largemouths tough customers yesterday, and fast-approaching rain gave Michael Murphy and I only a few hours to run around the lake.

That's OK. Spending time on Murray with Michael Murphy is always a great education and a lot of fun.  A pro angler who lives only a few miles from the lake, Murphy knows Murray very well, and he does a fabulous job of putting things into words. Although the fish weren't jumping into the boat, Michael did catch a couple of bass on a buzzbait, which was cool, considering that spring patterns are way behind schedule and the water is still only about 50 degrees.

I'll be talking with Michael and other Murray experts quite a bit this spring and summer in anticipation of the Forrest Wood Cup. Watch the FLW website for lake reports I'll be filing.

Sampling Murray

Clouds are thickening, and the rain is on it's way. Still, I'm here, and Michael Murphy is up for giving it a shot, so we'll see what South Carolina's Lake Murray has to offer is this morning.
Murray will be the site of the Forrest Wood Cup, later this summer, so I'm paying careful attention to how it is fishing this spring. Word I've heard so far is that it has produced a lot of large fish early in the year.
First stop this morning was JC's Outdoors in Gilbert to grab a licence and a cup of coffee and to meet Michael.

Old Hat & Lake Murray Lessons

While sorting through basement storage containers, my wife came across my old Lake Murray Country hat. I don't specifically recall buying the hat, but I remember wearing it a lot, quite a few years ago. It could have been from a writer trip I took while I was editor of South Carolina Game & Fish, but I kind of think it goes back to a day-trip to Murray while I was college, most likely on a day when I when I was supposed to be studying or working on a paper.

Of course, when I consider how I make my living now, I'm not fully convinced that I wasn't studying. I'm not suggesting that it was good prioritization to minimize attention to classes my parents paid so much money for me to take. Only that learning on the lake probably did more to prepare me for my career as a free-lance fishing writer than learning about Japanese history, accounting, astronomy or most other stuff in the core curriculum or even most journalism classes. I definitely remember more from many days on Lake Murray than from any class I took.

There's little I don't remember about my first striper trip: I recall where we started, the lures we had tied on, the instructions of my friend who took me, the size of the first school that came up (right around the boat!), the violence of the first strike and brutish strength of the fish... That September morning outing was fundamental to my understanding of schooling striped bass.

Lake Murray also taught me about twitching a bubble gum-colored floating worm for largemouths during the spring. I believe that approach actually was popularized on Murray around the time I was in college. I know that every bait store had bunch of them and that many folks considered that THE way to target Lake Murray bass when they were around shallow buckbrush.

Then there was the November day when my friend's boat broke down one cove over from where we had launched but we happily discovered that throwing a white curly-tail grub to docks, brush and other shoreline cover would yield tremendous action from bluegills, crappie and a host of other panfish in those particular conditions.

The list of days and lessons could go on for quite a while.

A quarter century later, I'm still using those early Lake Murray lessons, and I'm still learning about the lake. With Murray being the venue of the 2014 Forrest Wood Cup, I've been working on some Lake Murray stories and actively seeking new information about the lake. I look forward to spending a few days in Lake Murray Country and doing more on-the-water learning in August. I might even wear my old hat.

Looking Toward Lake Murray

SC pro Anthony Gagliardi on Lake Murray

I know the next Forrest Wood Cup is a year away, but I'm already excited about the fact that it will be held at Lake Murray and based out of Columbia, South Carolina. I suppose pros like Anthony Gagliardi, who lives near Murray, also liked hearing that announcement and will be doing everything in their power to make sure they are part of next year's FWC field

Being a South Carolina graduate and living only three hours from Columbia, I've spent a fair amount of time fishing Murray. My time on the lake has been divided chasing bass, stripers, crappie, bluegills, catfish and even gar, but it still adds up to quite a few hours and a lot of fond memories.

I caught my first striper on Lake Murray on about the fourth night after I arrived I Columbia for college. I met a fellow freshman who would turn out to be a future roommate one evening, and we got talking about fishing. He was from South Carolina and had brought his boat to school, so we made plans and met the next morning an hour before sunrise to head for a lake I'd never seen and fish for a species I'd never caught. A big school came up around us at first light, and within minutes I was hooked up with  a 6- 7-pound topwater striper. I've been a Lake Murray fan ever since!

I also lost a job because of Lake Murray (OK, it was really the fault of an irresponsible college boy, not the lake). Fishing with the same friend several hours before I was supposed to start a new job we had motor problems a couple of coves over from the launch. The trolling motor would have gotten us back in plenty of time, but I made the mistake of casting to a point as we passed, and I caught a big bream. Well, that led to another cast and another fish and, well, you can probably figure out the rest of the story.

Lake Murray can be tough for tournament bass fishing during mid-summer, despite supporting a great bass population. The last Cup held there (2008) was a "junk fishing" event scratched out by Michael Bennett, whose primary pattern was throwing frogs over grass around docks. Offshore anglers commonly find good bags on Murray during late summer, but it's typically tough to repeat those catches. The morning topwater bite also can be good, but a striper can break an angler's heart if he thinks he has a largemouth on the line.

Of course, summer can also be a fine time to wade the Saluda River, downstream of Lake Murray, to intentionally cast for stripers. So while the pros are out grinding it out on the hot lake, I might chose to stand waist deep in a cool current and have fun catching stripers! With our without the river stripers, I'll enjoy spending a few days in Columbia, eating country vegetables at Lizard's Thicket and watching the nation's top pros tackle Lake Murray.

Hope to see you there.