While Bassmaster Elite pros strive for excellence throughout each event, the right combination of variables occasionally align to create the opportunity for superlative performance. Success hinges on seizing the moment, rising to the occasion and turning in a truly memorable performance. Here’s an example from Elite veteran Jason Christie
Event: 2022 Bassmaster Elite at Chickamauga Lake
Scenario: During this early April event, Christie spent the first three days up the Hiawasse River, where he targeted prespawn and spawning fish along transition banks with a 1/2-ounce Booyah Covert spinnerbait and a bladed jig. He had a lot of water to work with, but after three days of competition, fish pressure was taking its toll.
Limiting every day, Christie opened with a solid Day 1 effort of 16 pounds and placed 26th. Building on his first-round success, Christie caught 20-15 and 20-12 and improved his next two days’ positions to seventh and third, respectively.
Christie would enter the final round 3 ounces behind second-place Daisuke Aoki and 6 ounces behind leader Brock Mosley.
“Throughout the week, I had a solid pattern; I felt like I could run anywhere and have a good chance of catching them,” Christie said. “Going into the last day, I was just a few ounces back, but we’re on Chickamauga, and I’m thinking I need 25 to win.”
Suffice it to say, Christie launched that final morning with every intention and confidence of doing just that. Unfortunately — or maybe not so much so — meteorological happenings shuffled the deck.
“We had a really cold snap and that drew the fog in,” Christie said. “We took off and everything was good, but once I started heading up the river, it was driving into a blanket.”
That development would ultimately work in Christie’s favor, but as he explained, it definitely required a mental gear shifting.
“After the third day, I knew I needed to do something different, but I kind of formulated the plan for the last day to start where I had been fishing,” Christie said. “I thought, ‘I’m going to fish my two or three best areas and then I’m just going to fish new water.’
“But that morning, when I hit that fog — the age that I’m at now, it’s just not worth it to run through it. I mean, it was some of the thickest fog I’ve ever been in. I just didn’t feel comfortable running in it.”
The decision: As the fog’s eerie reality set in, Christie pondered his options. Still about five to six miles from his planned starting point, he pulled into a creek he had fished in another event about three years prior.
“There was this spot in the back of my mind that I was planning on fishing, but it was going to be on my way back,” Christie said. “The fog really made me bail on the plan.”
Describing the spot as a deeper channel swing bank with nearby flats, Christie said he caught most of his weight in the first hour. Looking back at the day’s overall lean productivity, he realizes what amounted to a safety call actually turned out to be a game-changing strategic move.
“Had that fog not come in and had I not made a safe decision, I probably wouldn’t have won,” Christie said.
Basing that opinion on what he’d observed in the weather patterns, Christie said the flatter banks where had caught his first three limits probably would not have set up as effectively in the colder weather. Conversely, his Day 4 area proved just what he needed for the day’s complexion.
“That place was in my mind because of the front maybe drawing them back to the channel,” Christie said. “I believe if I had gone up and started where I had been starting, I don’t think I would have caught them in that first hour.
“That fog didn’t lift until 10, so it kept me in that creek and it calmed me down,” Christie said. “I knew I had good stuff left, so I thought, ‘I have all day to fish the rest of my good stuff.’ It turned out that the spot I started on was the best stuff I had all day.”
Championship Sunday proved profoundly challenging, with only four of the Top 10 competitors catching limits. Prudence would reward Christie with five for 15-12 — the final round’s heaviest bag, which would push him to the top with a winning margin of 3 1/2 pounds over Mosley.
Game changer: As straightforward as it gets, conditions compelled Christie to make a decision that affected not only his own well-being, but also that of other boaters — perhaps some with less experience running a foggy river.
“I had spectators following me, and (continuing) just wasn’t the safe thing to do,” Christie said. “I feel like 10 years ago, stubborn me probably would have kept going, just fought the fog and pulled my spectators through it.”
Even though tournament competitors are not responsible for what spectators chose to do, Christie said he wasn’t willing to risk a potential chain reaction disaster.
“The spectators definitely had something to do with my decision, because me running down the river is different than seven or eight boats all following me,” Christie said. “They’re behind me, so if I run up on a log, or I run up on somebody out in the river fishing, and I have to stop, these people are not going to see me as well as they would (in clear conditions).
“The decision was made based on my safety, their safety and the safety of other people. I can just imagine some guy finally has a day off to go fishing is running down the river in a flat bottom boat and all of a sudden, here comes eight boats running down the river.”
Takeaway: Well-researched planning and disciplined performance have been evident in Christie’s decorated career, but if his Chickamauga win confirmed anything, it was the wisdom of knowing when to call an audible.
“Sometimes it’s good to have a plan, but the plan has to be flexible,” Christie said. “I’ve seen it happen a lot the last few years, where plans can be adjusted on the fly.
I do better in tournaments when that happens.
“The same thing happened in Texas like 25 years ago, before we all had GPS. I was running to an area, and I actually got lost in a fog bank, so I just pulled over and fished. I didn’t win the tournament, but I definitely had the bites to win. Sometimes you think you know more than you actually do.”
