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 Florida standout John Cox.
Event: 2022 Bassmaster Elite at the St. Johns River
Scenario: Having notched the dirty-30 elsewhere in his career, Cox had long dreamed of reaching that mark on his home waters. Thankfully, Florida’s late winter period shaped up nicely and Cox finally found his opportunity.
Capitalizing, however, required strategic vision, mental discipline and a dose of good fortune.
“When practice started, it was decent weather and it was still warming up,” Cox said. “Every time we’ve had a Florida tournament, it’s usually borderline weather; they’re just right on the verge of going up.
“Every time I go into it, I’m thinking, ‘This is gonna be the year.’ I’ve caught over 30 on Harris Chain and Lake Toho, so I’ve been waiting for this moment. I live on the river and I’ve caught 30 pounds several times before, just never in a Bassmaster tournament.”
With the weather forecast showing a warming trend as tournament days progressed, Cox saw his goal coming into focus. A cold front would arrive right before the event began, but the long-term outlook was promising.
“In practice, you weren’t really seeing any (bed) fish anywhere, but you could tell they wanted to come in, because in the (late afternoon) they’d kinda show up and then they’d disappear again,” Cox said. “They just weren’t ready, and then that cold front came and bumped them back again.”
Starting the event with marginal hopes of a bed fish bite, Cox ran about an hour south of the Palatka takeoff site and fished a backwater chute off the main river, where he snooped around the right kind of shallow cover. The fish were not ready, and Cox settled for a 57th-place limit of males that went 9-6.
Day 2 wasn’t much better, and a St. Johns limit of 13-13 may not sound like much, but the story therein exemplified the importance of prudent tournament calculation.
The decision: Cox points to a pair of strategy points that ultimately led him to the tournament’s heaviest catch. With a Day 1 bag short one keeper, he actually found a big female worth his effort. After nearly four hours, it was clear she wasn’t going to bite.
“I didn’t want to take the male because I was afraid she’d jump to another bed, and I might not relocate her the next day,” Cox said. “But I only had four keepers so catching that 2-pound male was huge.
“Going into Day 2, knowing they weren’t quite there — I wasn’t seeing any rubbing, I wasn’t seeing any new fish — I decided to go flipping mats and stuff all day. I did that to make it to that third day when I was finally going to have no wind and temperatures in the high 70s. On Day 3, it just all came together.”
Noting that he didn’t try to force it the first two days, Cox said Day 3 rewarded his patience and belief with a gun show of epic proportions. Five chunks, including an 8-5, went 31-15 and pushed him into second place.
“I just had a feeling maybe something would happen there,” Cox said of his Day 3 home run. “I went to places where it looked like it was going to get right. It seems like when you catch that 30 pounds, you get the front end of it.
“You go and practice, and you might see a couple, and then you show up on the spot (in the tournament) and they’re all there. In practice, if you can see, ‘Oh man, there’s 30 pounds here,’ it’s pretty much not going to happen in the tournament.”
As Cox recalled it didn’t take long to realize the Day 3 cork had popped and the champagne was a bubblin’. Catching all of his fish on a black Berkley Shape 108 craw rigged on a 3/0 Berkley Fusion Flipping hook, Cox found the spawning movement astounding — even for a seasoned Florida pro.
“When I pulled up to my main spot on Day 3, there was a buck on every bed, and I was like ‘Oh gosh,’” Cox said. “I kept trolling by them and then I ran into a big one, then another big one. It was just crazy how they all came in.
“Where I hadn’t seen fish, every bed had a male and every third bed had a big female on it. You could pick which one you wanted. If you didn’t want to work one, you could just go a little farther and find another one.”
Game changer: Cox said the key to his Day 3 success was breaking the mindset that had derailed past opportunities. Tournament fishing is a game of numbers, but while the “bigger is better” mentality certainly does apply to most scenarios, there are times when strategically managing the quality/quantity formula pays bigger dividends.
“In past St. Johns River tournaments, I’ve so stubborn about just chasing the big ones, but (on Day 1) I knew I just needed to put five in the boat and try to regroup the next day,” Cox said.
On the flipside, Cox managed only a modest final-round limit of 12-8 and saw the potential win slip to a fourth-place finish. In painful recollection, Cox said he literally had the bites to win, but several big fish came unbuttoned.
“That final day, I just fell apart; it was just comical,” Cox said. “I had an 8-pounder on and I’d go to grab the fish and it would come off. It was crazy. John Crews was supposed to win that one.”
Takeaway: Recognizing weather patterns, understanding the timing of a spawning movement and making tough decisions put Cox in position to fulfill a longstanding dream.
“I could see what stage they were in,” Cox said. “There were no fry guarders, so I knew they were right on the edge.
“I’ve been waiting for (the 30-pound opportunity). The river is my home waters and I always thought it was just the hometown curse, but that time it just came together.”
