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 John Crews.
Event: 2022 Bassmaster Elite at St. Johns River
Scenario: Crews and his Elite competitors faced some pretty typical Florida moodiness during this season opener the second week of February. With several previous visits to the St. Johns, including a second-place finish in 2020 and a fifth in 2019, Crews had a good handle on what to expect from this fishery and its first-quarter fickleness.
Practice saw chilly, wet conditions ahead of a cold front, with the first two competition days bringing typical post-frontal conditions — bright skies, high pressure and no wind. Despite this challenging complexion, Crews fared well. Stabilizing weather, a warming trend and a critical Day 4 meteorological window directed Crews’ efforts into a wire-to-wire victory and his second Elite trophy. (His first was won on the California Delta 2010.)
“I had caught fish in practice when it was colder, but I knew that deal was gonna go away (as the weather stabilized),” Crews said. “I was just hoping that it would last into tournament, which it did. It lasted two days, and I was able to catch some good fish deep.
“From my experience in Florida, when it gets warm, it takes a few days before the fish actually move and that was what happened there.”
Continuing his practice success in the first two days of the tournament, Crews committed to Rodman Reservoir, where he mostly fished the Ocklawaha River channel’s 15- to 25-foot depths. As he sensed the post-frontal conditions diminishing toward the end of Day 2, Crews transitioned to shallow vegetation where he thought prespawn fish would be staging.
“Those fish definitely pulled down into that river channel when it got cold; then when it warmed up, those fish moved up,” Crews said. “I don’t know where those fish went, so I turned around and fished more on (Rodman’s shoreline).
“I looked around spawning areas, mostly lily pads and arrowheads in 1-5 feet.”
Crews took the early lead with a Day 1 limit of 28 pounds, then added daily weights of 17-3, 13-0 and 17-1 to edge Wisconsin pro Bob Downey by a margin of 1-4. Along the way, a couple of key moments delivered difference makers.
The decision: Crews made two particular adjustments that yielded key bites with resonating impact. The first came early on Day 3, when he found pleasant, warming conditions and realized the deep bite was done. Crews initially planned to move super shallow and look for fish starting their spawning move.
“I didn’t have anything, and I moved shallow. I was going to hit some pads in like 0-2 feet of water where there were a lot of buck bass running around and chasing bait,” Crews said. “I stopped short of that on a little lily pad clump, thinking this is where they might transition.
“I pitched a Texas-rigged Missile Baits Quiver Worm with a 1/4-ounce weight and when I engaged my reel, my line was heading out toward the ocean.”
Wrestling the 6-pounder into the boat, Crews immediately knew this fish would alter his outcome.
“That really saved the whole tournament,” he said of the lone bright spot in his otherwise lean Semifinal Saturday. “That fish had probably just moved up, and I put it right in front of him.”
The other critical call demonstrated the pro-level adjustments that win Elite events. Sometimes, it’s a big-picture kind of deal; other times, it’s a matter of seizing the moment and leaping through a window of opportunity.
“Each day, the tide was getting a little bit later, and finally the last day, we had low water on the pads in the river first thing (in the morning),” Crews said. “That’s what I was wanting because that (low water) puts the fish on the outside of the pads and makes them easier to catch.
“I had to wait until the last day of the tournament to get the tide that I wanted, and that’s why I started on the pads the first two hours.”
Crews started that final day on the main river, between the Palatka takeoff site and the Rodman Canal. He’d eventually lose the tide he wanted, but when a little squall line of wind and rain came through the area early afternoon, he repositioned to a line of deeper pads inside the canal.
“That weather was enough to make a lot of those fish hit the spinnerbait,” Crews said. “That spinnerbait fish was the one that really sealed it. If I hadn’t caught that fish, the weights would have been really tight.”
Game changer: Crews said that, while his Day 3 pad flipping efforts were largely disappointing, making that shallow move was unquestionably worth it — thanks to the one big fish he found.
“The first two days, all those big fish I caught were not an accident; the fish were where they should have been,” Crews said. “That 6-pounder was really the only one I caught in one of those transition pad areas.
“I tried to duplicate that but I never did. I caught a bunch of other fish, but none over 2 pounds.”
Takeaway: Reflecting on his win, Crews said his finest moment came down to knowing how to play the cards he was dealt.
“I think it was a culmination of experience on tidal fisheries, and in Florida, and then matching that with the proper game plan for the weather we had,” he said. “It was knowing that the fish were going to go from where they are before a cold front to where they are when it gets warm.
“You couldn’t really sit in one area or have one pattern that would work throughout the four days of competition. The first two days had to be a cold-weather pattern, and the latter two days had to be a warm-weather pattern because those fish were moving up.”
Summarizing his St. Johns achievement, Crews said the win fortified everything he had learned in previous years. Most of all, his collective understanding of the Florida-strain largemouth gave him the patience he needed to play the game at their pace.
“It only gets cold there in Florida less than 10 times a year, so when (cold fronts arrive), the fish are just like, ‘I’m going to wait it out,’” Crews said. “It just takes time.”
