Even after unexpectedly making it back to weigh in, gathering a bag and approaching the stage, Bryan Schmitt’s hands were still shaking. A closer examination revealed burn marks, too. On Day 1 of the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament at Santee Cooper Lakes brought to you by the United States Marine Corp, the Maryland pro took a longer boat ride than any of his fellow pros and almost paid the price for it.
The single bass he brought to the scales weighed 1 pound, 9 ounces, but there’s more to the story than just his 79th-place position in the standings.
“I ran over 60 miles up the river today,” he said. “It was so far that I had to run at 40 to 50 miles per hour just so I didn’t run out of fuel.” He estimated that he went 25 miles further toward the Mason-Dixon line than anyone else in this week’s Elite Series field. That gave him plenty of fast-moving water all to himself, but it also left him vulnerable in case of mechanical failure or other problems.
“The place I wanted to go was in the water yesterday,” he said. “And when I got in the bottom end of the river it was fine. But when I got way up there it was 4 feet low. I couldn’t get into the backwater I wanted to fish, so I went to my next spot and got stuck on a sand bar and filled my motor all up with sand.”
He’s a hammer on the tidal waters of the mid-Atlantic region, on rivers like the Potomac and other tributaries that flow into the Chesapeake Bay system, all of which feature substantial tidal swings, but he’d never seen anything like what he experienced today. Nor has he ever gotten this stuck, to the point where he thought he might have to spend the night on the boat, despite taking many chances over the years.
He ended up on the phone with the Mercury technician for the better part of four hours, and had nearly given up hope, when he finally got his power plant up and running again in a manner that could get him back to the John C. Land III Sport Fishing Facility.
“I fished for like a total of 30 minutes all day,” he said. “I just wanted to get away from everybody.” It appears that he succeeded in that respect, and fished his wish, so to speak, but was not fully aware of the possible side effects.
So after all of that trouble, you might think that Schmitt would take a safer and more conventional tact tomorrow, but by the completion of the weigh-in he had convinced himself to at least take another shot at the long distance path to success. He’d found the area on the last day of practice by launching up there, but he speculated that today he couldn’t have gotten his boat in the water using that same ramp. Still, he thinks that there is the potential of a 25-pound catch in those upper reaches, perhaps more, and a bag of that magnitude would enable him to get inside the cut to Saturday. The siren song of that possibility sings loudly to him.
Indeed, his years of chasing low tides have convinced him that less water can frequently actually be a good thing. “You’d think it’d make it easier to catch them.” Nevertheless, he’ll take a more cautious approach on Friday.
“I’ll run about halfway up and start fishing,” he said. “I’ll start fishing and if I get a few bites I’ll just ease my way up.”
He’s resolved not to get burned again – literally or figuratively – but he’s going back.
“Somewhere up there, they are stacked.”
Hope springs eternal for Elite Series anglers, and often a river runs through it.