Fall 2020
page
32
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everything I saw was a 10-pounder.
Back then, nobody knew what everybody caught – everywhere – all the time –like it is now with the internet.Nobody knew what records were – except down in Southern California – Casitas, Otay, Miramar and Castaic. We all paid attention to those lakes.
Those lakes held Florida-strain largemouth and guys like Bob Crupi, Danny Kadota and Bill Murphy were writing about them. That is what fueled our dreams. I read everything they wrote on the Floridas.
When I had time, I fished Lake Chabot in Castro Valley, because they had Floridas. Then, we heard there were Florida Strain plants in the Delta. Once we knew that, we would sit around and fantasize about having one of those giant, full grown Delta Florida’s eat our frog. Lots of trial and error and R&D went into trying to catch ‘em, but we weren’t getting’ it done.
PURSUIT OF FLORIDAS
By the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, we graduated to the 7-foot, cork-handled Bionic Blade rods. Myself, I had a 7 1/2-foot Bass Pro Shops Power Hump Bionic Blade flippin’ stick and I started throwin’ my frog with it. I would throw it overhand at those big bass out in the hippie grass in Big Break. I would get ‘em on; but I just couldn’t get ‘em in.
After a while, with the longer rod and heavier line, we started landing up to three of 10 bites. It was better, but not good. When you would get one of those big bruisers on, you just had no shot.
The only way it even worked at all was with a reel set. Yes! We could only catch ‘em if we absolutely reel set on a frog!
It sounds insane, but it was
the only way to have any chance of
catching a bass with monofilament.
I would reel as fast as I possibly could and sweep that rod. Maybe –very occasionally –but just maybe –once in a while – I would get four out of 10 bites in the boat. And, that was only when I would reel as fast as I could, before I swept the rod.
I just kept trying – kept tinkering – but I would come home so defeated. Then, it all changed!
TEXAS IMPACTS CALI FROGGIN’
Randy Dearman won a Bassmaster
Texas Invitational in March 1993 at Sam
Rayburn and the article came out in
Bassmaster magazine in April or May.
They said he won using braided line and
that changed my world.
I took that long 7 1/2-foot rod, put
50-pound SpiderWire on it and it was a gamechanger! I could catch those Delta giants!
Me and my partner Gregg Bryant started winning
events by an average of
six to eight-pounds. That
same year, I believe it
was ’93, we won seven
out of eight summer
tournaments. We won one
of them by 16-pounds!
We went on a terror!
They all thought we were
cheating… “that boy ain’t
playin’ by the rules”... I
heard it all. That continued
into ’95 and ’96 and so did
the rumors. The rumor
part bothered me; because
I wanted everyone to like
me. I remember calling
Dobyns and Gary said, “just
forget ‘em dude…just keep
pickin’ their wallets.”
I wanted to tell
everybody what we were
doing; so, they’d know
we weren’t cheating, but
we didn’t. We just kept
pummeling them.
CHA-CHING
We were using the Abu Garcia Royal Express reel