Greg Hackney..

[motocross269]

Did you guys see he had 19lbs of Largies today.....That rocks...If memory serves me right Dan and I were talking about a tournament being won on LSC with largies just this morning. It may have been someone else though my memory gets a little foggy sometimes..

[djkimmel]

I think we talked about it..?? It was pretty early this morning and only 1 cup of coffee into things. I made the state team once by going after largemouth bass on day 2 of another weekend the smallmouth seemed confusing. To some people anyway.

Of course, largemouth bass dominated the lake before I started fishing St. Clair ~25 years ago, and was still the winning fish more often than not for a few years after. Hackney did say you can't compete with largemouth bass but he meant to win a multi-day major event mostly. Seems like most times the pros come here someone or two finishes pretty high up in the money fishing largemouth bass.

Some anglers find a good stretch or part of the lake that is loaded with numbers enough that they whack some nice ones in practice but don't seem to realize you may have to key in on areas that produce better quality largemouth bass consistently with apparent 'replenishing' to do well over 3 or 4 days. I've seen a few pros susceptible to this because they can often catch so many largemouth bass 'so easily' in practice.

Many anglers say it is impossible in this day to do this but I like to believe most things are possible with enough time. And stubbornness maybe. Might be really hard to do it at will during the summer, but during the right week maybe?

[bassmandan]

i thought it was awesome he was doing well with the largemouth...and he ALMOST took big bass.  i have also won a club tourney with largemouth out there 16 1/4lbs and took big bass that was a great day 

[dartag]

Any idea where he fished.  I think I heard him say it was a 30 min run from the ramp.  The ones Saturday looked healthy.

[djkimmel]

I thought he said the Detroit River somewhere but I don't recall anything beyond that. I do think he said more. There was too much going on to remember it. There are a bunch of places you can catch largemouth bass in the Detroit River.

There are a bunch of places in Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair River too. Once in awhile I find a smoking hot spot - which may mean a few good ones mixed in with a whole bunch of little ones. Still hard to leave when you're catching them real fast. For me anyway.

[Dave B]

Basstrac showed him at airport bay, there are lots of places to catch green fish in the river.

[djkimmel]

I was thinking he should have been on Basstrack but I had 0 Internet at the park so I didn't look, and the couples hours I was on St. Clair it wasn't showing everyone even that I could find and see Saturday morning. They said they had a few technical issues at times.

I thought he actually said more about where he was but it's pretty hard to hide from Basstrack regardless! I got the impression he was in that area just from what little he said that I remember.

[Dave B]

There is so much water to cover and those guys still don't give any good info on spots.

[Dan]

...and what fisherman does. None that I usually talk to. People want spots, but don't like to give them.

[motocross269]

There is so much water to cover and those guys still don't give any good info on spots.

In my opinion BASS gives out too much information on Location...Most of the pros that I talked to aren't very keen on Bass Tracker for obvious reasons...

On day 3 there were probably 20 non competitor boats fishing Greg Vinson Location..I can somewhat excuse the recreational guys but the guys in the Bass Rigs should know better..I know it is perfectly legal but there is "Ethics" involved on decisions to hammer a guys spot that is trying to win enough money to feed his family and stay in the game a little longer...
One boat from kentucky had 4 guys in their  yellow skeeter...They had balls enough to ask Vinson what he was catching them on at the Hotel room then they ran right out and hammered his spot all day....Nice....KVD, JVD, and Bobby Lane were also in the area all week...
4 younger guys came into the area with a red skeeter and they never dropped a line.Just watched....I wish I would have had some free hats or something I would have gave those guys something for doing the right thing...

Guys really need to learn to find their own fish...I know some anglers from out of state struggle because of time restraints but if that is the case hire a guide or do some research.  Obviously we sometimes find the same fish and end up fishing close together in competition but using the bent rod pattern and a pair of binoculars doesn't cut it...

[djkimmel]

I don't try to make a judgment on who is fishing the area because they already knew about is and fish there versus who is just fishing there because they had the info given to them. If they admit they are only there because they found out where the pro is fishing, and fishing right on top of the pro during the actual tournament, that is not very thoughtful or sportsmanlike to me.

I also know tournament anglers cannot expect exclusive use of any public water. Not realistic or maybe even a good idea though I can see the possibility of some version of this in the future considering that other groups are sometimes give exclusive use of parts of our public water.

I prefer to keep using peer pressure to get more anglers to do unto others as they expect done to them. That helps a little.

I wouldn't like Basstrack much either but they know about it coming in and B.A.S.S. is well aware of how bad so many anglers want specific information. I sometimes have anglers get upset or even angry with me when I don't give them specific spots just because they ask. I think I give out plenty of fishing information and I truly do believe if all an angler does is try to get someone elses' spots they will harm their quest to become a better angler because there is so much more involved.

I do remember seeing Vinson on the lake when I ran out for a couple hours in a media boat Saturday morning. He was NOT showing up on my Basstrack at the time. There were bass boats and other boats in the area at that time. I did not go close enough to him to see who was fishing versus who was watching. It did not appear anyone was real close to him but we just ran by a ways off, and turned around and ran back since we couldn't see anyone in the area on Basstrack and didn't recognize any other boats.

I was watching Ott Defoe and another angler over by the Metropark. I was trying to get a few pictures and Ott asked me to move away way out by another boat that was just sitting and watching. I don't know if he knew I had a media pass or not? Probably not, but he wanted me so far away that I couldn't get very good pictures, and since he wasn't on my priority list we just left rather than try to explain anything to him.

I would have left sooner but no one was showing on my phone on Basstrack that I wanted to find and I couldn't get hold of anyone who knew where they were. Plus, I was watching that other wrapped boat with no observer fishing right next to Ott and they were throwing to each other's fish. I didn't know they were sending pros out alone and I hadn't seen 2 Elite Series pros work together like that before so I did get the pictures I could from so far away.

I need to post a bunch of pictures and some video. Some of you may enjoy them too even if they aren't the best quality.

[motocross269]

The anglers may not show up on basstrak until they catch a fish and the marshal sends a report

[djkimmel]

Not sure? I didn't ask that question specifically but Bassmaster staff told me they had a few technical issues that morning though a several of the anglers I couldn't see were supposed to be working. I did have one friend say he could see anglers near me on his home computer that I wasn't seeing so there may be some kind of load issue when using a phone with a poor Internet connection.