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Clarks
Hill, SC.
— A look at the standings from the first day of this week’s FLW Series event on Clarks Hill reveals Jason Quinn to be in an uncharacteristic 111th place with a puppy limit that weighed 5-10.
He finished 15th and 3rd in two of the three Elite Series tournaments on the big lake that straddles the Georgia/South Carolina border, so his poor showing so far is a bit of surprise. While he was hesitant to make excuses for his small catch, there is a story behind his day that he reported exclusively to the BASS ZONE.
Quinn, who is sponsored by Evan Williams bourbon, unexpectedly lost a portion of his day and is upset about the misunderstanding he experienced with FLW.
“I don’t fish any other FLW events,” he said. “But my year was pretty much winding down and this one was close to the house and I’ve done well there before so I decided to enter. I’m a BASS guy, and we all bust our
butts to get sponsors, but I knew that FLW frowns on alcohol and tobacco, so I called in when I sent my deposit. I was told it was not a problem. I could run my boat. I just couldn’t wear my hat or jersey or anything with the Evan Williams logo, and then if I made it to the last day I couldn’t fish out of my own boat.”
He added that when his entry was confirmed, he called FLW again with the same query and was given the same answer.
“I went through practice all happy-go-lucky, practicing in my boat,” he said. But his day began to unravel when he received a call from
an FLW official approximately five minutes before blastoff. Quinn says that he beached his boat, walked up to the tent, and was told that he could not fish out of a boat wrapped by an alcohol company. He stated that he asked for his entry fee back, but instead accepted FLW’s offer of a loaner boat.
“It took about an hour and a half for them to get me the boat,” he said. Asked how that disadvantaged him he said that “you’re used to your own boat and you have everything in your boat. This makes it so you’re limited in what you can do.”
He added that on a lake like Clarks Hill, “with the clear water and the herring, the early morning bite is key.”
As he spoke to the BZ during the interview, Quinn was peeling the Evan-Williams wrap off of his Champion so that he could use his own boat on Thursday.
Chris Jones of FLW, reached on his cell phone prior to the afternoon weigh-in, declined to comment for this story.
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