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Norman,
OK – For a self-professed river rat like Ohio’s Bill Lowen, the 2008 BASS Elite Series schedule seemed less than ideal – eleven tournaments, not one of them on a free-flowing or tidal river. But as he proved this past weekend with a second place finish at Tennessee’s Old Hickory, he can apply his river fishing expertise to impoundments as well, and the result so far has been a 17th place position in the AOY standings and a likely spot in the 2008 Bassmaster Classic.
In his rookie year of 2006, Lowen notched two 4th place finishes, at Sam Rayburn and Table Rock, respectively, on his way to a spot in the Lay Lake Classic. But last year he stumbled substantially, finishing near the middle of the pack in the AOY race (50th). Based on what he’s done in 2008, it appears that his sophomore slump was the aberration, not his rookie success.
“Last year I didn’t fish like I did my first year on tour,” he said. “My first year, I was making split second decisions and they were working. Last year I got kind of conservative and played it safe and that didn’t work.”
He’s made the money in five out of nine events this year, including another Sunday appearance at Kissimmee, where he ended up in 5th place overall. The one portion of the tour where he struggled were the swing through the Carolinas, the fifth and sixth events, at Clarks Hill and Lake Murray, respectively. He finished a subpar 75th in each tournament, but bounced right back with a 16th at Wheeler.
“Those lakes with bluebacks seem to give me fits. The bass there act like stripers more than like bass,” he said. “I was raised fishing in the mud and that’s still where I’m most comfortable.”
He has frequently referred to his Ohio River roots as a key to his success, and indeed he often seems to do better In the grind-‘em-out tournaments (to the extent that they exist on the Elites) and experiences less success in the slugfests. His worst finishes were at Falcon (greatest slugfest of all time), Clarks Hill, Lake Murray and Kentucky Lake.
“When it’s tough, (my background) is a huge advantage,” he said. “When there are no fish in the livewell it’s easy to get down, but you can never get discouraged. Every single day on the Ohio River I’m fishing for just five bites, and I expect them to weigh six to ten pounds. Those guys who are used to catching 50 to 100 fish a day, if it gets near the end of the day and they only have three or four (fish), some of them start to panic. It doesn’t bother me at all. I just stay 100 percent focused.”
He pointed to his 15th place finish at the Harris Chain as emblematic of that never say die attitude: “The day that I had the big stringer with the 10 pounder, at 2 o’clock I didn’t have much and I had to leave to go back at 3 o’clock. Then I caught a six and a ten in the last 10 minutes of the day.”
He also pointed to this year’s two Top 12 finishes as providing him with “a huge mental boost.” At this time last year, he hadn’t earned a spot on Sunday, although he managed to do so in the 10th event, on the Potomac River. In 2006, he didn’t earn his second Top 12 until the last regular season tournament.
So is there any time when his Ohio River background hampers him?
“Fishing for those really big fish was the biggest adjustment. I’m just not used to catching those six, seven and eight pounders. A fish that big fights totally different. At Rayburn (in 2006), I broke off the biggest bass I’ve ever had on. It was somewhere between 12 and 15 pounds. Afterwards I asked Kelly Jordon what I did wrong. He said that when they get that big they’re different fish and the crushers in their teeth get real coarse.”
While the big fish may have required some adjustments, he already had the right baits in his arsenal. As noted previously in The Bass Zone, he caught the majority of his fish at Old Hickory on a 10-inch Power Worm and full-sized creature bait.
“The public mindset is that when you’re fishing under pressured conditions, you need to finesse the fish. But when there’s extremely high pressure, everyone has out those little worms, jigs and crankbaits. Guys (on the Ohio River) may look at me like I’m crazy when they see me throwing the big worms, but I have 100 percent confidence in it.”
With a second Bassmaster Classic berth just outside his grasp, he’s of two minds with respect to the decision of whether to fish conservatively or swing for the fences. Fortunately, he has two events left, so he need not necessarily choose one or the other for the entire remainder of the season.
“I’m not 100 percent sure what I’m going to do,” he said. “But I may play it conservative in Buffalo and swing for the fences at Oneida.”
It’s not clear to what extent that strategy takes into account his previous finishes on those two bodies of water. In his one Elite Series tournament on Erie (2007) he finished a more-than-respectable 27th. He also achieved the same finish in an Open on Erie (but held out of Sandusky) in 2005. But Oneida has proven to be a difficult puzzle to unlock. He finished 69th there in a 2005 Open, 56th in the 2006 Elite Series event held there, and 33rd (out of 51) in last year’s Bassmaster Memorial.
“Oneida has been rough for me. It has bitten me every time.”
He is reluctant to assume that he has a spot in the 2009 Classic wrapped up. “I want to make sure I’m locked in before I start to think about it too much,” he said. Nevertheless, assuming that he does earn a spot in the big show, he’s certain that it won’t be as overwhelming as his first shot in 2006.
“I can’t even remember anything about it, it was such a whirlwind,” he said. “It was a roller coaster. But now that I’ve been there, I kind of know how it works and I know that there’s nothing but first place there, no points, so I think I have a better idea of how to approach it.”
And despite his protests that he hasn’t thought about an all-expenses paid trip to Shreveport to fish for a half million dollars, there’s one aspect of the tournament that has him excited about the possibility – “It’s a river system. I like the sounds of it,” he said.
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