Cresson, Tex. – Chad Griffin certainly would have welcomed a gangbusters-type breakout at the beginning of his rookie season on the Bassmaster Elite Series. He didn’t get it, cashing only one check in the first five events, but despite his slow start, his season built gradually and came to a satisfying conclusion.
He earned checks in each of the final three regular season tournaments, culminating with a win on Oneida, and while the Bassmaster Classic seemed like a pipe dream halfway through the season, when the counting was over he only missed a berth by 17 points.
Photos
by Mark Jeffreys and Matt Pangrac
Had he caught a few more fish in any of his trifecta of early season 59th place finishes – at Amistad, Wheeler and Guntersville – right now he’d likely be getting ready to join classmates Billy McCaghren and Matt Herren at Lay Lake in February.
The two tournaments that exemplify Griffin’s climb are the first one, at Amistad, where he fully expected to get a check but did not, and the last one, at Oneida, where he had no inkling he’d do well, but managed to beat the entire field.
“In the first two or three tournaments I hadn’t figured out how to fish against these guys,” he said. “They can all find fish in a mud puddle. The biggest difference from first to last is that I realized I do belong here.”
Amistad Angst
Of the four tournaments in which he didn’t progress to the Saturday cut, three of them by less than ten places (Smith Mountain Lake, where he finished 90th, was Griffin’s only true bomb), “the one that hurt the most was Lake Amistad,” Griffin said.
“If it started anywhere else, I wouldn’t have expected so much, but I thought I’d have a top twelve down there,” he recalled. “I was expecting way too much.”
He’s fished the lake for the better part of a decade and feels comfortable with her seasonal patterns. The element that threw him for a loop, however, was the level of the competition. “The first day I pulled up on a bank and Hackney, Iaconelli and VanDam were on one side of me. I looked the other way and there were Shaw Grigsby and Gary Klein. It takes a while to realize that you belong there.”
He said that heading into the season one of his primary goals was to avoid burning any bridges, so he practiced cautiously. For example, he headed into an area that he’d fished many times before, but as soon as he saw Alton Jones set the hook on a fish there, he left without making a cast. As a result, he quickly eliminated many of the lake’s most productive sectors from his game plan. With so much of the water eliminated “on the first day of the Elites, I went practicing,” he recalled.
Oneida Kept Him in the Game
Headed into the season’s final event, Griffin’s three checks didn’t amount to much. A 32nd at Dardanelle, a 43rd at Kentucky Lake and a 46th on the Mississippi River in Iowa didn’t even combine to pay for the season’s tournament entry fees. On top of that, looking at the schedule at the beginning of the season, he said “Oneida would have been last on the list” when enumerating the candidates for his first tour-level win.
“God has funny ways of working things out,” he said, noting that had he not cashed a substantial check at Oneida he likely would not have returned to the Elite Series in 2010. “I’m not a smallmouth guy. I enjoy fishing for them but I don’t know anything about them. I went up there with an ‘I don’t care’ attitude. When I saw the grassbeds, I called my dad and told him ‘I will win this tournament.’”
That statement proved to be prophetic, as he beat out smallmouth and Oneida stalwarts alike to claim the trophy. Not only did the victory reflect his maturation as an angler, but it demonstrated several changes in attitude from the beginning of the year.
“Guys like Billy (McCaghren) and me, we’re footing 80% of the bill on our own,” he explained. “Other guys can go for the win. Over the last four tournaments I strictly went out looking to win.”
Additionally, while he said that he never encroached on another angler’s water, he refused to cede areas to more seasoned anglers, as he had at the beginning of the season. “I had a couple of run-ins,” he reported. “I did not back down. I told them ‘You don’t pay my bills and until you do, you can’t tell me where to fish.’ I finally learned that’s how you had to do it. I do belong here.”
He said that the hundred thousand dollar Oneida payday didn’t make him rich -- “I paid off a lot of bills from the last three years. It put me at ground zero.” -- but it enabled him to continue forward with his dream.
The Upcoming Year
More than anything, Griffin wants to avoid another slow start like the one that left him in 70th place overall after the fifth tournament (Guntersville) last year. Given the fact that many of his peers have already made a west coast swing at some point in their careers, he’s taken steps this offseason to prevent them from having too much of a head start.
“I spent three weeks in California,” he said. “Two weeks on the Delta and one week on Clear Lake. I learned how to get around and became comfortable with swimbaits. I honestly think I can win the Delta tournament.”
He’s set high goals for this year, marks that don’t stop merely at a first Classic berth. “My goal is to be in the top twelve in the points,” he said. “Actually, let me rephrase that. I want to be in the top ten in points. With the PAA Series, there are lots of rumors going around about the top ten from each tour getting their entry fees free. I want to have those sorts of opportunities like KVD, Hackney and Iaconelli have.” Additionally, after a season in which he had a meaningful opportunity to finish in the top half in seven of eight tournaments, but only made it to Saturday four times, he aims to stay through Saturday at every event. “I would be disappointed if I have a below-50th place finish,” he stated.
Griffin is disappointed that the Elite Series will not return to Oneida in 2010, but if there was ever a chance he’d forget about his late season heroics, the fishing fans of New York won’t let that happen. “The people up there call me and send me emails all the time,” he said. “It’s a great lake, and there are lots of great people up there.” Lots of great memories, too.
