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“It’s not so much to keep the streak alive,” he said. “You always want to make it but the economy is tough right now. You don’t want to miss out on anything. That’s what your sponsors are paying you to do.”
Fortunately for Scroggins, Virginia’s Smith Mountain Lake was next up on the schedule. It’s a body of water that has been kind to him in the past, producing a runner-up finish to Casey Ashley and a 38th place check last year. This year he continued that successful track record by finishing 4th overall, provided a needed shot in the arm and drawing him up 28 places in the AOY race, only a few spots outside the Classic cut.
Sweet Times at SML
With its deep, clear water, mountainous backdrop and paucity of vegetation, Scroggins wouldn’t seem to be in his element at Smith Mountain Lake, but he’s found a comfort zone there, and said that he “should’ve won” the 2007 Elite Series tournament there. Last year he had two good days, but “just didn’t catch them the last day.”
As for the fact that it’s far removed from a typical Florida salad bowl lake, he explained that he’s been fishing on a national level for almost a decade, so nothing really fazes him, and also that he currently fishes less in Florida less than ever before. Additionally, the idea that all Florida waters are shallow grassy fisheries is somewhat overplayed – on his home water of the St. Johns, for example, he frequently fishes offshore structure like channel markers, much as he did at Smith Mountain in 2007.
“Something just clicked there for me,” he said.
Like most of the competitors in the field, he devoted himself to sight fishing in last week’s tournament, although he initially tried to buck that trend: “For the first hour, I just went fishing,” he recalled. “I only had two bites. Then I got up shallow and saw them. I knew if I was going to be competitive I’d have to fish for them.”
“The rest of practice I didn’t even fish,” he continued. “I just looked. I marked over a hundred beds.”
Not all beds are created equally, however. He knew that the ones that were easy to find, particularly in the protected pockets, would be picked off quickly, so he tried to focus on out of the way spawners or those on main lake banks.
“You’d have those more to yourself,” he said, then noted that there was no rhyme or reason to where the concentrations or the larger fish were located. “You’d go into one pocket and there’d be three or four then in the next pocket there’d be none.”
Waters Past and Future
Given his well-known proficiency with a flipping stick, it would seem the California Delta would be a natural stomping ground for Scroggins, but it has proven to be a stumbling block three times over – he finished 88th there in 2003, 77th in 2007 and 72nd this year.
“It all looks the same to me,” he said. “It’s just chopped up into different squares. I live on a tidal river, the St. Johns, and I love to flip, but for some reason it’s got my number.” He knows that the abbreviated schedule makes it harder to come back from two bad tournaments.
“When we had 11 tournaments, when you had a bad one it was easier to overcome,” he said.
With that said, he’s excited about the remainder of the schedule, which features multiple stops on the TVA’s structure lakes mixed in with a couple of shallow water adventures.
“I’m looking forward to all of the remaining tournaments we have left,” he said. “Pickwick has a lot of fish in it. Guntersville, everybody loves Guntersville. Last year I think I had over 70 pounds and still finished in the twenties. Clarks Hill is going to be a blueback deal and then we head to Kentucky Lake.”
The wild card for the Elite Series veterans is the Arkansas River out of Muskogee, Okla., which will conclude the regular season, making some seasons and breaking some hearts. Scroggins plans to be in the former category.
“I did my homework there,” he said. “I rode around quite a bit. It’s kind of dangerous so it’s important to know how to run it or you can get in trouble real quick.”
In it to Win it
Scroggins may have five BASS wins, but none of those have come at the tour level. The best he’s done at the highest echelon of competition has been two runner-up finishes, at Smith Mountain in 2007 and Falcon in 2008.
While he certainly covets an Elite Series victory, he said his “main goal every year is to make the Classic. You have to be in it to win it.”
The season may seem like it just started, but at the same time after the next event it’ll be half over. The time to make a move toward the Classic is now. Scroggins, now a veteran, says that his desire is every bit as strong as it was a decade ago, but the critical difference is that he doesn’t get nervous any more. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t let his emotions motivate them, however. He credits the long drive home from the left coast with helping him to do well in Virginia. |
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“I wasn’t stressed,” he said. “Just kind of ticked off.”
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