True to his craft
Florida’s Crafton grabs opening-day pro lead at Santee Cooper; Presnell hooks first on the co-angler side
MANNING, S.C. – Pro angler Roger Crafton knows the potential of the Santee Cooper bass fishery, the site of this week’s EverStart Series Eastern Division tourney. “These lakes are great,” he said of lakes Marion and Moultrie today. “Anytime you get a bite, it could be a dad-gum giant. It could be anything from a 5-pounder to a 12-pounder.”
In 1998 he won this tournament – his only EverStart victory – by hooking into some of those giants. So it was no surprise today when he came in with three bass weighing over 6 pounds, including one that went 7 pounds, 10 ounces, plus two more to take the lead on day one of this $210,000 event. His five-bass weight of 23-12 edged out another former EverStart Santee Cooper winner, William Smith of Moncks Corner, S.C., who claimed second place on opening day with 22-6.
“It’s great,” Crafton said. “Anytime you can go out and catch a stringer like that, it feels wonderful. But tomorrow is another day.”
Crafton, a 46-year-old charter fishing guide out of Boca Grande, Fla., capitalized on the shallow bite at Santee Cooper to get a jump on the competition today. After making a run to the upper end of Lake Moultrie – the lower of the two lakes – in the morning, he worked his way up into Lake Marion. He fished very shallow, “grassy and twiggy” areas early using a buzz bait and spinner bait, then moved into deeper water to flip a jig as the day wore on. He caught his five-fish limit by 10 a.m. and nabbed 10 keepers on the day.
“It was a perfect morning to fish,” he said. “Even with the rain (that fell this morning), it was mild with low pressure.”
The weather, the water and the time of year played right into Crafton’s hands Wednesday. The bass are spawning at Santee Cooper, which put countless bass over 5 pounds up into shallow water this week. Consequently, a number of them ended up EverStart anglers’ livewells. The pros caught a total of 47 five-bass limits today, and many of the individual fish were big by any standards. The biggest bass on the pro side was George Alexander’s 8-pound, 14-ounce largemouth, and a number of other competitors weighed in whales over 7 pounds.
Crafton seems to thrive in these big, shallow-bass tourneys. In addition to his win here in 1998, Crafton has a pair of top-10 finishes at Lake Eufaula, Ala., (in 2001 and 2002) where the bass historically tend to be in the spawn at tournament time. And of course he practically owns his home freshwater fishery, Lake Okeechobee, Fla., where the bass are always big and shallow. There, he has six top-10s and one BFL win under his belt at the EverStart and BFL levels.
“I’m from Florida,” he explained. “I’m a shallow-water fishing guy.”
His shallow-water success has him sitting in second place in the Eastern Division standings after the first two events this season. With 388 points, he’s just nine behind fellow Floridian Billy Bowen Jr.
The question remains, however, whether Crafton can keep up the pace for four days here. While his top-10-finishes record is impressive, he does only have the one EverStart victory four years ago, and he’d love to grab that first-place trophy again – soon.
“Oh yeah, it’s killing me,” he said about the length of time since his last win. “Nobody remembers who comes in second.”
He’ll have his work cut out for him. The 20th-place pro (the cut line after tomorrow) weighed in 15 pounds, 14 ounces. The prolific fishing could push the two-day cut weight up into the 25- to 30-pound range, which is heavier than many pros expected to see here this week.
“I thought that 13 pounds a day would be all that it would take,” Crafton said. “But after what I brought in today, I wouldn’t feel very good about bringing in just 6 pounds or so tomorrow. If I catch 12 pounds, I’ll be happy. … Every one of these guys is capable of bringing in 20 to 30 pounds.”
Luck Smith
One of those very capable of catching over 20 pounds consistently at Santee Cooper is second-place pro Smith. Two years ago Smith, who lives on the lower end of Lake Moultrie, borrowed a boat from Marshall’s Marine in nearby Lake City to enter the tournament at Santee Cooper, his first EverStart competition. He won that event. Last year he placed a respectable 26th here on his home waters.
This week he finds himself in good shape once again, but it didn’t happen without some luck. On Monday night his trolling motor broke down and Marshall’s Marine again came to the rescue, giving him a new one. By Tuesday afternoon, he didn’t even know if he was going to compete because he was on the waiting list. Tuesday night, his name was called and he set out this morning for the waters he knows so well – the lower end of Moultrie.
“I’m either going to go down there and be a hero or I’m going to zero,” Smith said. “I’ve just got to fish what I know. I didn’t do much practicing before the tournament.”
Smith said he caught his five bass using “a lot of lizards, baby brush hogs and floating worms,” adding that he “did some Texas-rigging and some Carolina-rigging.” His fish were caught at a depth of one to six feet and that “one or two” were caught by sight-fishing.
The rest of the top five
Following Crafton and Smith was Cecil Wolfe (3rd place) of Goose Creek, S.C., who caught five bass weighing 22 pounds. Wolfe, incidentally, was hauled in by Smith when he encountered boat troubles. Fourth place went to Robert Haldeman of Acworth, Ga., for five bass weighing 21-11 and fifth place went to Todd Tucker of Moultrie, Ga., for five bass weighing 20-10.
Other notable pros
Jim Nolan of Bull Shoals, Ark., took sixth place with five bass weighing 20 pounds, 9 ounces on opening day. Nolan has had success at Santee Cooper before. He holds the Wal-Mart FLW Tour record for biggest bass ever caught in competition, an 11-pound, 14-ounce behemoth largemouth he caught here in 1996.
Pat Fisher of Stone Mountain, Ga., the winner of the last Eastern Division tourney (Lake Eufaula), is in 11th place after day one with a five-bass weight of 17 pounds, 13 ounces. Fisher, a standout co-angler on the FLW Tour who has moved up to the pro side in recent years, has not missed an EverStart cut this year and sits in third place in the Eastern Division standings.
The 2001 winner of EverStart Santee Cooper, Ricky Shumpert of Lexington S.C., is still in the hunt in 26th place with five bass weighing 15 pounds, 4 ounces today.
Presnell tops co-anglers
Smith wasn’t the only competitor to go from the wait list to the top of the list today. John Presnell, 38, of Shelby, N.C., took top honors in the Co-angler Division with four big bass weighing a collective 20 pounds, 9 ounces. He beat Kindle Nelms of Lake City, Fla., who had four bass weighing 18-0.
Presnell, like Smith, wasn’t on the original tournament roster, but his number was called shortly before the tourney and he made the most of it Wednesday. Among his four-fish stringer was one bass that weighed 8 pounds and another that weighed 7 pounds.
“I was just going to come down here Friday and pre-fish for the BFL (to be held at Santee Cooper April 16),” he said. “But this feels great. It’s the ultimate to know you’re leading the first round. It takes a lot of pressure off.”
Presnell is also no stranger to success at Santee Cooper. He finished in sixth place here in 2001, his only other EverStart top-10.
“None of the lakes at home are like this,” he said. “If I had to choose any lake in the world, I’d live here.”
Biggest bass of the year
Co-angler Pat Cox of Rochester, Ind., placed third after weighing in just two bass Wednesday. The reason? The two massive fish weighed a combined 16 pounds, 13 ounces. One weighed 6-15 and the other, a monster largemouth that tipped the scale at 9-14, set the mark as the biggest bass caught by anyone – pro or co-angler – in the Eastern Division this year.
“They’re both the biggest bass I’ve ever caught in my life,” he said.
While he wouldn’t divulge what bait he used to catch the monster bass, he said that he hooked it at a depth of 1 1/2 feet.
The rest of the co-angler top five
Rounding out the top five co-anglers were Ed Dixon (4th place) of Cookeville, Tenn., with three bass weighing 12 pounds, 9 ounces and Ron Figueroa (5th) of Appling, Ga., with three bass weighing 12-8.
Day-two action begins Thursday as anglers take off from John C. Land boat ramp south of Manning at 7 a.m. The top 20 anglers in both divisions following tomorrow’s competition will advance to Friday’s semifinal round.
Day-one links: