Don’t look now, fantasy folks, but a funny thing happened on the West Coast over the weekend. On Saturday, Brett Hite – yes, that Brett Hite, the winner of the FLW Tour season opener at Lake Toho – won the FLW Series Western Division season opener at the California Delta, clearing his second $125,000 victory check in less than two weeks.
In just 14 days time, Hite has won $250,000 in bass fishing. What was all that about a recession again?
Folks, you may not know it, but this is unprecedented territory. So rare is it for an angler to win back-to-back tournaments that many fishing fans can rattle off the few cases where it has happened: Craig Powers did it when he won back-to-back Stren Series events at West Point Lake and Kerr Lake in 2005, and on the walleye side Nick Johnson did it when he closed the 2004 season by winning the championship on the Mississippi River and then opening the 2005 season with a victory at Bull Shoals. David Fritts won three FLW Tour events in 1997, but strangely none of those victories occurred consecutively. Rick Clunn finished first-second-first in consecutive FLW tournaments in 2000, but again not consecutive wins.
But Hite’s accomplishments over the last several weeks are really remarkable by virtue of the simple geography involved. Past repeat successes have come on lakes in relatively close proximity to each other and seem to result from a kind of similarity among fishing techniques at different venues. Hite, however, has won two tournaments in succession on opposite sides of the country – and in a very short period of time. I mean, they don’t even speak the same bass language in Florida and California. “Pencil reeds” in Florida are “tules” in California. While Hite has admitted working on his versatility as an angler over the last few years, winning a big one in Florida one week and going out to California and winning another big one the next week really is amazing stuff.
In short, to put it into a fantasy perspective, Brett Hite could be the hottest angler on tour right now. He certainly has been over the last three weeks. And momentum often plays a huge factor in the outcome of tournaments. Pro anglers get “in the zone” just like other athletes do. So picking Brett Hite for the next FLW tournament seems like a no-brainer, right?
Wrong.
By no means is this a slight on Hite’s abilities – he’s certainly proved himself on that front recently – but at first glance I would advise against a Hite pick at Smith Lake. The biggest reason is the difference between the fisheries where he’s won and the upcoming FLW tournament. While they’re separated by some 2,800 miles, Lake Toho and the California Delta aren’t all that different fisheries in many respects. Both are shallow, swampy, grassy, monster-bass factories. That’s not the case with Alabama’s Lewis Smith Lake, which is deep, clear and has a rocky bottom and submerged timber as its primary bass habitat. Plus, very few 20-pound limits will be caught at Smith. The bass are comparatively smaller there, and a 10-pound bag will be considered a good day at that event. Alabama’s the type of place where it takes some serious local knowledge or years of tournament experience on the lakes to ferret out the wily and sometimes tough-to-catch bass. Thus, the locals and veterans tend to do well in Alabama tournaments.
And Hite is neither an Alabama local nor a grizzled FLW Tour veteran yet. Add that to the extreme unlikelihood of a pro winning three major tournaments in a row – especially, in Hite’s case, a pro who must criss-cross the country for about 10,000 miles in the span of a month – and it doesn’t look good for a Hite pick at Smith. Truth be told, if you asked him, I’d bet even he might exclude himself from his picks at the next one.
On the other hand, for everyone still believing the Hite – an honor he rightly deserves, to be sure – there are three reasons why you can keep him in there and still sleep soundly. 1) Hite has proven he can surprise you. Nobody picked him at Toho, and rightly so. He’s a proven heavyweight out West, but in Florida? C’mon. Same theory applies in Alabama. 2) Smith Lake looks like it will fish in an eerily similar fashion as Lake Pleasant, a deep, clear, desert impoundment in Arizona that is equally stingy with its bass. Located right near Phoenix, Pleasant is also one of Hite’s home lakes and the site of one of his earlier career victories, a 2003 Stren event. 3) Maybe most importantly, Hite appears to have discovered this year’s version of the secret-weapon bait: the Phenix Vibrator jig. Every year, some new bait or technique takes the tour by storm – in years past it’s been the drop-shot, the Chatterbait, etc. – and 2008 appears to be the year of the Phenix jig. The last three major tournaments – the East-West Fish-off at Lake Amistad, the FLW Tour event at Toho and the FLW Series event at the Delta – have all been won on Phenix jigs, two by Hite and the fish-off by Clayton Meyer. The bait is a wobbling, Chatterbait-type jig made by a little-known company out of Arizona. Apparently, some of the Western guys have unlocked its magic, and Hite seems to have mastered it. If it works as well in April as it did in February and March, Hite might just be an unstoppable force.
Either way, it’ll be fun to watch. Whether or not he makes a good pick, I’ll be right there rooting for him to make it three in a row.
Get some sleep this week, Brett. You’ve got another long drive ahead of you next week.