Jack Story got it done despite a high-stress final day. Photo by Rob Matsuura.
By Jody White
Phoenix Bass Fishing League Press Release
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Jack Story was supposed to walk across the graduation stage with his high school classmates this weekend. Instead, he left the weigh-in stage at the Phoenix Bass Fishing League All-American on Lake Murray atop the leaderboard all three days.
After taking the lead with 22 pounds, 11 ounces on Day 1, Story made all the right adjustments to wrap up a wire-to-wire victory. The youngest-ever winner of the annual grassroots championship, surpassing a mark set by Jacob Wheeler 15 years ago on Cross Lake, the 18-year-old earned $100,000 and qualified for REDCREST 2027.
Weighing 17-7 on Day 3 brought Story’s total to 61-8, which proved just enough to hold off Brooks Anderson, who charged up the leaderboard with 22-11 on Day 3 and finished with a 60-14 total. In third, Caz Anderson weighed 59-13, and Tom Frink finished fourth with 59-8 to round out a very compelling race through much of the day on MLFNOW!.
Story raises the bar
Young anglers have been winning the All-American since the beginning. Back in 1984, Shaw Grigsby took the trophy at just 28, and Emil Wagner was 25 when he won a few years ago at Lake Hartwell. But this is the first time the winner skipped high school graduation for Day 1. In doing so, Story set a high-water mark that is going to be very hard to top.
TOP 10 BELOW
Mostly cool and collected throughout the event, Story erupted on stage when his final weight was called, and you could see how much the win meant to him.
“This morning, I had to tie my leader knot four or five times, because my hands were shaking so bad,” he said. “In hindsight, it’s awesome – but not when you can’t tie your leader knot and there are fish schooling around the boat.”
Even though he spent all week fishing in his element, triggering herring-eaters to bite, Story had a trying final day.
“I don’t know what to even say,” he added. “Everybody who has supported me, they’ve made all of this possible. It’s the only reason it can happen. When it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be, and today it was just meant to be.”
Herring skills give Story the win
Raised on Lake Lanier and schooled on LiveScope by Wagner, Story is preternaturally good with a Zoom Fluke and highly in tune with bass that chase blueback herring. So, he wasn’t at all mad about the chance to fish his first All-American on Murray.
“I was confident,” he said. “I’d say I’m pretty good at herring fishing – I don’t want to be overconfident, but when I saw it was here, I was way happier than other places it could have been. I was excited for it to be somewhere relatively close to home, doing what I like doing.”
On Day 1, everything went extremely to plan. Story ran down the lake to his best point, waited until the conditions seemed right, turned on his LiveScope and waylaid 22-11.
It wasn’t that easy the rest of the way.
“Day 2, I went back to the same place, and I started my ‘Scope period,” he said. “They wouldn’t really eat the Fluke that well, so I started throwing a minnow, and I caught some of my weight on a minnow. Day 2, I didn’t have much. I needed something to happen. I ran up the lake to get to a bed fish, because I thought it was sunny. It was sunny when I started running. When I got to the bed fish, I couldn’t see her because it was cloudy. So, I ran out to fish more Fluke stuff. I don’t know what did it, but I looked down the lake and saw clouds and wind. I was like ‘Those fish are gonna bite.’ I did a U-turn, got down, threw over them, caught a 3 1/2, threw again, caught a 5.70, and left them again.”
It was the kind of gut call that wins tournaments if it works, yet could just as easily leave an angler looking frazzled if it doesn’t.
“I ran straight up the lake and straight back. My co-angler was probably confused; I would be too,” he said. “But the conditions are what make smart fish bite – bottom line.”
On Day 3, things went even less smoothly – Story only had 14 or 15 pounds for a long time, and his offshore, herring-oriented fish were not playing nice. So, he burned some of his three hours with LiveScope looking for fry guarders he’d marked during practice.
“I had four of them, and I was saving them,” Story said. “I ran to the first one – gone. The second one – gone. Third one – gone. The fourth one, by luck, was still there. I threw to her with four or five different minnows, and the fifth minnow got her. I knew if I could get one good fish during my ‘Scope period, I felt confident I could do one more after.”
A Zoom Fluke in chartreuse or chartreuse herring did most of the damage for Story, and he mostly threw them weightless. However, for his last cull, Story pulled out a D-Style Geelacanth to pluck a bed fish.
“I thought the pocket looked good – I don’t really know what else to say,” Story said. “It just looked perfect. I pulled up, it looked how I liked it, and I was weaving in and out between the docks, and I looked down, and I saw one of the bigger fish I’ve seen on this lake over a light spot. I put a dot down, fished through the entire cove and went straight to that bed. I caught the male – it was 3-14 – and the female had to have been two times the size. It looked like a grass carp.”
That one didn’t make it in the boat, but Story’s final cull was enough to keep him ahead of Anderson and cement his name in the history books of bass fishing.
“I caught four of my fish without ‘Scope today, and I wouldn’t have believed that (beforehand),” he said. “I found some in practice, but I really wouldn’t have believed I’d have weighed the fish that won the All-American off a bed. When it’s your time, it’s your time.”
Top 10 boaters
1. Jack Story – 61 – 8 (15) – $100,000
2. Brooks Anderson – 60 – 14 (15) – $35,000 (includes $15,000 Phoenix Bonus)
3. Caz Anderson – 59 – 13 (15) – $15,000
4. Tom Frink – 59 – 8 (15) – $21,000 (includes $7,000 Phoenix Bonus)
5. Lucas Murphy – 57 – 6 (15) – $18,500 (includes $5,000 Phoenix Bonus)
6. Matt McCluskey – 57 – 1 (15) – $12,000
7. Landon Lawson – 54 – 3 (14) – $12,000 (includes $1,000 Phoenix Bonus)
8. Cody Mackie – 50 – 12 (15) – $10,000
9. William Bates – 49 – 12 (13) – $9,100
10. Zeke Gossett – 49 – 7 (14) – $8,000
No comments:
Post a Comment