Hack Attack goes Wire to Wire!
By Bryan Brasher
BASS PRESS RELEASE |
| Managing bass key to Greg's wire to wire win. (Photo: BASS) |
But it was only four days — and Greg Hackney owned it from start to finish.
Despite exhausting his best fishing areas the first three days and bringing in only 7 pounds, 5 ounces to the weigh-in stage on Championship Sunday, Hackney claimed his sixth career B.A.S.S. victory in wire-to-wire fashion with a four-day total of 48-5.
Hackney’s first win since 2016 earned him $100,000 and pushed his career winnings with B.A.S.S. to $2,415,784.
“If we’d had to fish another day, I probably would have hunted and gone to some new water,” Hackney said. “I really don’t think all of the fish were gone. But we had all of that rain Saturday, and my best place had a couple of drains running into it.
“The water wasn’t dirty, but the water temperature dropped to 80 degrees after being in the 90s the first three days.”
Hackney fished secluded canals and backwaters all week and relied heavily on two topwater presentations around shallow cover — a 1/4-ounce black Hack Attack Select ToadBuzz rigged with a black plastic toad (no skirt) and a KVD Sexy Frog Stump Jumper.
That drastic drop in the water temperature brought those tactics nearly to a halt today, and he had to switch to the technique he is most known for — flipping. When he flipped heavy cover, he used a Strike King Rage Bug in the Bama Craw color.
BASSTrakk, the unofficial leaderboard that fans can check on Bassmaster.com throughout the day, showed Hackney with only two fish several hours into the final round. But he said he always knew he could fill out his limit flipping — even if the fish he was catching with that technique were running much smaller than his topwater fish.
“I really was amped up a little bit today, and that’s why I got a lot quieter, said Hackney, laughing. “I always have a lot more to say when things are going right.
“But in the back of my mind, I knew I could pick up a flipping stick and catch a keeper anytime.”
His two best fish still came on the frog. But when he switched to flipping, he caught 10 keepers in 45 minutes.
“I probably should have done that sooner, but I just felt like I would have been punting,” he said. “Out of those 10 keepers I caught in the last 45 minutes flipping, they were all about 12 to 12 1/2 inches long.
