Both Canadian get rough start to season
by Sean Ostruszka
FLW PRESS RELEASE
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| John Cox starts of his 2 Tour season with a bang! (Photo: FLW) |
John Cox was already one of the top anglers on the Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit and arguably the best shallow-water angler in the sport before day one at Sam Rayburn. Still, he’s always had a hole in his game in the form of fishing crankbaits. That is until today, anyway.
In what had to be an ironic sight, while Cox watched others around him beat Sam Rayburn’s shallow brush, the DeBary, Fla., pro sacked up 21 pounds, 7 ounces and take the day one lead by focusing out deeper with a crankbait to kick off the new Pro Circuit season.
“I was really struggling today fishing brush to start and didn’t know what to do around noon,” says Cox. “I only had 10 to 11 pounds and was really getting down. I was thinking the fish had to be out or something. So, I just started chunking that [crankbait] out in open water; out from where I had some bites in the bushes, and they were just smoking it.”
Now, before we anoint Cox a crankbait master, it’s worth noting that he’s executing his new crankbait prowess in classic John Cox fashion. That is, in total disarray.
Cox has only one crankbait rod – a 7-foot, 6-inch Abu Garcia Veritas Winch – which happens to be the first true crankbait rod he’s owned. He only has two crankbaits in his boat – a pair of No. 5 Berkley Frittsides – as he has lost five others this week and doesn’t have a lure retriever. And he has no pliers.
“I’m just so used to only having that one big hook to pop out,” he quips.
Yet, to say he’s managing to get dialed in on a true crankbait bite a la David Fritts is quite accurate.
“You can feel [the crankbait] come over the fish,” says Cox. “You’d reel it and it felt like a log was out there. Then one would get it.
“I think there’s some grass and maybe rock mixed in, but you know when you’re going to get bit. You feel it. You’ll make a lot of casts and feel nothing. Then you’d make a cast and feel the fish and you’d have one.”
