We looked away for a minute, and we looked back to find Stetson Blaylock of Benton mounting a championship run on the Bassmaster Elite Series Tour.
On Sunday, Blaylock won the Elite Series event and $100,000 on Winyah Bay, near Charleston, S.C.
Blaylock also finished second the previous week at the Elite Series event at Lake Hartwell, S.C., to win $25,000. Blaylock said that is the first time in Elite Series history that an angler has posted consecutive second- and first-place finishes.
Blaylock also finished eighth to win $15,000 at Lake Lanier, near Atlanta. The only smudge on Blaylock's 2019 resume was finishing 52nd at the Elite Series opener on the St. Johns River in Florida in February.
Winyah Bay was Blaylock's first Bassmaster Elite Series victory, and also his first victory since winning an FLW Tour event on Lake Norman at Charlotte, N.C., in 2009 during his rookie season as an FLW pro.
"My only other win was 10 years ago to the exact week," Blaylock said. "I didn't think it would take 10 years to win again, but it did."
It's like the old adage about working 15 years to become an overnight success. Before becoming an FLW pro in 2009, Blaylock dominated the co-angler division on the FLW Tour. He started his rookie season hot with that initial victory, but the winner's circle was elusive thereafter. It didn't get easier in his first two years on the Elite Series Tour.
"I've had a lot of second places between then and now," Blaylock said. "I've had two pretty tough years on Elite Series, and I hadn't made a cut. To start this year with a 52, that didn't sit well with me. It makes me appreciate it that much more. I want to win at every level I compete in. To do it in the FLW Tour and now in the Bassmaster Elites is a feather in my cap."
Blaylock's victory is reminiscent of Steve Kennedy's Bassmaster Elite Series victory at Lake Dardanelle in June 2017, and also reminiscent of George Cochran's 1987 Bassmaster Classic victory on the Ohio River at Cincinnati.
In the Dardanelle tournament, Kennedy found an obscure gravel pit that was accessible only in high water from the main river near Ozark Lock and Dam. He mined it for all it was worth in a grueling tournament.
In the 1987 Bassmaster Classic, Cochran maximized his fishing time by staying near the takeoff point while the rest of the field wasted precious time in transit.
Blaylock found a big sand pit in a tidal backwater near the mouth of the Waccamaw River near the launch point at Georgetown, S.C. Staying close enabled Blaylock to fish longer than his rivals.
"I didn't realize how special the place I found was," Blaylock said. "I got 10 bites in practice, and I shook all of those off without setting a hook. That told me there were a lot of fish in that area, but I didn't think I found anything that was top 10 quality. I didn't understand the quality of fish in there until the tournament got going."
The 25-acre sand pit was near a convergence of canals. It's about 20 feet deep, so bass move up and down with the tide instead of moving in and out, Blaylock said. Also, new bass continually entered the area to spawn during the tournament, so they replenished their numbers daily.
Other anglers fished that area intermittently, but Blaylock said he figured out how to catch big fish consistently early in the tournament.
"It was finesse fishing," Blaylock said. "I threw a 5-inch Yum Dinger on a 1/0 Gamakatsu finesse drop shot hook. I threw 10-pound test Seaguar VisX flourocarbon line that was tied to 20-pound Seaugar flash green braided line. Even in low light conditions, I can see what the line is doing. I throw that 90 percent of the time."
In low water, when Blaylock could see bass on their spawning beds, he threw a white Yum Christie Craw with red highlights on 10-pound Seaguar flourocarbon.
"With that white bait, I could see how how they were reacting," Blaylock said.
Presently, Blaylock is in third place in Bassmaster Angler of the Year points. Scott Canterbury, another former FLW mainstay, is tied with Patrick Walters for first place with 360 points. Blaylock has 341 points.
Sports on 04/18/2019