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This is the
May 2010 installment of the The Duckett Exchange, a regularly scheduled column about competitive fishing. Written by Boyd Duckett, a former Bassmaster Classic champion and the all-time B.A.S.S. single-season earnings leader, the column addresses issues and trends that affect anglers at every level of competition. In addition to competing on the ESPN Elite Series Tour, Duckett is also a popular a public speaker and successful businessman. He is the owner of Southern Tank Leasing, an Alabama-based company with terminals all over the Southeast and Midwest, and Duckett Fishing, a rod manufacturing company that produces MICROMagic rods. His pro fishing Web/Blog site can be found at
www.boydduckett.com. This is the time of year that Elite Series anglers start getting tight. We’ve got three events left, and with the exception of Skeet Reese, who just happens to be the best angler on the planet right now, most of us have a lot at stake.
During an eight-event Elite Series regular season, every tournament is big. But in the end, these events get huge because everybody’s fighting for something.
Unless something way out of the ordinary happens, it looks like Skeet’s moving fast toward another angler-of-the-year title. But behind him a group of anglers is fighting to make the top 12 cut at the end of the regular season, which lets them fish two more tournaments for a chance to take over first place if something happens to Skeet.
After that there’s an even bigger group of us fighting to make it into the top third of the class. It looks like the Bassmaster Classic cutline will be at 37, and I’m one of those anglers fighting to get under the cut.
This is not a unique position for me. Last year I was 52nd with two events to go. Fortunately, a couple of good finishes helped me make it back to the Classic for the fourth year in a row.
Right now, I’m 43rd, which is not good enough. But it’s close. The pressure’s on.
Clarks Hill is a tough place to make up ground
We’ve had some interesting venues this year. The two tournaments in California – in the Delta near Stockton and at Clear Lake - presented some challenges to a lot of us Southern and Eastern anglers, who weren’t familiar enough with the water. We also had unseasonably cool water temperature for some of our tournaments that made activity unpredictable.
Our past two events were in northern Alabama, where conditions were more predictable. The fish were there for the taking. 
But now, this week, we’re hitting another lake – Clarks Hill – where bites could be at a premium. We all figure we’ll be chasing schooling fish that are going after blueback herring. But even that can be a tough bite. As we practiced, it almost seemed like there was no pattern to go after. You couldn’t find them in stumps, on ledges, or in grass.
The first day of practice I fished for more than 12 hours and found one 13-inch keeper. Other guys had the same deal: one fish, two fish, some guys didn’t find any. There were a lot of struggling anglers the first day on a truly unforgiving lake.
So when you can’t find anything and you need to move up in the points race, you’ve got a problem. And you can only address that problem one of two two ways. You can either try to find some other pattern that might work, or you can get out there with all the other boats and fight to get what you can out of schooling fish.
Clarks Hill is a big lake, something like 71,000 acres, but I honestly believe it will fish small this week. There could be boats on top of boats, and that can be tense.
Your boat number could be especially important this week. Whoever leads will probably get early bites.
That brings me back around to how important this tournament is. When you’re close to cutline, you want to move up. The second best thing, obviously, is to hold your ground. Since I’ve never had a truly good tournament at Clarks Hill, I think I’d be satisfied to just hold my position.
I’ve said many times in this column that when you’re in a tough position on the water, when you’ve got to fight to survive, you had better keep your composure and you better focus. And I need to practice what I preach. Every move is going to have to count. Every decision is important. Every cast is important.
Great anglers keep their focus.
Speaking of great anglers
Speaking of great anglers, I can hardly believe what Skeet Reese has been doing the past five tournaments.
He’s winning tournaments in all kinds of conditions on all kinds of water. He's catching them in river water and on big lakes, shallow and deep. He’s whacking them everywhere. And like all the truly great anglers, he's intense and focused and cool under pressure.
Our sport is no different than other sports regarding the way fans see the players. Our fans are passionate. And fans like to see greatness. They like to see someone get on a roll and dominate, and that’s what Skeet Reese is doing now. I’ve told several people that there was a time when we probably never thought an angler could dominate the way Roland Martin and Rick Clunn did. Then along came Kevin VanDam.
Now, as great an angler as Kevin is, Skeet is the best we’ve got. Skeet has had five top fives in a row. Not even Kevin has done that.
I’m interested to see what’s next.
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