Gross Slams the Door on Seminole
Georgia pro locks up first Costa FLW Series title with another 20-pound-plus bag
Buddy Gross of Chickamauga, Ga., knows a lot about fishing deep vegetation. Buddy Gross also knows a lot about swimbaits. And when Gross gets an opportunity to mix the two, he is right in his wheelhouse.
For the second time in his career, Gross made magic with the combination of deep grass and swimbaits by winning the Costa FLW Series event presented by Mud Hole Custom Tackle on Lake Seminole. A similar combination produced his first FLW Tour win at Lake Pickwick last year.
This week at Seminole, Gross checked in weights of 24-3, 17-1 and 23-7 to win the Southeastern Division event with a three-day total of 64-11.
“I love fishing grass and I love swimbaits,” Gross says. “When I can put the two together, I just have a lot of confidence and that’s what happened this week. I had an opportunity to reel a swimbait over deep grass here at Seminole and I felt right at home.”
Gross discovered the deadly combination during practice while flipping deep grass along the Spring Creek channel.
“I initially thought I was going to flip deep grass here,” he details. “One day of practice I was pitching along a deep wall of hydrilla on the main creek channel and I kept noticing these little cuts, drains and ditches along that deep wall. And each time I got over one of those little drains, I’d mark shad suspended out over where the little drain met the main creek channel. So I started marking those little features in the grass with waypoints.”
After several hours of fruitless flipping, Gross decided to circle back around, position his boat out in the creek channel and cast a swimbait up to his marks where the little cuts and drains were located. And as the old saying goes, boom goes the dynamite.
Gross’ deadly combination came together with a couple of big bites in practice and from there, the rest is history, as he put the pattern to use all three days for the win.
Gross’ swimbait selection included a couple of combinations including a Zoom 5-inch Swimmer swimbait rigged on a 3/4-ounce Owner Beast Flashy Swimmer swimbait hook, featuring a small willowleaf blade off the belly of the hook. He also scored big with a Zoom Magnum Fluke rigged on a 3/4-ounce Tennessee River Tremor Head, a scrounger-style head which gave the Fluke a swimbait-like shimmy. Both baits were a shad color and fished on 17-pound Seaguar Fluorocarbon.
“Most of the best grass was in that 14- to 16-foot range and it was real hard and green – what I call crispy green – which helps the bait snap out of it nice and clean,” Gross explains. “The bigger bass were suspended out over the deeper clumps, feeding on those balls of shad in those little cuts and drains.”
For each cast, Gross would cast the bait out, count it down to 7 or 8 feet and start slow rolling it. If he didn’t feel grass, he would count it down a little bit more. His goal was to roll it just over the tops of the deepest grass closest to the main channel.
“When the bait cleared the last deep clump out into open water, they mashed it,” Gross says. “It was a fun bite.”
Gross notes that the bite was best early in the mornings. He could catch four or five big ones quick and then it was over. On each of the last two days, he got stuck on four fish for a long time before closing out a limit later in the day.
The Georgia pro figures the fish were feeding up before moving up onto a vast nearby sandbar to spawn. The cuts and drains not only provided a feeding an opportunity but were direct routes to the spawning grounds.
“Those small features in the grass just had all the right ingredients,” Gross adds. “Fast deep water access, shallow spawning grounds nearby, food and mostly that good healthy deeper grass that holds big ones.”
Top 10 pros:
1. Buddy Gross – Chickamauga, Ga. – 64-11 (15) – $52,400
2. Bryan Thrift – Shelby, N.C. – 58-9 (15) – $21,600
3. Clint Brown – Bainbridge, Ga. – 56-5 (15) – $15,000
4. Rodger Beaver – Dawson, Ga. – 48-13 (15) – $13,000
5. Matt Baty – Bainbridge, Ga. – 47-1 (14) – $12,000
6. Chad Prough – Chipley, Fla. – 43-11 (14) – $9,500
7. Bradford Beavers – Ridgeville, S.C. – 42-14 (15) – $8,200
8. Barry Wilson – Birmingham, Ala. – 39-13 (13) – $7,200
9. Randy Haynes – Counce, Tenn. – 39-5 (11) – $6,200
10. Nic Jeter – Bainbridge, Ga. – 37-12 (12) $4,600