Honeycutt adds eighth MLF win, Co-Angler of the Year title with victory at Santee Cooper
CLARENDON COUNTY, S.C. — There’s no substitute for experience, and Temple, Texas, Strike King co-angler Keith Honeycutt certainly has a lot of it. Having fished FLW/MLF tournaments since 1999, the veteran co-angler wasn’t fazed by the challenging conditions at Santee Cooper in the Toyota Series Presented by Phoenix Boats Southern Division finale – nor was he shaken by weighing in just one fish on Day 1 of the event.
After that less-than-stellar start, Honeycutt went on to bring 10-6 to the scales on Day 2 to enter Championship Saturday in 10th place. From there, it was just another day of bobbing and weaving, adapting and adjusting to catch the right five for a 13-pound, 15-ounce limit on the final day to take home the trophy by 3 pounds over Dan Basham and secure the Strike King Co-Angler of the Year award in the Southern Division.
“It never gets old,” Honeycutt said of adding another win to his MLF résumé. “You just never know when you’re going to win again. I’ve been on a dry spell for a while. I’ve gotten several checks, but I just hadn’t won, and you start to think that it may be time to switch and do something different, but I just stuck with it.”
Honeycutt stuck with it in more ways than one. Despite a poor start, he played to his strengths – grass fishing, primarily – and swum a Zoom Ultra Vibe Speed Worm around grass for the final two days of the event, consciously slowing down as much as possible to adjust to the tough late-summer conditions that are common on Lakes Marion and Moultrie this time of year.
“You’ve just got to be flexible,” he said. “I fished grass the last two days and I fish grass at home. I know what to do around the grass, so I was comfortable fishing that way. Fishing has been really, really tough here, so, basically, I just slowed way down.”
Though Honeycutt has won more than enough money (and boats) to make a switch to the front of the boat, he’s in no hurry to give up the flexibly that being a co-angler provides.
“I get ribbed about it all the time about moving to the front of the boat but I don’t know… I own a landscaping company and it takes up a lot of my time,” he explained. “To be competitive with these guys, you need to spend three or four days on the water ahead of time, and that’s a week being gone from home. I’m pretty comfortable right now.”
For now, Honeycutt is content winning tournaments and money and Co-Angler of the Year awards from the back of the boat and looking forward to more challenges, like the Toyota Series Championship on Wheeler Lake in early November. Though he’s been to Wheeler a few times before, he knows it’ll be just another opportunity to put his experience to the test.
“I think I’ve gotten a couple checks over there, but that’s irrelevant because you have to fish where the guy in the front of the boat is taking you to fish,” he said. “You’ve just got to be very, very versatile.”
Top 10 Strike King co-anglers:
- Keith Honeycutt – 27-4 (11) – $33,500
- Dan Basham – 24-4 (9) – $4,141
- Grant McPeters – 23-13 (6) – $3,313
- Billy Foster – 23-11 (10) – $2,899
- Alan Hults – 23-4 (9) – $2,485
- David Underwood – 21-9 (8) – $2,071
- Wendell Grantham – 20-11 (8) – $1,656
- Patrick Brown – 20-0 (8) – $1,449
- Clyde Cox – 19-2 (6) – $1,542
- Todd Mowery – 18-12 (8) – $1,035