> Day 1: 3, 9-03 (88th place)
> Day 2: 5, 19-12
> Total = 8, 28-15 (25th place)
After starting his rookie year on the FLW Tour with three straight triple-digit finishes, Jim Jones finished the 2016 season with a trio of top-30 finishes.
After a bumpy start at Lake Guntersville last week, he was able to pick up where he left off as he rallied 63 positions on day 2 to secure a 25th-place finish and keep his momentum going.
“It’s a good start to the season,” Jones said. “Last year, I started in a hole for the first half of the season and never made it completely out of it, so it feels good to get a good start and I hope to maintain it instead of chasing it.”
The key to his turnaround at Guntersville was simple. It came down to decision-making, he said.
“The best guys make the right decisions and that was the difference,” he added.
He went through four areas on day 1 without a bite before finally catching three at his fifth and final stop. By then, his day was over and he found himself in 88th place with 9-03.
“I started there on day 2 and caught ‘em good,” he said. “The biggest thing was making the right decision on where to go.”
He targeted eelgrass that ran from 2 feet out to 10 feet with a crankbait. He’s convinced the fish were there because of the vitality of the grass.
“It had the best green grass of the areas I’d found,” he said. “The water was a bit cleaner and close to shallow water yet there was deeper water nearby, too. It was a little out of the current and had clearer water. There were more there than I thought there were.”
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