By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
When he notched a wire-to-wire win last February at the Lake Guntersville Central Toyota Series, Jimmy Washam felt like he'd arrived as a professional angler. His victory at last week's MLF Pro Circuit TITLE Championship takes his confidence level up another big notch.
"After I won the Toyota event, that told me that I was good enough to not just hang with these guys, but I had the ability to be one of the best, and I say that with the utmost humility," he said. "It showed me that if I work hard enough and use the skills that I'm blessed with, I can excel in this sport.
"I still feel out of my league with the group of guys I've joined (former TITLE/FLW Championship winners) and I'm not comparing myself to them, but I do expect to have a long and successful career."
He won the single-day Championship Round shootout on the Mississippi River out of La Crosse, Wis. with a tournament-best 17-15 stringer. He pulled that weight from a single area in Pool 8 (the launch pool), with a couple of early weigh-in fish falling for a topwater and later specimens enticed by a 6-inch worm on a Neko rig.
He knew he'd had a super day when he arrived back at the launch, but he was unaware that Bobby Lane had also compiled a bag that was heavier than any produced on any of the event's first five days.
"The last fish that helped me was a 4 1/4-pounder, and I'd told my cameraman before that that if I caught a 4-pounder, I didn't think I'd be beat. If somebody beat me I could rest easily knowing that I'd done the best I could.
"I knew it would take an incredible day (by a fellow competitor), but I didn't expect Bobby Lane to weigh 16-12 right in front of me. That scared the daylights out of me. It made me start hoping that my scale didn't lie and that none of my fish puked up a shad in the livewell."
A Solid Foundation
The 34-year-old Washam, a deputy sheriff in his home state of Tennessee, is comfortable fishing river systems. He grew up plying the oxbows on the lower part of the Mississippi around Memphis.
"The (upper Mississippi) is kind of a navigational nightmare because it's so vast compared to other places in the country," he said. "But rivers in general, I do have confidence on them."
He caught only six keeper fish during the two practice days, but was nonetheless pleased with what he uncovered.
"Numbers-wise, it wasn't like I was wrecking them, but I had a media representative with me those two days and when he asked me how I'd rate my practice, I told him I thought it was great because I'd done what I wanted to accomplish.
"I had three different things going in three separate areas. I thought all of them at least had possibilities and that I could dial down on one of them and make a living off it."
He spent both days of the Group A Qualifying Round and the first half of the Knockout Round in the Black River and continually made adjustments to catch keepers. He estimated that eight different baits were productive over that stretch.
He amassed 25-01 during the Qualifying Round to finish 5th, just a pound and a half off the pace set by group winner Miles Burghoff. He exploited a really shallow offshore school with a topwater plug on the first day and threw a shaky-head for most of his next outing, upgrading twice with a buzzbait.
In the Knockout Round, he'd culled four times by 11:30 and still had only 8 1/2 pounds boxed up. That prompted him to relocate to a place with a lot of vegetation where he'd piqued the interest of some big fish with a frog in practice.
He didn't get a bite there, but it was a different story on a nearby structure that locals call a "closing dam." It's basically a rock jetty or wing dam that runs all the way across the mouth of a slough. He'd found it while covering water in practice – the skeg on his motor had made contact with it.
"When I came in the prop wash from my trolling motor spooked a shad (into the air) and there was a big boil after it went back in the water," he said. "I caught a 5-pounder and a 4 1/4 (on the topwater plug), then I left them and came back the next day and won it there."
He said the dam had about a foot and a half to 2 feet of water over it with the river level falling. The main river channel was close and there was deep water on both sides (15 feet on the front and 35 feet on the back). The dam itself was 6 to 8 feet across.
Gear Notes
> Topwater gear: 7'3" medium-heavy Hammer Fishing cranking rod, unnamed casting reel (8.5:1 ratio), unnamed 40-pound braid (main line), unnamed 15-pound fluorocarbon leader, Heddon One Knocker Spook.
> He said he's had the Spook for about 15 years and estimated that he's caught at least 1,000 fish on it. It originally had a black back, gold sides and a silver belly, but has been chewed on so many times that it's now mostly a see-through color with a little bit of the black and gold remaining. "I think if you had a thousand of them, none would be exactly like that one. Maybe somebody messed up at the factory and accidentally put some magic in it."
> Neko rig gear: 7' medium-heavy Hammer Fishing rod, unnamed spinning reel, 10-pound braid (main line), 10-pound fluorocarbon (leader), size 2 Gamakatsu G-Finesse Weedless Wacky Hook, unnamed 6" finesse worm (black).
> His buzzbait was a half-ounce model with a gold blade and a black toad trailer made by Black Bass Tackle Industries.
> An Azuma Popper Z concave-face plug played a big role in the Qualifying Round. "After I'd caught a couple on the walking bait and they shut down, I could usually catch a couple more on the Popper Z. A lot of times they'd hit it after it'd been sitting motionless for like 5 seconds."
