By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
Buddy Gross is unquestionably one of the top closers in professional fishing today.
The 49-year-old from Ringgold, Ga. picked up his fourth tour-level win in 49 career events at the recent Harris Chain Bassmaster Elite Series in Florida. Besides those victories (two on the Elite Series and two on the FLW Tour), he owns just three other Top-10 finishes.
If he makes it to the final day of an event, there's a real good chance he'll end up on top of the standings. In his triumph at Lake Eufaula in 2020, just his second Elite Series outing, he rallied from 10th place on day 4 to claim the trophy and the six-figure paycheck.
"I feel very blessed is all I can tell you," he said last week. "I'm not bragging, but I feel like if I find enough fish to get there (to day 4), I can make it happen. If I get close, I'm going to try my best to come out on top."
Catchin' 22s
Gross bookended his latest triumph with 22-pound stringers on days 1 and 4. He led after day 2 and dropped to 6th after catching a little less than 15 pounds after day 3. His 22-06 haul on the final day left him 2-10 clear of runner-up Drew Benton.
He said he had no inkling he'd even be in the hunt following the 3-day practice period.
"It was a very slow practice and I finally got on something on the last day," he said. "I was idling off a grass patch and I reached down to get a drink or something and I was farther off the grass than I normally would've been.
"I looked down (at one of his electronics units) and saw a bunch of dots and it looked just like summertime on the Tennessee River. But in Florida there's so many different fish that look the same. Something told me to go back and check it and I went back and in two casts I caught two keepers. It was the best thing I'd found."
The place, which was in the Banana Cove section of Lake Harris, was just an ordinary ledge where fish had gathered either on their way to or back from the spawning beds. After discovering the fish that he'd seen were indeed largemouths, he was able to find a handful of similar locations in the 5- to 10-foot depth range that also harbored schools at one time or another during the derby.
Other anglers fished in those vicinities, but they were all focused on the nearby grass and never go onto his program.
"Most of the schools I found had 4-pounders," he said. "The first school I found had about 50 fish and I probably caught 30 of them on the first morning. Later that afternoon I found another school and there were probably 100 in it, but both were gone on the second day.
Wouldn't Stay Put
In addition to moving frequently, Gross' fish weren't consistent about what they were willing to bite. He caught everything on a rattlebait on day 1, but the majority of his catches from day 2 on came on a Zoom Z-Craw worm rigged either Carolina- or Texas-style. His three biggest fish of the week – a 6-pounder and two 5 1/2s – were enticed by a Scottsboro Tackle swimbait.
The program worked every day except for day 3, when he had a limit in the first hour but couldn't connect with any big ones and ended up with a 14-14 bag.
"I had five fish before the second flight had even blasted off, but they were just skinny," he said "I think I gave up too soon. I ended up running to (lakes) Beauclair, Eustis and Dora. It wasn't pretty."
The five depthfinders on his boat are from three different manufacturers, but he said his Humminbird 360 unit was the most helpful in this event. He uses a harness made by an electronics installation company called Sonar Pros that uses much thicker marine-grade copper wire and allows each unit to have its own power supply.
"You wouldn't believe how clear the definition is with that," he said. "Each unit gets all the power it needs and they're not robbing it from each other and causing them all to suffer."
His 10-foot Power-Poles were also critical for maintaining position on the windy final day.
