By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
Alton Jones Jr. grew up watching his father capture multiple tour-level victories, including a Bassmaster Classic championship. But until it actually happened, he wasn't completely confident that he'd ever claim one for himself.
Now in his sixth professional season, the 29-year-old Texan triumphed last week in the season's second Bass Pro Tour event at Lake Fork in his home state. He won both the Knockout and Championship rounds in ultra-chilly conditions, the latter with a 12-fish haul that registered 52-03.
"I feels really good, but I don't think it's really set in yet," he said a day later. "It was weird getting up (Saturday) morning and seeing that trophy on the kitchen table.
"It's really special and it's something I've dreamed about my whole life. While I'm really proud of my consistency over the last couple years, you never know if (a win) is going to happen. I didn't know if I deserved one. There's been guys who fished their entire career being super-consistent and never got that win. You can never take it for granted."
The fact that it occurred close to home definitely generated some added significance.
"Not only was it in my home state, but I was fishing against my dad (Alton Sr. was also among the 10 anglers in the finals). At one point early in the day we were jockeying back and forth for the lead a little bit and that was really cool."
Options Were Limited
Jones described his two days of practice as relatively unproductive and said he had only one program that he had confidence in – cranking stumps in a creek that's a well-known "community hole." Directing all of his focus to that paid dividends.
"All my eggs were in that one basket," he said. "I had nothing in my mind telling me I needed to go over here or over there. My best chance was that one drain, and that one drain only. I put the trolling motor down and never picked it up all day."
Many of the fish had entered the prespawn phase prior to the arrival of the cold front, which dropped air temperatures dramatically and brought along freezing rain that created an uncomfortable scenario for the competitors. His locale was close to the only suitable spawning area in the vicinity.
"A bunch of other guys fished there during the week," he said. "I'd say out of the 80 guys (in the field), 70 of them practiced there in some way, shape or form.
"When it gets cold, those fish have nowhere else to go – they have to go in that drain. It made them extremely predictable, even if they didn't really want to bite. I went into the Knockout Round knowing that it had been hit hard by a bunch of anglers and I was able to catch 50 pounds and win that. I felt like it was capable of reloading. Those Lake Fork fish get pressure every single day and I didn't let it get in my head that I was fishing water that had been beat up."
Needed More Depth
Jones latched on to the squarebill-cranking pattern that would carry him to victory on the second day of his Qualifying Round. As things progressed, though, he determined that he needed a bait that would get down to the 6-foot range and didn't have any in his boat.
That prompted a nighttime call to Jordan Lee, and the next day Lee opened his squarebill box and told Jones to take whatever he needed. A custom-painted (crawfish pattern) Berkley model proved to be the ticket.
"I definitely owe him dinner," Jones said.
He caught some of his bigger fish on the first day of the Qualifying Round on a 3/4-ounce spinnerbait with a Geecrack Gyro Star swimbait trailer. That combination also produced some big bites in practice, but not enough of them to be reliable under the BPT's catch-all-you-can format.
"They seemed to get accustomed to the spinnerbait pretty quickly – I could see them following it on LiveScope, but they wouldn't take it," he said. "It was great on fresh fish, but if they'd seen some pressure it wasn't the key."
He said that his Garmin electronics played a major role in his success.
"I was LiveScope-ing fish in 2 feet of water. I could see some fish follow the bait way out from a stump, maybe 20 feet off, and sometimes I could do a stop-and-go and get that fish to bite.
"LiveScope has taken the world by storm and everybody can find deep, suspended fish because they're easy to see, but the next frontier for tournaments is mastering it in shallow areas."
His cranking gear included a prototype 7'2" medium-heavy Kistler Alton Jr. Reaction Rod with a glass tip, Kistler Series 1 and Series 2 casting reels (7.3:1 ratio) and unnamed 17-pound fluorocarbon line.
