Louisiana's Greg Hackney has gradually been making a name for himself on the FLW Tour. Consistently good finishes over the past 2 years have put him, as of now, among the Top 30 bass anglers in the world. And the amazing thing about it is that he's done that by focusing almost exclusively on skinny water.
It's amazing because the vast majority of bass anglers fish shallow, but many tour pros have also jumped on the versatility bandwagon. But Hackney fishes differently.
"I learned to fish shallow," he says. "Where I grew up (the Louisiana Delta), all we had was shallow-water fishing and now I apply that wherever I go. If most of the fish are deep, some are shallow and most times those are the ones less-pressured."
Whoa. Shallow fish receive less pressure? "If we go to a place and everyone says, 'This is the dominant pattern,' I can normally get on something else shallow that no one else is fishing," he says. "Like at Wheeler. Most people were cranking ledges and fishing grass flats. I made some bad mistakes there, but plenty of fish were shallow -- like mud would boil when you got one. That shallow. I left them every day thinking I needed to get one deeper. That was my fault."
Main Key: Fishing Slow
Hackney catches fish -- or bigger fish -- shallow when other people don't. What's his secret?
"Normally I fish a lot slower than everybody else," he says. "It seems like it's easier for people to fish over shallow fish because everyone fishes too fast. Everyone does the deal where you flip out a bait, and if it goes to the bottom and you don't get a hit, you move. They pick off the aggressive fish, but normally your aggressive fish aren't as big.
"I fish it like you would deep structure: slow and methodical. My favorite way to fish is to take 3 hours to fish a 100-yard stretch (of bank).
"Very few people can slow down like that," he says. "And I'm not taking anything away from anyone because everyone fishes different ways. Like Kevin VanDam -- he catches one out of one 100 yard-stretch, and one out of the next 100 yards and so on."
How To Do It
Fishing slow means different things to different people. To Hackney it means "leaving your bait in the strike zone a lot longer." Here are a few examples:
> Flipping/pitching -- "I move my bait real slow, and fish it all the way back to the boat instead of just fishing a target. When you fish trees, for example, a lot of times they're not on the tree. They're on a little subtle feature out from the tree."
> Mats -- "When I'm fishing mats, I like to fish all over the mat, not just one place."
> Cranking -- "If I'm cranking shallow wood, I keep putting the bait on it for like 20 casts. And instead of doing it just one time, I'll make a circle and come back again."
"When I do well, that's normally how I catch my fish," he says.
Patterning
Hackney finds fish by a combination of feel -- which usually has a large "time on the water" component -- and diligence.
"Normally I do well when the fish are shallow and it's a real tough event -- or if I'm fishing shallow cover that all looks alike, like at Okeechobee. If I go into an area (like a cove) and get lucky, I can spot (see) fish. But if there's a lot of good cover, the fish will still only be on certain parts of it. I just put the trolling motor down and fish the whole area.
"Only 2-3 sweet spots will be in there, but if I have confidence in that area I'll fish the whole thing. Most people want to spot-fish," he adds. "But I go back the next day and start where I left off, and fish until I've fished the entire area.
"I like that because most people won't take the time to do that. So that way I can end up with areas to myself.
"If you go into an area and it's really hot, you have to compete with a lot of other people. With the quality of fishermen out there, if the bass are going to bite (like that), people are going to find them. But if you're in a 5-bite area and not a 20-bite area, you're more apt to have it to yourself. And that means a lot because if you have an area to yourself, you'll have more of a chance to win. You can't win fishing an area with 10 guys because everyone's too good now."
Slowing down also helps him find secondary patterns, he notes. At Wheeler, the dominant pattern was "swimming a jig in bank grass. But the more I fished for those fish, I noticed that they weren't all on the grass. You could go in a pocket in the grass and catch them off wood, and also catch them off the bank.
"The more I fished, more I slowed down. Every day one guy would come in, fish all grass and then leave. When I went in there, I just fished the whole area."
Notable
> To find a good area in practice, "you just kind of have to have a feel for it," he says. "Usually I see something I like and something I can apply (experience) to."
> For flipping and pitching -- "I use braid all the time and tie directly to it. A lot of people now use a fluorocarbon leader, but I've never done that. Even fishing in real clear water, if you're fishing around something, I don't think the line makes that much difference. And (with braid) you never have to worry about it. I've broken 30-pound mono, but since I went to braid, that doesn't happen anymore. And I don't have to retie as much. Sometimes I go all day without retying. That means more casts and more confidence when you get bit. That line also doesn't have any stretch, which keeps fish from getting their head down." Most of the time Hackney uses 65-pound PowerPro braid.
> A huge key to fishing skinny water is that "you have to have confidence in it."
