Hamblen County angler Nolan Gray (left) and father Rob Gray.
BY DAVE LINK
Nolan Gray of the Hamblen County Anglers could teach a Bass Fishing 101 lesson from his April 13 day on South Holston Lake.
The theme: Don’t give up after a slow start, which is what happened to him in the event on the Bass Pro Shops tour.
“It was like 11 or so in the morning before I even caught my first fish,” he said.
Gray made up for it in a hurry.
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The senior at Morristown East High, fishing solo with his father Rob as boat captain, got on a roll and finished second with a five-bass limit weighing 16.99 pounds. All were smallmouth, including a 4.49-pounder.
“I culled six or seven times, but I didn’t have a bite for the first hour and a half,” Gray said. “Then I went around one point and caught one and went down that bank and caught another one and kept going. I filled out my limit within an hour.”
Gray was fishing solo because his partner, Morristown East senior Rhyder Short, had a prior commitment.
No problem for Gray, who planned to fish alone all season, but that was prohibited by a Tennessee Bass Nation rule requiring two anglers to sign up for season-long series.
So, Gray went to his buddy Rhyder and asked him to partner up.
“He likes to fish, but he’s never been really competitive bass fishing,” Gray said. “I told him he could come and fish with me.
“He’s doing pretty good and catching on pretty quick. I’ve got him hooked now.”
Gray came within a couple of pounds of winning at South Holston Lake, where the launch was out of Observation Knob near the Tennessee-Virginia state line.
Ty Mays and Mason Sziksai of Bell County (Ky). High won with five fish weighing 18.69 pounds, including a 4.67 pounder, in a field of about 150 boats.
Joe Vaulton and Walker LaRue of the Alcoa Fishing Team were third (five bass, 16.63 pounds, 4.15-pounder), ahead of fourth-place Landon Myers and Bryson Bailey of Alcoa Fishing (five bass, 16.26 pounds, 4.43-pounder) and fifth-place Cole Russell and Jackson Bennett of Anderson County High (five bass, 15.92 pounds, 3.94-pounder).
In the juniors’ division, Hunter Massengill and Levi May of Halls Middle won with five bass weighing 14.74 pounds, including a 5.50-pounder, ahead of second-place Alex Booth and Noah Fultz of Cumberland Gap (five bass, 14.64 pounds).
Gray was familiar with South Holston from a Bass Pro event two years ago when he and Matthew Whitaker finished fourth.
During practices before this event, Gray tried some new water.
“We went up the lake (two years ago) and I’d never been down the lake,” Gray said. “I went up there three days in a span of two weeks before the tournament, practicing. I think I ran the whole lake trying to figure out something.”
Gray said South Holston is unlike his home lakes.
“It’s really deep, everywhere you went,” he said. “You go back in the pockets and it’s like 130 foot, and the water’s 10 times clearer than what it is on Douglas and Cherokee, which is where we normally fish.”
Gray and his dad didn’t cover much water on tournament day, instead spending all their time on a bank of rock, slate rock, and pea gravel.
“It wasn’t really much figuring anything out,” Gray said. “It was one bank that was like 3 or 4 miles long, and I just stayed on it all day, going up and down it because that lake fishes real small, especially since we had another tournament that was out of 421 Bridge and there was like 90 or 100 boats in it. And that lake’s one of the smallest lakes we fish around here.”
Gray said he caught all the bass on a glide bait and crank bait.
He caught the 4.49-pound smallmouth on a glide bait.
“I threw over a tree and I was sitting there watching my bait come over it,” Gray said, “just walking it side to side, and I saw that fish come out of nowhere from up under that tree and eat it. He wasn’t real far from the boat, and when he started jumping it was a little scary.”
But it was Gray’s lucky day – after a slow start.
“I never did lose a fish,” he said. “Every one I hooked, I got in the boat.”