Lake Murray

That's special.

Where'd you go? Lake Murray? Where do you

go? Santee and Lake Murray.

We went to

both.

And if you guys didn't know, because I didn't know until I saw this article.

was there was an airman that drowned in Lake Watery on a boating, like he was out with friends from work, coworkers from work, and he drowned in Lake Watery, which if you haven't been to South Carolina, he's an airman out of Shaw, Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina, and there's a couple lakes there that are incredible, Lake Watery, Lake Murray, and it's big boating, big partying, that kind of stuff.

It's just beautiful out there.

Well...

Yeah.

Especially in like lakes, like, um, you were saying they were on, on Lake Murray, right? Like I think Lake Murray is a lake where there's a lot of suspended fish that aren't, aren't even around structure.

They're just out there, you know, which technology really helps for that.

Hmm.

I was able to fish professionally.

I learned to fish here on Lake Murray.

And then after fishing full time for 24 years, I started doing the TV, the Bassmaster Television.

You've got a voice for TV.

right.

So tell us a little bit about where you did grow up in South Carolina.

I was born in Columbia, but at a very young age, moved to the shores of Lake Murray in Saluda County, just up at what they call the county line store area, just outside of Lexington County.

Grew up there.

And so the data set covered 73 professionals across eight 2025 Bass Pro Tour events.

And some of those include, you know, really big, you know, lakes, Lake Conroe, Lake Murray, the Potomac River, Lake Guntersville, you know, big ticket, high class, world class bass fisheries.

and the way that the bass pro tour works is that every scorable fish is weighed and then released on the spot.

So the data includes every catch, not just a five fish limit.

OK, but the effects did differ significantly depending on the venue.

Sure, sure.

So, for example, lakes like Lake Conroe and Lake Murray showed very tangible increases in catch rates during FFS periods, whereas lakes like the Potomac River and Lake Guntersville actually didn't really show a statistical advantage at all.

Okay,

Now, that may not be the case for someone else, but for me, that's been the case.

So, man, let's get straight into Lake Murray.

You said something really special before we started recording, and I kind of leaned into it.

by, by asking you this going into the tournament, you know, what were your, your true sincere initial thoughts about your chances and how did that lead, you know, your practice and the decisions you made?

And then there was a group of three or four that came up schooling.

And I threw in there, I hooked.

I didn't know bass got that big in Lake Murray, but it was probably like eight pounds.

And It did the typical Lake Murray thing.