From the outside looking in, the act of shooting photographs of the potential Classic champion would seem simple enough. You pile your gear into a boat, follow the contender around from place to place and do what you do. At the end of the day you are left with the photographs that display how the champ spent his final day on the water.
The goal from there is simple before the weigh-in starts. The “bassin’” world should be clicking through the photos from on the water, as they magically begin to appear from a location on a lake far away. I doubt there is little thought to the logistics or difficulties that may arise to make that happen. Nor should there be. Everybody just wants the dadgum pictures. But stuff happens.
However, if you’re assigned to shoot photos of the eventual champion on the final day of a Bassmaster Classic and things go wrong…that’s a whole different level of ‘stuff happening.’
The most challenging, frustrating day I spent on the water covering an eventual Classic Champion took place during the final day on the Red River, the year Chris Lane won the 2012 Bassmaster Classic. It would take five boats to keep Pete Robbins (the writer blogging with me during the Classic) and I with Chris Lane before the day was finished.
Boat No. 1
Lane was locking through the dam and fishing the next pool down in a large backwater area. I tell my camera boat driver we would not go through the lock but trailer down to a ramp in the next pool instead. We were there waiting when the lock opened and watched as Chris and several competitors came speeding by. We fell in behind the armada of contenders, camera boats and spectators; we eventually turned from the main channel and into a maze of Louisiana stumps.
When you enter just about any backwater area off the Red River, you’re entering an area that is as hard on boats as any I have encountered. It is a place where boat wraps and lower units go to die. For the most part there is just no clear path. We rode up, over and around stumps for three or four miles to finally reach where Lane was starting his day.
Before the trolling motor was dropped in the boat we were in, both bilge pumps kick on…and they never stopped. After lifting the back deck of the boat and seeing about as much water in the boat as outside the boat, we surmise one or more of the hundreds of stumps we had encountered had punched a hole in the boat, ripped the drain plug out or both. Boat No.1 is sinking…fast. I advise my boat captain, “Unless you want your boat decorating the bottom of the Red River, you probably need to go.”
Boat No. 2
I grab my camera gear and jump into boat No.2 being used by the video crew covering Lane. Pete Robbins hopped in a boat with a couple of spectators. Awhile later our initial camera boat driver returned, reporting he happily had not sunk. Turns out it was the drain plug that had been ripped out.
After being reunited with boat No.1, Lane decides he needs to make a move, feeling he doesn’t have the weight he needs to win. He decides to lock back through the dam to finish the day. We fight through the stumps once again to the main river channel, clear the levy and take our hole shot in Lane’s prop wash.
We’re speeding upriver and suddenly it sounds as if a bucket of nuts and bolts has been thrown under the cowling of the motor, followed quickly by one last dying bang. There’s no other sound like that, heard it before…without taking the cowling off the motor I know we now have a considerable sized hole in the engine block. Dude’s motor is blown, followed instantly by my mind blowing. We’re dead in the water with Lane’s boat getting smaller and smaller until it’s out of sight.
While stepping up to the front deck to drop the trolling, I could not speak, I was too perturbed. No, actually too pissed would be more like it. Sure I’m feeling bad about dude’s motor blowing up and all that, but we got a little bit of something here that needs to be getting done.
In those few minutes we were floating the wrong direction down the Red River, all these crazy career-ending thoughts are entering and leaving my mind, most along the lines of, “Started with nothing and still got most of it.” Then I snap out of it, I’m not that guy anymore. Hell no, this one’s not about me at all, this one’s on Pete Robbins. It all started at the morning launch…my mind is clearing…it’s all coming back…
While shooting photos of KVD before launch that morning, KVD’s wife Sherry was at his boat and gave me one of her lucky cookies. Hardly anybody gets those things, man. There’s magic in them. And they should only be eaten by certain people, most notably the person they’re gifted to. There’s magic in them. You don’t believe it? Well just check out ole KVD’s track record. Case rested.
Boat No. 3
Meanwhile back in the current world, we hear what would turn out to be boat No.3 coming, a spectator boat and Good Samaritan trying to catch up with Chris Lane. We’re waving him down…he’s stopping to pick us up. While grabbing my gear I look at Robbins and say, “Dude I told you this morning, you shouldn’t have eaten my damn cookie.”
Boat No. 4
We get dropped at the ramp below the dam, jump into my truck and speed the 40 or so miles back to the tournament launch area and pile into boat No. 4 that’s in the water waiting for us. We take a look at BASSTrakk while speeding down the river and see he has moved to another large backwater area. There’s less than two hours left until check-in time.
We get there and there’s only one way in. A narrow slot with woods on both sides, guarded by an incredible number of stumps. After multiple attempts, our boat driver announces he can’t get us in there. In his defense his wasn’t the only boat that couldn’t get in there. Several spectator boats looked on as we tried several times.
All I could think of was two things, the first being Lane is back there somewhere catching the winning fish and we’re not there. Two, had I done like I usually do for 90 percent of the tournaments I shoot and brought my own boat, Louisiana would be minus some stumps or we would have had a busted hull or lower unit trying to get in there. As you have read, it ain’t nothing for us to tear some stuff up.
Instead it was, “Dude just put me out on the bank.” I grab my backpack with my camera gear in it; Robbins and I charge off through the woods.
Boat No. 5
After walking a few hundred yards we see water, then two boats. One of them is Chris Lane, the other a lone spectator boat that happened to be there and follow him in. Hello boat No. 5, yes sir I need a ride!
Sorry I don’t remember your name, but for Pete Robbins and me, along with B.A.S.S. fans everywhere that enjoyed the photos from Chris Lane’s final hour on the Red River, thank you.
Man, I’m glad that one’s over…got tired all over again just writing about it. Oh wait! We still got a weigh-in to get to! Just kidding, we made it. It’s what we do.