‘Stubborn’ Cook catches last-minute spawner, takes lead on Hartwell

Call it persistence or stubbornness, it’s the mindset that helped Drew Cook take the lead today in the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament on Lake Hartwell. Weigh-in emcee Dave Mercer called it spending “an ungodly amount of time” fishing for one bass.

“Tell me you caught that fish,” Mercer said, shortly after Cook had weighed a five-bass limit of 19 pounds, 9 ounces to take the top spot on the leaderboard from day 1 leader Randy Howell.

“I did, I got her,” Cook said.

That was news to Mercer and everyone in the weigh-in audience, because Cook caught the 4-pound, 8-ounce bass at 3:02 p.m., just minutes after Bassmaster LIVE stopped streaming for the day. Although that catch was not broadcast live, his in-boat camera operator did capture the moment, which Bassmaster fans can watch here.

“It took all damn day, but we got her!” Cook exclaims in the footage, moments after landing the fish. “Yesterday it was persistence is key. Stubbornness is key today. We got a bag now!”

Cook’s 19-pound, 9-ounce bag today was an improvement on the 18-pound, 12-ounce sack he weighed in the first day of the four-day tournament. Not all competitors will fish all four days. After today’s round, the field was cut from 102 to 50. After tomorrow’s competition the field will cut to the top 10.

Like most anglers competing on Hartwell, Cook said, he hasn’t found it difficult to catch a lot of bass. But it’s “not very easy,” he said, to catch five bigger-than-average ones.

“I’m getting some bites just going down the bank, but just finding those three or four good ones [is difficult],” Cook said. “I haven’t caught any great big ones, but a couple nice ones – you know, 4-something pounders.”

That includes the spawner Cook pulled off a bed today after the livestream shut down. He said he fished for the bass from 9 to 10:30 a.m. before returning to it in the afternoon, after he had a limit and was looking to cull up with a bigger-than-average bass. In two days of fishing, he’s brought to the scales 10 bass weighing a combined 38 pounds, 5 ounces.

Cook said. “I caught all of my fish on a Nories Front Flapper rigged on a 4/0 Gamakatsu G-Power flipping hook with a 1/4-ounce weight.”

He applies a special technique that really triggers indecisive bedding fish. Once the bait settles into the bed, he uses his left hand to hold the rod just above the reel while steadily tapping the rod butt with his right hand. This sends a subtle vibration to the bait that causes it to quiver with life without moving out of the bed.

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