Flying blind with NPFL champ Greg Hackney: Yes, you can catch bass you can’t see

Pro angler Greg Hackney wins the NPFL Lake Norman tournament by blind-casting spawning areas—no forward-facing sonar, no looking at beds, just experience and instinct.

Louisiana bass pro Greg Hackney sets the hook on a bass April 18 in the championship round of the National Professional Fishing League tournament on North Carolina's Lake Norman. He won the tournament by catching three consecutive 5-bass limits weighing a combined 47 pounds, 11 ounces. / Tanner Lyons, NPFL

Greg Hackney’s winning strategy: Blind-casting in spawning areas

Believe it or not, you can catch bass you can’t see. Take it from Greg Hackney. He just won a big tournament by blind-casting all around spawning areas, rather than just targeting bedding fish, which he said were so visible even “Ray Charles could have seen [them].”

That’s a joke, kids. Ray Charles was a blind singer, songwriter and pianist who topped the pop-music charts before Hackney was even born. But when Hack Attack was as young as bassin’s top young guns are today, radio stations still played Ray Charles hits, like “I Got a Woman,” “Hit The Road Jack” and “What’d I Say.” 

What Hackney says – the point behind his punchline – is that you can catch bass you don’t first see as blips on a forward-facing sonar screen, or through polarized sunglasses, locked on a bed. Especially when you’ve got a woman – er, a spawning female bass – on a bed in practice, but she hits the road once competition begins. See what I did there? Yeah, I almost immediately regretted it …

How Hackney targeted spawning bass without forward-facing sonar

In practice earlier this week, before winning the National Professional Fishing League tournament April 18 on North Carolina’s Lake Norman, Hackney had dropped waypoints on numerous 3-plus-pound spawning bass on beds. But he didn’t limit himself in competition to targeting just those small areas.

“A lot of those fish that I found in practice were gone,” Hackney explained while fishing on camera in the NPFL’s livestream of the tournament’s second of three competition days. “So rather than going into a place and going [only] to ones I saw, I’m just going in those areas where I saw some and just fishing everything in that area.”

Hackney’s not alone in calling this tactic blind-casting. He recommends it for when conditions are less than ideal for sight fishing – dirty/stained water, wind-driven whitecaps, pollen-coated water, even overly overcast skies. 

“It’s not necessarily about seeing the fish, it’s about seeing the stuff they’re getting on,” Hackney explained. “You just have to fish what’s in front of you. Because literally there’s one on everything – there’s one on the dock, there’s one on a stump, a rock, some cruising the bank, some paired up spawning.”

Hackney’s strategy to look for bass beyond just beds was a calculated choice. But looking for bass without the aid of forward-facing sonar was mandatory – The NPFL this season banned the use of forward-facing sonar in its tournaments.

Although Hackney is proficient at finding and catching bass with Active Target, Lowrance's forward-facing sonar system, a tournament with no FFS is no problem for him. Few other anglers are as well known as Hackney for old-school, shallow-water fishing. Some other anglers fishing the derby on Norman this week -- just the second NPFL tournament after the FFS ban -- struggled to put fish in their boats without so-called video-game-fishing.

“A lot of guys are so used to using it all the time, it’s kind of a learning curve not using it,” noted NPFL livestream co-host Luke Dunkin while Hackney fished on camera on day 2. “Kyle Williams said … ‘I’m trying to figure out how to not use it.’” 

Greg Hackney’s win April 18 on North Carolina's Lake Norman was his second top-10 finish in National Professional Fishing League action this season. In early March, he placed 8th on Santee Cooper in the season-opener. / Tanner Lyons, NPFL

While blind-casting around docks on day 2, Hackney saw a 4-pounder a few yards in front of his boat, “just cruising” -- not locked on a bed. It swam away quickly when Hackney’s boat drew near.

“That’s the reason why I have to fish like that,” Hackney explained. “When you’re blind casting, a lot of times you can catch that fish before it … sees you.”

Hackney won the tournament by catching three consecutive 5-bass limits weighing a combined 47 pounds, 11 ounces. In Friday's championship round, he caught five bass weighing a combined 17 pounds -- his heaviest limit of the tournament. He had led the tournament following Wednesday’s weigh-in, but dropped to the runner-up position after all the bass were weighed on Thursday. On Wednesday, he caught 5 bass weighing a combined 16-6 ounces. On Thursday, he caught five for 14-5.

Shakey head vs wacky rig: When to switch

All of Hackney's bass bit a “little worm,” he said – either 4 or 6 inches long – rigged on either a Shakey Head jig or on a bare hook, wacky-style. His wacky worm “was the deal” on day 3, he said. The Shakey Head set-up was “lights out” on days 1 and 2. He switched gears after noticing that bass around docks were suspending higher in the water column.

Hackney focused his efforts below the main bridge on Norman, in the lake's bottom third. Using his Lowrance C-MAP chart with depths less than 6 feet highlighted via his Lowrance HDS Pro's custom-color-shading feature, he easily found productive water where fish were spawning in pockets.

“Today, and this whole week even, I fished almost every dock, and I caught fish, but the best fish were between the docks, sitting on a piece of brush or a stump,” Hackney told reporters after the tournament. “I burned the majority of my practice water on day one, so I ran new water the last two days, and it was key to finding the same type of productive areas using the C-MAP [chart].”

Three pro bass tours, three sets of rules

Hackney’s 1st-place finish on Norman is his second top-10 in the NPFL this season. In early March, he placed 8th on Santee Cooper in the season-opener. He also competes on the Bassmaster Elite Series, having returned to that trail after fishing for a few years on Major League Fishing’s Bass Pro Tour. In both the NPFL and the Elite Series, anglers weigh only their five biggest bass. On the Bass Pro Tour, anglers weigh every “scorable bass” – i.e. any bass of a size deemed a “keeper” by applicable state, regional and/or local rules.

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