A few years ago, Alabama native Jordan Lee was a member of the Auburn University fishing team with dreams of the big show. In late March, at 25 years of age, he ascended to the pinnacle of the bass fishing world by winning the Bassmaster Classic. He collected a $300,000 check, and the trappings of a Classic win will fuel his career for years to come.
Lee rose from near the bottom of the heap through the three-day tournament at Texas’ Lake Conroe to claim the coveted trophy. On Friday, he wasn’t even able to put together a five-fish limit and brought three fish to the scales that weighed 8 pounds, 6 ounces. On Saturday, he had better conditions on a hard-bottomed point he found during practice and hauled in four fish that weighed 21-0. It was good enough to push him into 15th place and make the cut for the final day. He had obviously found a big-fish pattern.
To that point, California’s Brent Ehrler was sitting atop the leaderboard with 43-4 after two rounds. Lee, with 29-6, would need a monster bag of fish and a little bit of help on the final day. He got both. With engine trouble negating his ability to move, Lee settled in on that same point and worked it for all it was worth, catching a big limit on a football jig dressed with a Rage Craw. After hitching a ride back to the docks with a spectator, Lee weighed in a 27-pound, 4-ounce sack for a three-day total of 56-10. Ehrler managed just 11-10 on the final day and fell to third place behind Alabama angler Steve Kennedy, who finished second with 55-1.
Of all the stories that come with such dramatics, the most useful information came from the location Lee was fishing. About 100 yards offshore, he targeted a section of hard bottom on a flat point. Lee said he thinks it was rock or gravel, and there was no brush.
Finding such a magic spot requires an angler to know their electronics. It’s easy to identify structure with today’s technology. Reading bottom composition can be a little trickier, but it’s easy enough if you know what to look for.
Hard bottom, whether it’s shelled, a roadbed, rock or gravel, can be a magnet for baitfish and bass. A hard bottom reflects sonar waves emitted by the transducer more efficiently than a soft or mucky bottom. On a traditional unit, a hard bottom will show up as a dense, deeply colored line because of strong echoes bouncing off a solid surface. With soft bottom, some sonar waves penetrate the bottom and are reflected back as weaker signals. The resulting image is a thicker line with less density. Color indicators vary by unit, but you can bet Lee knew what it meant when the bottom was a yellow line on his Lowrance.
This barely scratches the surface of the capabilities of today’s technology, but it’s a good example of information that can be gathered when one knows how to read and operate their electronics.