Bash winners blend old and new approaches

By Greg McCain

Worlds collided when Kentucky fishermen Darryl Bolton and Steve Mobley entered the 6th Annual ACC Crappie Stix/Crappie Cove Big Crappie Bash (BCB).

On one hand, the two veteran anglers fished from a pontoon boat in the competition on Watts Bar Lake in Tennessee, and even caught their better practice fish with some traditional trolling methods. When the trolling catches disappeared on tournament day, Darryl and Steve had to revert back to a more current approach, deploying their twin LiveScope units on the front of the SunTracker. Even then, they employed old-school elements, a minnow tossed at brush under a slip bobber.

The result was a 2.32 white crappie that proved to be the overall winner of the Bash. The team – Darryl is from London, KY, and Steve is from Manchester, KY – won $7,500 for their efforts, $6,000 for the biggest crappie of the event and $1,500 for winning Hour 5.

The pair has fished together for a long time – the last “12-15 years out of a pontoon.”

At the awards ceremony, they joked about their time together with Darryl calling Steve “the best net man I know.” Steve countered that Darryl had been front-ending him for years. “I tried my best to knock that fish off,” Steve said with a laugh. “It wasn’t coming off.”

Fished out of Terrace View Marina for the fifth straight year, the BCB brought together a full field of 100 teams from at least 12 states. They found some typical unpredictable conditions brought about by weather and low water. The leaderboard told a clear story—white crappie dominated the event, with only a single black crappie appearing among the hourly winners

“I used to fish here a lot, bass fishing. I haven’t crappie fished that much here,” Darryl said. “We usually fish Lake Cumberland, Laurel Lake, and Dale Hollow. We fished (the BCB) last year for the first time.”

The team pre-fished on Thursday, but found few takers on minnows dunked around brush. Trolling proved more effective with a 1.89 boated Thursday and a 1.8 on Friday.

“It didn’t work out this morning,” Darryl said, “so we started drowning minnows and found the one. We got lucky.

“We were fishing 14 feet of water, and the fish was probably at 8 feet out on a limb by itself. It looked bright on LiveScope. I threw over there once and was too deep. I reeled in, adjusted my depth, and threw back over there. It ate the minnow.”

Both Darryl and Steve said the pontoon route has been good for them.

“There will probably be a lot of people show up in a pontoon next year,” Darryl said. “I’m fat, old, and decrepit. It’s a chore for me – and Steve too – to get up and down on the decks (of a regular boat). It works for us. We go every chance we get.”

The overall winner, which came from Ferguson Creek upriver from Terrace View, proved to be something of an unusual catch among the hourly winners. Most were pre-spawn white crappie females caught in deeper water, likely waiting for just the right moment to move shallow ahead of the coming full moon. Each of the hourly winners earned $1,500.

Following are ideas about how the other hourly winners caught their fish:

Hour 1, Andrew Nordbye, Guntersville, AL, and Jack Daniel Williams, Kingsport, TN, 1.91 lbs. – Better known in tournament circles as bass fishermen, the team shares a passion for crappie fishing. Jack, in fact, has guided for crappie a few times on Watts Bar and caught the hourly winner early. He said the fish are “right on cue with the moon coming.”

“I was on a deep bite, but they seemed to leave me, and they were smaller,” he said. “The females seemed to be moving up to that next contour and getting ready to hit the bank.”

He caught his fish casting a Bobby Garland plastic. “After that, it got tough for us,” he said. “They were nipping our baits and short striking. It seems like the pressure of all the boats got to them.”

Hour 2, Eric and Evan Jackson, Glasgow, KY, 2.09 lbs.

The team caught their fish in 25 feet of water on a brushpile. Evan said they tried casting to the fish, “but the boat got a little too close, so we dropped on it.”

The team had two good fish in the livewell at the end of the first hour and chose to weigh a 1.8 crappie. They then weighed the 2.09 at the start of the second hour.

The Jacksons have fished all six of the tournaments. “Overall, the fish seem to be a little smaller than when the tournament was held earlier (in the spring), but this one was the biggest we’ve ever caught,” Evan said.

Hour 3, Greg Moses and Tracy Maxwell, Madisonville, TN, 1.95

Greg said, “With the water being down, the fish don’t seem to be where we normally find them. He added that they tried to find a pattern with fish at a consistent depth in practice. They managed to find the right pre-spawn female to win the hour. The fish hit a “generic hair jig” around a brushpile in about 30 feet of water.

Aside from the fishing, Greg got the day started off right by singing the national anthem and “did a fantastic job,” according to tournament director Matt Xenos.

Hour 4, Andrew Alonso and Hunter Vincent, Oakdale, TN, 1.91 lbs.

Andrew said they started off fishing shallow, “the first main points coming out. It didn’t work for us. Then we started noticing them about 20, 25 feet. We caught a couple at that depth. The big fish was plum full of eggs.”

The crappie, caught “upriver toward Rockwood,” bit a bigger bait, a ¼ Hammer Head by Mr. Crappie trailed by a 3-inch paddle-tail  Tournament Series Speed Shad.

“I had caught one about a week ago on a 5-inch swimbait on an umbrella rig,” Andrew said, “I wasn’t even going for them. I decided it was time to upsize.”

Hour 6, Cody Graves, Jeff Webber, Graham Webber Jr., 2.24 lbs.

The team caught the second biggest crappie of the tournament and also beat out two others 2.20 or better for the hourly prize. It was the only black crappie among the hourly winners.

“We caught it in 25 feet of water on a Keitech swimbait,” Graham said. “It was about 2 ½ inches long.”

He added the team hesitated to weigh it in at first because they thought it was too small.

“We thought it was about 1.80,” he said. “We didn’t have a scale and were eye-balling it.”

Hour 7, Caleb Smith, Brock Watson, Ten Mile, TN, 2.06 lbs.

Local guide Caleb Smith said the hourly-winning catch was a good feeling after recent boat trouble and weather had knocked his fishing for a loop.

“We had a mid-March snow storm,” he said. “Everything was stacking up totally normally. It was textbook. Since then, it’s been off-the-wall-stuff.” Caleb added he was “fishing small with 2-lb. test line and caught the fish on a 1/64 jig fished over deep brush. “I like to watch it drop down,” he said. “It takes some patience. It’s like watching paint dry.”

He later added, “It felt good to catch that one. I’ve had 10 to 15 rods out on the deck trying to figure them out.”

Hour 8, Erin Crabtree, Thomas Crabtree, Rockwood, TN, 2.0 lbs.

The local team suggested the fishing has been tough, likely because of low water levels. “I think it’s hurting us,” Erin said. Despite the difficult fishing, they found the right fish in deep water. “We found it in 22 feet on some brush,” he said. “It was waiting to go and ate a minnow fished straight vertical. That’s about all I do. I haven’t gotten into the open-water fishing.”

The final hourly winner helped the Crabtrees overcome a disappointing 6th-hour weigh-in. Their 2.22 fish was beaten out that hour by the 2.24 winner. “We thought we might have that hour,” Erin said. “You just have to be lucky and weigh in at the right time.”

Sponsors for the BCB included Thump Gel, Big Bite Baits, Bonehead Tackle, 303 Marina Products, and ATX Lures in addition to ACC Crappie Stix and Crappie Cove.

Mark your calendars for next year. The 7th Annual Big Crappie Bash will be held April 24, 2027, out of Terrace View.