Morgan Wins Hardy Dam

For the second time in two club tournaments this year, first place went to a first time winner. Sunday it was Matt Morgans' turn to notch his first club victory at Hardy Dam and he did it in dramatic fashion. I talked to Matt at length after the win and here are the details.

Practice: Morgan pre-fished Hardy on Thursday and again on Saturday marking as many beds as possible in hopes to make a milk run on Sunday morning. He noticed many of the big fish were not locked onto their beds but did manage to catch a few three pounders and hoped they would be there the next morning. Matt tried to ignore many of the small males guarding beds and keyed in on only the bigger females. He narrowly missed winning last year and hoped that concentrating on the bigger fish would pay off.

Tourney Day: As the day unfolded the big fish became harder to come by and many of the bigger females Matt had marked the previous day had been replaced by small fish. He did manage grind out a decent limit by throwing a drop-shot rig and a pink tube but by 2pm his limit was around 13 pounds. Morgan commented how he ran up and down the lake trying to cull a few pound and a half fish on the score sheet and decided on a small mid-lake area he had visited earlier.

"There were a lot of boats and partying going on in this area but I think all the commotion conditioned the fish and they weren't as spooky", said Matt afterwards. He located a good fish and threw repeatedly at it as the crowd looked on. Finally the 3+ pounder bit and bumped his limit up to around 14.5 pounds which would put him in a virtual log jam with several other anglers. With only minutes to spare Morgan spotted a fish idling out of his "party area" sitting in a foot of water. "I thought it was a small male but when it turned to the side I could tell it was pretty big" exclaimed the Bigby Coffee exec.

At 2:45 Morgan knew he only had a few casts left and his co-angler Craig Deck took his position at the net encouraging his partner on. Matt flung the pink tube onto the nest one last time and this time the big fish bit. Matt set the hook and felt the weight of a big fish, only to then experience the sickening feeling of a slack line and a lost tournament. Amazingly he then looked down to find the bail on the reel had been open and as he took up line the fish was still hooked. Morgan calmly regained the fight and at 2:50 his partner slid the net under a 3.69 lb smallie to the cheers of a slightly intoxicated crowd. In Iaconelli fashion the two quickly weighed the fish, strapped the gear down and roared towards the launch ramp. That last fish was the winning margin and took second big bass honors as well. Congratulations on the great win Matt and everyone else who fished, it was an excellent tournament.