Entry 175-1
Bass Fishing with Greg Hackney
Editor’s note: In August 2006, Greg Hackney of Gonzales, Louisiana, placed 2nd in the 4-Day Bassmaster Legends tournament, held on the Arkansas River near Little Rock, Arkansas, and won $36,000. In the hot weather with tough fishing, many of the top anglers had days when they didn’t even bring in one weighable fish. But Hackney, who has really been hot on the circuit this year, earning more than $200,000, has hot-weather fishing secrets, which he’ll share this week.
Part 1: Hackney and the Series 1 Crankbait
The Legends fishing tournament was really bad, and I had to use different lures and tactics to find and catch bass. The area we fished had endured several weeks of three-digit temperatures, not much rain and water that wasn’t moving. Where we fished was a river situation, and bass on a river love current and feed when there’s a current. I believe the biggest factor that has made the fishing so tough is the oppressive heat. Once the weather cools off, the bass will bite. However, during that really hot weather, fish don’t like to feed. The water temperature was in the low 90s, and that’s a really-hot surface temperature.
The first day of the tournament, I started cranking the chrome with a black back Strike King Series 1 crankbait around stumps. Most of the bass were feeding on shad. When the weather’s hot like that, many times the bass don’t relate to the bottom. Instead, they’ll suspend on the cover. The reason I like the Series 1 crankbait is because I can leave it in the strike zone of the bass longer than other baits. I caught most of my bass on shallow ledges and rocky, sandy banks that were 2- to 4-feet deep. 
Another area where I caught plenty of bass was a hole between these two places. Both of these spots were down near large expanses of water, so if there was any current at all, it would be moving through those two little ditches. I think that my locating moving water played a role in my finding and catching so many fish the first day of the tournament.
As I mentioned earlier, there was no current coming through the lake. However, I’ve learned that when boats lock through a dam, even this little bit of water creates a current. So, every time a boat would lock through a dam, and the lock master would have to load up the dock, this would create a current. Even though I was 2 miles from the dam, we still felt the effects of the lock. I noticed that every time a boat locked through the dam, the bass would go on a feeding spree for about 15 to 20 minutes, and then the spree would be over.
There’s quite a bit of difference between the up-side of a pool and the down-side, and huge amounts of water are required to fill up a lock. Most people don’t recognize that when a boat locks through a dam, there’s a small current moving throughout the first 1 or 2 miles of the lake. 
I grew up fishing on the lower part of the Arkansas River, and I’d known for many years that fish would feed when a boat locked through the dam, since it created current. I’d learned that when you found a fishing location like the two ditches I’d identified during the tournament, and the water wasn’t moving, you could fish other techniques on other types of structures. But as soon as a barge started coming through the lock, you needed to go to the area where you knew bass were holding and fish the bait you were convinced the bass would eat.
I fished the Strike King Series 1 crankbait because the fish seemed to be feeding on the shad that were born this year, and that Series 1 crankbait was about the size of a small shad.
