Montgomery To Spend December Learning The Lake He Lived On During College For The Bassmaster Classic
Even though he graduated from Clemson University which sits on the shores of Lake Hartwell and his apartment was right beside the lake, when he was not in class Andy Montgomery spent most of his fishing time on nearby Lake Keowee.
“Looking back that probably was not the smart thing to do,” said Montgomery who will be one of the pros competing in the Bassmaster Classic on Lake Hartwell in February. “I did not spend much time on Hartwell so I don’t have a lot of experience on the lake.”
In fact Montgomery has fished only one major tournament on the lake and that one did not end well for him. In early March Montgomery was able to weigh in only seven fish the first two days of the FLW Tour tournament on the lake and finished 108th with just over 14 pounds.
“That was pretty much my experience on Hartwell,” said Montgomery who graduated from Clemson with an engineering degree but decided to pursue a career in fishing instead. “But the Classic should be totally different. The FLW was in March and the fish were already thinking about spawning. Unless we have a really big warming trend it probably will be wintertime fishing in the Classic.”
The Classic will be held Feb. 20-22, with 56 anglers vying for the title of Bassmaster Classic champion and a share of the $1 million purse. Fifty-five of those qualifiers have been determined. The remaining slot will be filled during the Toyota Bonus Bucks Bassmaster Team Championship to be held on Lake DeGray, Ark., Dec. 9-13.
Since Montgomery is already in and he does not have to fish it, by the time of the Bassmaster Team Championship he hopes to have spent some quality days on Lake Hartwell, learning where the fish hang out.
“I’ll probably go up there in the next week or so and I’ll try to get to the lake two or three times a week. It’s about an hour and a half from my house so I can drive it in one day pretty easily,” said Mongtomgery who lives in Blacksburg, S.C.
Montgomery had a fairly solid year on the Bassmaster Elite circuit, with four top 30 finishes, including an 11th place in the first tournament of the year on Lake Seminole in mid-March.
“I started out really strong, then I had a lull in the middle of the season and I had one really bad tournament,” he said. That was the fourth tournament of the year when he finished 101st at Toledo Bend in early May. Going into the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year Championship
at Bays de Noc near Escanaba, Mich., in mid-September, Montgomery knew he had to have a strong finish in order to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic.
Montgomery not only finished strong at Bays de Noc, he finished strong for the year and was ranked 35th in the final Angler of the Year standings. The top 39 qualified for the Classic.
But he was not done yet. Although he did not need to fish the Bassmaster Southern Opens, Montgomery entered the final Southern Open on nearby Lake Norman in early October, and won the tournament, boosting his yearly win money by more than $46,000.
Montgomery finished 26th in the only other Bassmaster Classic he has qualified for, the 2011 Classic on the Louisiana Delta, and he hopes to make a much stronger showing in his second chance at pro fishing’s top title this February.
