By Pete Robbins
February 3, 2012
Alabama pro Randy Howell may only be 38 years old, with his boyish face and slender build making him look even younger, but he’s a mature 38. A seasoned 38. An experienced 38. The upcoming Red River Bassmaster Classic will be his tenth entry in bass fishing’s biggest event and he’s hoping that big show experience and Red River lessons will allow him to break through with his first Classic win.
He’s had four tour-level shots at the Red and the results have been decidedly mixed. The best of the bunch was a 17th place finish in an FLW Tour event in 2000. He strung together strong but not stellar limits of 9-06 and 9-15 to achieve that result. At the following year’s FLW he bombed with 1-11 on the first day before coming back with 12-05 the next day, but it wasn’t enough to leap anywhere near the top of the leader board and he finished 79th overall. That same year on the BASS side he finished 36th in a field of 155.
His most recent Red River competition was the 2009 Classic won by Skeet Reese. Howell squeaked into the top half of the field but ultimately finished 24th in a field of 51.
While none of those four events was superlative, Howell believes they gave him the building blocks to position himself for a Classic victory.
“I’ve been there enough times that I’ve eliminated a lot of dead water,” he said. “There’s lots of water there that doesn’t have the quality you need to be in contention to win.” Indeed, since there are no points to be earned from a decent finish, he’s committed to a “go for broke” approach in the Classic.
Classic Plan of Attack
Howell generally detests locking from one pool to another, fearing the risks of being locked out of weigh-in, but given the all-or-nothing nature of this tournament, he’ll lock through if necessary. “In the Classic, you roll the dice,” he explained. “If you mess up, that’s the breaks.” He believes that there are only a limited number of areas where the tournament can be won – three in Pool Four and two in Pool Five – so he’ll spend some time both above and below the lock then choose one or the other. “It’s all about making the right decision the first day.”
He’s learned about the perils of poor first day decisions the hard way. At the 1999 Classic on the Louisiana Delta, he finished a personal-best 11th overall, but might have made a run at a much higher place had he elected to make a long run the first day. He didn’t, and suffered for it, but made a comeback of sorts on days two and three when he elected to go to his distant area. Had he gone all three days he might not have beaten eventual winner Davy Hite, but he almost certainly would have been well inside the top ten.
At the 2007 Classic on Alabama’s Lay Lake, he was in 2nd place after the first competition day, but faltered over the subsequent days and ended up 13th. “I thought I had the big spotted bass figured out,” he recalled. “But on the second day I was hardheaded. I stayed in my areas instead of following the pattern.”
At the last Classic held on the Red, he suffered from the opposite malady – he made the right decision on the first day but couldn’t adjust as well as eventual winner Reese.
“I was right next to Skeet,” he recalled. “Boyd Duckett was there, too, and he led the first day. I had 16 pounds and I was in 9th. After two cold nights the fish filtered out into that little ditch and Skeet was in the right place at the right time. I don’t know if he realized it as it happened or if he fell into it, but he was there. I was working my way that way but had to back off.”
Going Aluminum?
Starting with the first regular season event of 2012, Elite Series anglers will have to commit to a single boat, or single style of boat, for the rest of the year. In other words, if they use a fiberglass rig at the St. Johns, they can’t switch to an aluminum boat later in the year. Those rules don’t apply to the Classic, however. Howell is one of the cadre of pros who have both aluminum and fiberglass boats, and he’ll have both with him in Shreveport, but he doesn’t envision using the smaller vessel in the tournament.
“I might use it in practice, but not in the tournament,” he said. It will help him explore certain backwaters more quickly, but he noted that he’s “never had any good tournaments there with it. It always backfires.”
His practice plan started before the December cutoff, when he spent four days on the river in that same aluminum boat, exploring “every body of water that you can float in.” That stiffened his resolve to focus on a group of areas that can be counted on one hand and gave him confidence that he’s properly ruled out other options. He’ll work to confirm those hunches when the official practice begins. The river threatens to fish small, so staking a claim on day one will be of the utmost importance.
What Victory Would Mean
Howell started his career as a bass pro as a teenager and dreamed of winning the Classic long before that. As he nears 40, the age when many pros seem to peak, he said that victory “would mean more than anything” to him.
“It would set me and my family up for the later years of my career. It would also help me to promote my ministry,” he added. “Years ago I would have said the money was the most important thing, but now I know it’s that as the Classic champion your reach is so broad, it would give me a bigger platform to do good.”
Howell’s GYCB Tools for the Red
Understandably, Howell was reluctant to divulge too much of his likely arsenal for the upcoming Classic, but he did offer up a few tidbits about which Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits will almost certainly see time on his deck and in the water:
- He said the Swim Senko and the Hula Swimmer could play a major role in his tournament attack. “I like those baits a lot and they should be great for swimming through pre-spawn and spawning areas.”
- On the usually dingy waters of the Red, he’ll primarily use plastics in “old fashioned dark colors.” His two favorites are black with red flake and junebug.
- He intends to flip a Flappin’ Hawg in denser cover.
- In the (hopefully) clearer backwaters, he may switch to green pumpkin with red flake and watermelon with red flake.
- While Howell did not express an opinion on whether the “Alabama Rig” should have been banned by BASS (it was), he did say that before the ban was announced “he had some plans for it in the Classic.”
