Classic is all or nothing

It has been four days since the spray has settled at the 38th annual Bassmasters Classic on Lake Hartwell in South Carolina.

Alton Jones of Waco, Texas, won the event with a three-day total of 15 bass weighing 49 pounds, 7 ounces. He took home $500,000 and a boatload of endorsement opportunities.

Every year, the Classic is held at a different location and about 50 anglers qualify for the event. It's pretty much of a winner-take-all scenario. For instance, the winner this year pocketed a half million dollars. Second place settled for $45,000.

Most pros I've talked to over the years have spoken of "swinging for the fences" in this tournament. A win can solidify a career. Nobody remembers who finishes second at the Classic. It's no picnic for competitors. I rode as a media observer with pro Dustin Wilks for three days at the Classic held in Charlotte in 2004. That was three 17-hour days in a row, and I didn't have to cast 1,000 times a day.

Two North Carolina anglers qualified for the event this year. Jeff Coble of Beaufort won the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Weekend Series Championship to grab the last slot, and Dave Wolak of Wake Forest qualified from the main tour series.

Coble finished 41st and pocketed $10,000, and Wolak made the cut to 25 for the final day, placed 14th and earned $14,000. Wolak could not be reached for comment. Coble, never at a loss for words, summed up his experience.

"I fished stupid," he said, laughing, from Lexington, where he was dropping off equipment at tournament pal David Wright's house. "I had said it would be won with a jig on the lower end of the lake, but I had the depth off by about 25 feet. I put all my eggs in the shallow jig bite."

Coble and Wright have a well-documented agreement where they share tournament purses -- more than $1 million since they started.

Coble said a late cold front made the shallow fishing harder, but he stuck to his pattern.

"In qualifying events, you want to be a shotgun [catch a limit]," he said. "In this tournament, you want to be a rifle [shoot for big fish]."

Coble caught three bass totaling 8 pounds, 10 ounces the first day and three weighing 8 pounds, 12 ounces the second day.

Coble said he was impressed with this year's Classic.

"I've been going to Classics since Richmond in the '80s, and these were the biggest crowds I've ever seen," he said. "Vendors sold completely out of product [at the Classic ESPN Outdoors Expo]. People were sitting in lawn chairs on the highway watching us go by. The ESPN brass seems more pumped up about bass fishing now than they were a few years ago.

"I'm not easily impressed, but I was by this."

For those looking ahead, future Classics have been scheduled. The 39th Bassmaster Classic will be held on the Red River out of Shreveport and Bossier City, La., In 2010, Birmingham, Ala., will host the Classic for the seventh time, and in 2011, the Classic returns to New Orleans.