Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 21, 1991 TAG: 9104210104
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Cowan, a 32-year-old grocery-store clerk from Pearl River, N.Y., caught half of his 14 Smith Mountain Lake keepers on the Slug-Go, a plastic, mollusk-shaped lure that has the erratic movements of a Saturday night drunk.
When Cowan hooked 15 bass on the lure during the first day of practice, he knew he had found a tool to help him outfish his 41 competitors, including entries from Japan and South Africa.
But there was one major problem. Herb Reed also was in the tournament. He is the creator and manufacturer of the Slug-Go.
"I was pretty nervous about trying to beat the man with his own bait," Cowan said.
Reed had Saturday's best catch at the Roanoke Civic Center weigh-in - 11 pounds, 1 ounce, including the day's biggest bass, a 4-pound, 3-ounce largemouth. His 27-pound, 9-ounce total, however, wasn't enough to unseat Cowan.
Cowan won $15,000 plus a berth in the BASS Masters Classic on Aug. 22-24 on the Chesapeake Bay at Baltimore.
After the Classic, Cowan said, he plans to turn pro.
"I've hoped to be a pro since I was 12 years old," he said.
Reed, from Southington, Conn., won $7,000. He and Cowan are in the Eastern Division of the 40,000-member B.A.S.S. Federation.
The tournament catapulted four other fishermen into the prestigious Classic as winners of their divisions: Dennis Stacey of Marion, S.C., who had a catch of 21 pounds, 10 ounces and is in the Southern Division; Jerry Wagner, Fort Smith, Ark., 20 pounds, Central Division; Gary Brown, Little Hocking, Ohio, 18 pounds, 1 ounce, Northern Division; and Mickey Trousdale, Tucumacair, N.M., 14 pounds, 4 ounces, Western Division.
When the tournament began Thursday, Cowan gambled by pointing the spear-shaped bow of his Ranger boat down the Roanoke River at Hardy and running hard toward the dam of the 20,000-acre impoundment. He figured, correctly, that there would be less competition in the clear water of the lower lake, and the bass wouldn't be affected as much by the cold front that the weatherman was promising.
Reed said he made a mistake by fishing the turbid water of Beaver Dam Creek the first day of the tournament, before moving downstream.
While some contestants viewed the lake's surface as a mirror, Cowan saw it as a window, and that allowed him to move along the shoreline spotting bass at depths of 1 to 6 feet. The bigger fish he targeted were migrating onto their spawning areas.
"They were a lot easier to catch if they weren't holding on anything," he said. "You could chase around with them more."
Cowan honed away at the resistance of one particular bass Saturday for 27 minutes before it lashed out at his lure.
"He was working on building a bed and I would throw in there and he would run away over there and I would throw over there. Wherever he went, I just kept throwing to him, chasing him around," said Cowan, who switched lures six times during the chase, changing colors, types and retrievers.
Hooking bass for him in addition to the Slug-Go were the Gitzit and the Hales Craw Worm. But he reserved the most praise for the Slug-Go.
"They'd see the Slug-Go and all of a sudden it darts up to the top and starts sliding down to the bottom. They can't stand it," he said.
The tournament fishermen entered a total of 222 bass, weighing 437 pounds, 12 ounces. B.A.S.S. officials reported that all but two were alive at the weigh-in.
After clattering on the center-stage scales, as if embarrassed that their camouflage green wasn't working, the bass were trucked back to the lake by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
by CNB