Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 26, 1995 TAG: 9510260034
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Let's see now: He got lost; he ran his boat aground; he was caught on a mud flat for five hours; he ran out of gas - twice. All this during the two practice days.
You might think the 20-year-old Lynchburg angler would have had the home-court advantage on the James, but Dudley said that wasn't the case.
``I probably have fished it a total of maybe 10 days in my life,'' he said.
That's not even enough to learn the back roads that lead to the water.
``The first day of practice, I got lost,'' Dudley said. ``I took a wrong road, somehow, and ended up down at the Chickahominy River. So here I am fishing for $45,000 and I don't even get in the water the first day of practice until after 10 [a.m.]. And I am practicing where I don't even want to be.''
Trying to make up for lost time, Dudley gunned his boat out of a narrow creek.
``I was getting up speed on a straight stretch and I was still trimming [the motor] up and I trimmed it up too high and couldn't turn it and I beached my boat completely on dry land.''
Even during a major tournament, the tidal James has enough twists and turns, cuts and creeks to offer a wilderness setting, so Dudley had to wait for help. It finally arrived in the form of fellow pro Mike Wurm.
``I got out in mud up to my knees and turned the nose toward the water as best I could and somehow we towed that thing off of there,'' Dudley said. ``The day hadn't been going too good.''
The second day of practice, Dudley was on the water early. This time, he was where he wanted to be; in fact, it was the spot that eventually won him the tournament with four days of limit (five-fish) catches. But his woes weren't over.
After landing a couple of bass, and getting his confidence jump-started, he took off to look for alternate spots.
``I figured that place would get hammered, because that area is pretty close to the marina,'' he said.
The tidal traits of the James can be deceptive, with falling water exposing mud flats that can snag a boat like quick-drying glue.
``I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and got out of the channel a little bit and beached my boat on a sandbar,'' Dudley said. ``I had to wait two hours for the tide to go back out and three hours for it to come back in so the boat could be lifted up enough from the flat.''
This not only cost Dudley practice time, but caused him to miss the pre-tournament pairing meeting. Oh, yes, and don't forget the problems with fuel.
``I ran out of gas, so I went up to this house and they had a couple gallons of lawn mower gas. So I put it in my boat and run toward Jordan Point and run out of gas again.''
This time, he gets a tow from another fisherman, finds some gas, then finds the sandbar.
When the four days of competition began, Dudley figured the best thing to do was nothing, to stay put in the Farrar Island area where he had located a couple of bass during practice. He tied on a Zoom Super Fluke, a plastic lure that represents a crippled shad, and began reeling in limit catches with a fast, shallow retrieve.
He moved up in the standings each day, then the weather turned nasty the final morning and he couldn't buy a fish. It didn't help that by then he had attracted the BASS TV crew.
Dudley, who this past July became the youngest angler to compete in a BASS Masters Classic, tried dropping his bait deeper and ... BOOM! He hooked a 3-pounder.
``That's when my reel fell off my rod,'' he said. ``Just as soon as they saw that, the camera people were dead on me. I threw the reel down and put the rod between my legs and started hand-lining. When the bass got close to the boat he started making hard surges, so I was using my fingers as my drag.''
Dudley landed the bass, and finished the tournament with 44 pounds, 9 ounces. It was his first BASS victory and placed him 16th in the BASS Angler of the Year standings.
by CNB