RUSSELLVILLE — Jason Christie edged Gerald Swindle to win the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament by 4 ounces on Lake Dardanelle.
Four lucrative ounces.
Christie, of Park Hill, Okla., caught five bass weighing 19 pounds, 2 ounces Sunday for a four-day combined weight of 72-3, and it was good enough to claim a firstplace check of $100,000.
Swindle, the 2005 Bassmaster Angler of the Year from Warrior, Ala., caught the heaviest limit of the day (20-1) to give him a four-day total of 71-15 and the $25,000 second prize.
The four-ounce differential translated into $75,000 more for Christie, or $18,750 per ounce.
“If I die today, at least I know what it’s like to have the best 40 minutes of fishing in my life, because I had it here,” Swindle said. “It was fourth-and-inches, and I didn’t make it.”
Sunday’s victory was the fourth in 13 months for Christie, who won three times in 2013.
Christie won an Elite Series tournament on Bull Shoals Lake in April 2013. A week before the Bull Shoals tournament, he won the FLW tournament on Beaver Lake. He also won an FLW Tour event on Grand Lake in Oklahoma in June 2013.
“Last year, a lot of people said I had a lot of momentum, but it’s over with,” said Christie, who started the day in fourth place, 3-7 behind leader Greg Hackney. “To be able to come back and win another one, maybe it’s not.”
Hackney, a Star City native who lives in Gonzales, La., was the leader by 13 ounces coming into’s Sunday’s final round, dropped to third (5/15-3; 71-11), followed by Rick Clunn of Ava, Mo. (5/15-4; 70-15) and Keith Combs of Huntington, Texas (5/14-0; 68-3).
Hackney, who briefly captured the Angler of the Year lead from Mark Davis of Mount Ida, ceded it back to Davis by falling to third. Davis now leads the AOY race by one point. Christie won the tournament utilizing a swimming jig technique that was born and developed on the Arkansas River.
He swam a half-ounce Booyah jig with a Yum Craw Chunk trailer over grass mats in Illinois Bayou. Many anglers swam jigs in grass during the tournament, he said, but he gave it a little twist by ripping it like a jerkbait. That’s because the bass were high in the grass, and the ripping presentation provoked them to leave cover and hit the jig in the open.
“I fished water that had 3 to 4 inches of visibility,” Christie said. “In the Arkansas River, fish don’t relate to the bottom a lot, especially around weeds because it’s mud. They want to get high in the weeds. Every fish that bit came horizontal to get it. I saw every single fish that bit me this week.”
Christie said he caught all of his biggest in matted weeds in transitional areas between spawning flats and the channel. His best spot was a choke point where the water was especially dirty. “The area I chose was a half-mile long between the bridges where it narrowed the most, and there were a couple of creeks that fed that,” Christie said. “We got rain the second day and dirtied it back up. Whenever you go from the channel to where it opens back up, fish just tend to live there. They want flats nearby where they can go and roam around.”
Christie said he usually knows on the last day when he’s going to win a tournament, but not Sunday. In fact, he said he feared he lost the tournament Saturday when he lost a 7-pounder in a moment of carelessness. Instead of bringing the fish to hand, he tried to swing it into the boat. The line broke while the fish was midair.
“As professionals, we do a lot of things the right way, but … I got caught up in the emotion and tried to swing that fish, and it was a bad mistake,” Christie said. “I caught a couple of 4-pounders really quick, and I didn’t think that fish was that big because the water was so dirty. When it came out of the water, I saw it was a lot bigger. You can’t really swing a 7-pounder. Something’s got to give.”
That error was the result of not retying in a timely fashion, Christie said. “It wasn’t the line’s fault,” Christie said. “It was 10:30 or 11, and I hadn’t retied. There was some zebra mussels in with that grass, so I probably had a nick in the line.”
Swindle was ecstatic over his performance. He caught his fish in the grass, too, but he said Christie is the best grass fisherman in the Elite Series.
“There ain’t no grass left in Shoal Bay,” Swindle said. “I done mowed it all down.”