You know. I’ll be honest here. I always though if the situation arose, I’d stay off a lake during a major tournament.. then they came to Athens.. during the spawn... the week I had taken vacation to fish.. I was surprised how quickly I changed my perception and chose to fish.

do you think the fact that Ott fished Athens in his show, Hunt for Monster Bass, last winter helped him to win the tournament?

No. Ott stumbled onto those fish. He said he was actually fishing the ramp area so he could get a head start loading and leaving. He knew he was doing poorly. He will admit that.

Sprague wears jeans with sparkly beads on the back pockets and has truck nuts hanging from his pick up. That tells you all you need to know. Hell he probably spray tans too.

His website says, "One of America's favorite pro bass fisherman."

I guess I am in the minority here. I don't care who made the comment in the article.. whether its Sprague, who I don't know from Adam, or one of the other Championship qualifiers. If there's any part of it that's true, its ridiculous. Not sure how fishing "parties" could ruin the fishing, but if there were really groups of locals wanting to go jack fish off beds or whatever so the lake didn't show out, that's just sad.

The worst part is that it kind of makes sense given the fact so many locals on here were already doing the RIP Lake Athens when they found out BPT would be on there for the Championship round. So, I guess its actually plausible for this to have happened.

I thought he found them on the one practice day they got on Athens?

I was only repeating what he said.

I heard him say saw schooling fish around there driving over the bridge. He saw that school on side image going under the bridge. I find it hard to believe he was worried about getting loaded quick

Jack fish off beds = fishing

Yep. Saw the fish busting bait driving over the bridge and then found that school scanning.

I thought it didn't fish good because the of the lightening storm the day before. Either way he had the same conditions as all of the other competitors so go win it or give respect to those who figured it out.

Also they could have kept the lake secret but it would get out while they were practicing at the latest, either way he would likely have complained about the local pressure no matter which lake they chose.

Yep and would have zero issue with someone fishing as normal, but would have an issue if the fishing was intended to make the fishing harder on the day the BPT guys showed up. So, I used jacking fish off beds as an example that could be rather obvious since that is what the vast majority of the guys who made the championship did on Fork.

Bad news for him Lake Athens is crowded most days,some days worse then others. For the most part people play nice and give each other room. As has been said maybe close the lakes so the "pro's" aren't inconvenienced by us commoners.

Bless his heart