Grant Smith’s phone wouldn’t stop blowing up.
Smith, a Bradford native, was the Co-Angler champion of the National Walleye Tour’s Lake Erie tournament held at Port Clinton, Ohio on Friday (April 19).
Smith, a board member of the Willow Creek Sportsman’s Club, had a grand total of 72.02 pounds caught, calling it two “dream days” of fishing.
“We have a core group of guys with the Willow Creek Sportsman’s Club that travel around to bigger tournaments. Every spring, we like to fish the western basin of Lake Erie. This year, we didn’t make the guys trip because we planned on going out for this tournament.”
A co-angler, the National Walleye Tour pairs Smith with two different pros for the two days of fishing.
“It’s pretty cool, seeing all the guys we watch on YouTube,” Smith said. “I got drawn pretty early in the boat drawing, I think No. 12 (of 140). I got paired with Jack Winters. I didn’t know who he was, so I did a quick search. He’s a Lake Erie local.”
To say that Smith had success with Winters on the first day would be an understatement.
“The fish were 50 miles away and that’s nothing to shy away from with the waves and weather, so unpredictable on Lake Erie,” Smith said. “The weather was decent. It was one right after the other, just a dream day of fishing. For one day, it was just big fish after big fish. These guys come from all across the nation and I didn’t expect to do as well as we did. When we got up there (to the podium after the first day) I was leading by 10 pounds.”
Day two brought with it a new set of challenges with a different pro.
“That night, you get paired up with another guy,” Smith said. “It’s kind of scary. You go from leading on day one to the luck of the draw on day two. I drew Chris Berglund, from northern Minnesota, and he’s just a great guy. I had never met him before, either. It was his first tournament on Lake Erie and he was fishing a very similar spot. The weather was nasty.”
Just over six miles into the 50-mile journey out, the duo encountered a major challenge.
“Because of how bad the weather was, our kicker motor ripped right off the boat and fell to the bottom of Lake Erie,” Smith said. “We had to plug the gas line with a screwdriver. Our technique was trolling, and 99 percent of the time you need a kicker motor to do that.”
Smith feared the worst.
“I thought that’s it, there goes the tournament,” he said. “A lot of people would have lost their marbles, but Chris was calm and we worked together to come up with a plan. We got it taped up and fixed.”
And once they got it fixed, it was another dream day of fishing.
“After a couple of passes, we finally ended up dialing in on the fish,” Smith said.”Once we got our fish, we fueled up at Lorain Harbor and it was about a three-hour boat ride to get back.”
Once they got back and the anticipation of waiting to get weighed was over, Smith received the good news that he was the Co-Angler champion.
“I knew we had a very good chance,” Smith said. “We couldn’t flop on day two, we just had to come in with a decent bag. I was hearing some of the weigh-ins and was pretty confident. These guys are like celebrities to us, and to be on stage with a guy like John Hoyer (the first place pro champ) was pretty incredible.”
Smith, who has been fishing competitively for about seven years, will be back out on Lake Erie at Lorain for the Bass Pro Shops 2024 NTC team championships.
“There’s 12 of us going out,” Smith said of the group from the Willow Creek Sportsman’s Club. “It’s a bigger tournament than this one I was just in. It’s about a 280-boat field and the one I was just in was 140. The guys we have are very experienced and we have a very good shot of doing well out there.”
More big events are on the horizon as well, including the Kinzua Cup May 18 and 19 at Willow Creek.
“We’re really looking forward to it,” Smith said.
