Photo: Rainbow City’s Adam Brown (pictured at left) and Gadsden’s Greg Diggs (right) display their first-place plaques and a $10,00 prize after winning the Alabama Bass Trail North Division Tournament on July 25 at Neely Henry Lake in Gadsden. (Courtesy of Chris Brown)
By Jason Duran/alabamabasstrail.org
The fourth stop of the Alabama Bass Trail North Division at Neely Henry Lake on July 25 in Gadsden was an exciting win for the local team of Adam Brown and Greg Diggs. With 15.67 pounds of Neely Henry bass, the duo took home the $10,000 prize and qualified for the ABT Championship.
Brown, of Rainbow City, and Diggs, of Gadsden, originally planned to fish creeks, but since they were Boat No. 183, they expected other teams to work those creeks. To help them have more areas to fish, Brown and Diggs used a shallower running boat to go even more shallow than the competition. Brown and Diggs went with that plan until they pulled into their first creek, looked around and noticed hardly anyone else was there.
“When we pulled in, we just sat there for a minute and stared at each other in shock that we had it almost all to ourselves,” said Diggs. They were then able not only to fish shallow in the creeks but target the mouths of the creeks as well.
“The plan all along was to go shallow this time of year,” said Brown. “The deep bite here really is just hard, and there are only a couple good areas that are usually covered up with fishermen.” Brown and Diggs spent the day rotating between three creeks in a 10-mile radius from take-off, fishing water from 2 to 6 feet. Both men have been fishing Neely Henry for a long time and were able to use that history to put together the win. Brown and Diggs used a black and blue Bo’s Jig and a chartreuse and white Bo’s Spinner Bait.
“We have lost many times by an ounce, and to win by an ounce really feels good after losing that way before,” said Brown.
Bradley Jones and Broox Goza finished in second place with 15.52 pounds, while Mark McCaig and Tim Hurst took third place with a total of 14.38 pounds. Fourth place went to Sam Long of Gadsden and Jason Atkins of Section with a total of 13.74 pounds.
Sponsors of the 2020 Alabama Bass Trail include Phoenix Bass Boats, Bill Penney Toyota, Garmin, Academy Sports & Outdoors, America’s First Federal Credit Union, Sweet Home Alabama, Alabama Tourism Department, Alabama Mountain Lakes Tourist Association, T-H Marine Supplies, Wedowee Marine, Strike King, Buffalo Rock, Mountain Dew, Jack’s, Fish Neely Henry Lake.com, Alabama Power Company, Lew’s Fishing, Berkley, YETI, Power Pole, Big Bite Bait Company, E3 Apparel and Hydrowave.