Master photographer Steve Bowman and I are assigned to cover Drew Benton, who is fourth on this third day of competition in the Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Elite Series Tournament at Lake Guntersville.
Benton and his cameraman flew by us as we were launching down lake. We are already on his third stop of the morning. The first two produced nothing, but a switch to topwater plugs paid off right away after he shut down the engine. Bass are schooling all around his boat right now.
In about as many casts, Benton has boated three keepers. As so often happens when you are surrounded by surface schooling fish, Benton just messed up. Trying to reach a far away surface eruption, he threw all the line off his reel. Now he has to retie.