RICHMOND, Va. — Greg DiPalma is a rookie on the Bassmaster Elite Series. But he’s a veteran at the James River, site of the Basspro.com Eastern Open, which begins today. This marks the Millville, N.J., resident’s 48th B.A.S.S. event and his 7th on the James River since 2011.
“I think it’s going to be a really good tournament as a whole,” said DiPalma. “We have a great tide for the entire system. Most of the guys are probably making the run down to Chickahominy. And you can fish outgoing tide the entire day. If you run the tides properly, you can run them all the way back to Osborne.”
Osborne Park & Boat Landing is the site of the 6 a.m. takeoffs Thursday through Saturday and the 2 p.m. weigh-ins Thursday and Friday.
DiPalma learned to bass fish on tidal waters in his home state of New Jersey. And he’s become increasingly confident in running the tides on the James River. In his six previous B.A.S.S. events here, DiPalma’s best finishes have come in his last two, when he was 14th in 2016 and 5th in 2017.
“I had an opportunity to win it (in 2017) and just lost the bites to make it happen,” he said. “I’m very optimistic this week. I did not check a lot of my stuff (in practice) because I was scared for other guys to see me on it. But you can catch them any way you want right now. You can catch them shallow or deep, with deep here being 10 to 12 feet.”
In the 2017 Open, Rick Morris won with a three-day total of 43 pounds, 15 ounces. DiPalma believes the top of the final leaderboard this week will be similar.
“You catch 12 ½ to 13 pounds a day, you’ll do really well,” he said. “Probably 15 pounds a day is going to win it.”
DiPalma is a big fan of the James River, saying, “There are more fish in this system than any river I’ve ever fished. There are a lot of those 1 ¾-pounders. But if you see the bags that come out of here in the springtime – 30 and 31 pounds, a lot of high 20s. This place has got ‘em. Anything could happen. You could see a 25-pound bag this week.”
The James River usually produces a lunker or two, even in these summer events. Big bass here in 2017 was 9 pounds, 3 ounces.
“The biggest thing for me every time I’ve been here is it’s always about getting that one big bite,” DiPalma said. “That’s what separates you.
“You’re probably going to see some big fish weighed-in. But you’ve got to have a limit to go with it. That’s the problem for a lot of these guys here that catch that one really big fish.”