Paul Marks did not so much learn the winning pattern at Lake Murray as bring it with him. The Bassmaster Elite Series champion grew up on Georgia's Lake Lanier, a renowned blueback-herring fishery, and when he rolled into the South Carolina event he found a lake that fished the same way.
"Number one thing I like about Lake Murray is it's a blue back herring fishery," Marks said. "They're very similar lakes. There's humps, points, drop-offs, blowthroughs, saddles. It's all very similar." That comfort kept him calm as the standings shifted around him. "Consistency is probably my biggest weapon," he said. "I just felt right at home and never got rattled."
His tool was a Zoom Super Fluke, a bait he has thrown his whole life. The hard part was reading how the fish wanted it, which refused to stay still. "It changed every hour," he said. "How they wanted it, the cadence, the speed, if they wanted it on the surface or down a little bit. I just had to figure it out."
In clear water, presentation was everything. The first cast to each spot, he said, was the most important, because the bass could see a long way and would not commit if they got a good look at the lure. He even believed the sound of the bait landing helped, with the splash and the lure working overhead triggering more fish to react.
Key decisions shaped his week. A six-pound, 12-ounce bass around midday on day two rescued an otherwise thin session and shifted his momentum. On the final morning, when his best spots gave up only a small fish, he switched to a crankbait along the bank and quickly boxed two fish over five pounds, the move he credited as the day's biggest.
When his winning weight hit the scales, with his mother watching on Mother's Day, Marks said it felt like a dream. The result also doubled down on a nickname he has now earned twice. "I'm probably the herring king," he said, "because I fished two Bassmaster Elites that were on herring waters and got the win in both of them."
