Sean Stafford What's the Story !

[Smitty_dennis]

Congrats Sean...We are all happy for you. We are glad to see you win, but we want to know the story......how did you do it !!!!

[sean stafford]

Thanks to everyone for all the congrats. It feels amazing to have finally bagged a big tournament. I've seen some of the posts about my style of fishing and I have to say that they are right on. I have never been much of a finesse fisherman. I never felt like I had a chance to compete with the specialists like Folkstead, Breazeale, Payne, and Reese just to name a few. But until yesterday I had never won either.

Saturday morning started off great. We launched at about 5:35am and headed to a well known area on the south end. By 6:00am we had our first two fish. I started it off with an 8.28lber which came on a swimbait on 50# power pro-a good start. After the fish was in the well we were happy, but not finished. within a couple minutes my co-angler Steve Palenko nailed a 7.67 on the same rig. So with just under 16lbs in the boat we were relaxed and felt ahead of the game. We ran around the lake throwing swimbaits for about 2 hours but only managed a couple of 2lbers. We gave it up to head north, pull out our flippin' sticks and power pro to fish another area with Brush Hogs and lizards. After a short time I caught one about 5 or 6 and we were in cruise control for the rest of the day. I figured we'd stay and fish for a while in that area because I new the Clear Lake "Bent Rod Program" could most likely render it useless for the next day. We made a small upgrade or two and headed back to be close to check-in. We had 26.28 in the boat
(-0.40 for the deceased) and we were satisfied for the day.

Sunday morning my partner and took off to find a much different bite. Two and a half hours of swimbaiting yeilded one bite (probably one of those griebes us swimbait fisherman love ). I wasn't too concerned because I hadn't touched hardly any of my water up there the previous day. By about 10:30 the skunk was still in the boat and the dark clouds felt like they were coming over. In desperation I ran to a couple area's and picked off a limit of small bed fish. After the limit was filled the wind was starting to pick up and clouds were moving in. I said lets go catch some swimbait fish . We ran back down south and you guessed it. No clouds, no wind. It was around 1pm and we had about 9lbs in the boat, I had to do something. I pulled out a spinning rod with 10lb big game and a darthead (yeah that's right), found a break in 12-18ft of water and went to work. After a few minutes a 5lber was in the boat. I felt like I had figured something out and I stuck with it. A half hour later I caught another fish around 4 and a short while later a 6. Things were really coming together. On the last cast of the day my non-boater Chuck Wood put the nail in the coffin with a 4.5lber. I was thrilled. The ride back was short and sweet. I knew the bite was tougher but I was still worried about Jimmy. When I saw him weigh his fish it sank in. What a great day.

I want to thank everyone for their support and encouragement it really means a lot.

[CZ]

Congrats on the win sean. Great report!

[Murph]

Great job Sean! Congrats on the victory, as I'm sure there will be plenty more. Nice adjustment, where a lot of us would have fell a part. See ya at the Open.

[Keith Bryan]

Sean,

Way to go, nice job you work hard at it and I'm very happy for you.

Keith Bryan
Powell Rods

[deltabass]

Great job Sean. I knew it was just a matter of time.

Nick Welton

[Hollywood]

Congradulations Sean, Way to go! Great for you to get your first big win!!! Congrats,

Kevin Johnson

[Colebass]

You got the first one behind you, congratulations! I'm looking forward to watching you win a few more!

[FATGUY]

CONGRATS AGAIN SEAN . i really enjoyed the day i drew you in the delta .. ..good things are oin the way for you .. bob g

[SABP]

Sean, thanks for sharing.

Great job in your approach and an excellent adjustment. You have just taken it to another level. Congratulations on your first win and I know there will be more. I can just imagine how proud Brian must be of you.

Damon

[Bob Simard]

Great tournament - GREAT finish! Way to figure it out Dude.

Congradulations!

- Bob Simard

[NaCl]

Thought you said you are a power fisherman. Darthead? LOL!

.....NaCl

[Steve_Morgan]

Sean,

Great work, mate. I'll make sure I'm looking from the top down from now on as I'm checking out the results from this side of the world!

Cheers,

SM

[Howard Hughes]

Congratulations Sean ! It was just a matter of time before you won better sooner than later great job!

Howard Hughes