Published: June 30, 2006 12:01 am      

Gregory survives Katrina and catches the big ones

Shortly after Susan Gregory launched her boat she picked up a rod and began casting. Since she had never been on the lake before, she decided to go fishing and find them and what better place to start than near a pier right beside the launch ramp.

It didn’t take the Women’s Bassmaster Tour pro long before she had her first bass on. In no time flat she put the bass in the boat, admired him and then released him back to be caught another day.

For the next hour or so Gregory worked the shallow shelf around the boathouse and pier with excellent results. While some anglers may have kept moving after catching that first bass, Gregory continued to work the area over and caught bass after bass. Susan was fishing with her daughter, Christina, on this day and the duo caught quite a few bass shortly after daybreak.



Early Start



 Susan Gregory grew up around New Orleans and was hooked on fishing at an early age, although none of her family actually did much fishing. While on a trip on a pleasure boat, she caught her first fish, a fine speckled trout, and she was hooked. Although that fish lit a fire in her, she could never have foreseen that one day she would be fishing on a national bass tournament trail.

While the Long Beach resident has overcome the odds by becoming a touring professional on the Women’s Bassmaster Tour, she also had to endure the trials and tribulations of Hurricane Katrina last fall. Like most of the residents of Mississippi, she was affected by the hurricane. However, Gregory and her family came through relatively unscathed and she is now back on track and pursuing her goal of becoming a top professional angler.

Moving on around a point, Gregory began working a shoreline and continued to catch and release bass as she moved along. After making a routine cast, Gregory suddenly bowed up on a lunker bass and the fight was on!

Although the bass was a pretty strong fighter, it was no match for this seasoned angler. Upon netting and landing the bass, she admired the fish, posed for a photo or two and then released him back into the water.

Gregory continued to work the shoreline and consistently caught bass after bass. She worked a variety of lures, but it didn’t seem to matter to the bass because they kept biting all of her offerings. On one shallow ledge off a point she paused for about 30 minutes and worked the area over thoroughly. In fact, she found a school of bass that really liked her Paca Craw worm. Time and time again she pitched the craw worm to the hungry bass and they just kept biting, and she kept right on catching and releasing them.



Consistent Success



To say that this lady angler knows her stuff is no small statement. I witnessed first hand her fish finding and catching abilities. In fact she didn’t venture too far in any direction without catching a bass. Competing in national bass tournaments has definitely fine tuned her fish-catching skills.

As the afternoon wore on Gregory continued to locate and catch bass all over the lake. While she caught fish of all sizes, she also caught quite a few lunkers in the four to six pound range. Near the end of the afternoon she got into a school of ravenous bass that just couldn’t resist her offerings. The fish were so aggressive and Gregory’s offerings were so tempting that she even caught two bass on one cast! If it gets any better than that I’d like to see it.

After spending a day on the water observing this talented lady angler, I’d have to say that the sky’s the limit when it comes to her professional bass fishing tournament aspirations. She’s already won at least one national tournament at the time of this writing and is poised to become one of the top lady anglers on the national tournament trail!