GEORGE COCHRAN’S HALF-MILLION-DOLLAR WEEKEND
Victory on the Last Day
 EDITOR'S
NOTE: George Cochran of Hot Springs, Arkansas, has just
finished a tremendous bass-fishing career with a $500,000
FLW (Forrest L. Wood) Championship win, the highest
payout for any bass-fishing tournament in history. Cochran,
a Strike King pro staffer for 30 years, has won two
Bassmasters Classics. Cochran admits, “Winning
championships on both the BASS and the FLW circuits
is a dream come true.” Only a few anglers in history
have been able to complete a double grand slam like
this.
QUESTION: On the last day of the tournament, there
were 12 fishermen left, and all our totals were zeroed.
Did you have any idea what was about to happen?
COCHRAN: Yes, I did, and to me this is the most amazing
part of the story. My daughter, Leslie, who had just
graduated from college, called me when I was driving
to the Potomac River to fish in a tournament just before
this FLW championship. Leslie told my wife, Debbie,
that she’d had a dream and seen me finish in the
top 10 in the Potomac River tournament. I finished seventh
in that tournament and thought that was a little strange
that Leslie had predicted that I would finish in the
top 10. However, I wasn’t prepared for the phone
call I got when I was driving from the Potomac River
to the FLW championship. As I was on the road going
to the FLW championship, my wife called and said, “Your
daughter is here at the house, and she says she’s
had the most-realistic dream of her life. She swears
that what she saw happened and that she was there as
a spectator. I’ll let her tell about her dream.”
So Deb handed Leslie the phone, and Leslie said, “Dad,
what I was dreaming seemed like reality. I was at the
FLW Championship and saw you win it. I saw you hold
the check and the trophy up.” I said, “Now,
Leslie, I don’t know what to think of this.”
These were the only two  dreams
Leslie ever had told me about, and to my knowledge,
the only two dreams she’d ever had about my fishing.
But she was accurate about both of them.
QUESTION: Wow, that’s amazing. Tell me about
what happened on the last day of the tournament.
COCHRAN: I knew where I was going to fish on the last
day, although I hadn’t practiced or fished in
this quarter mile of boat docks. This place was the
one I’d been saving. This spot is mine and my
son’s favorite bank where we night fish for bass.
There’s always fish on this bank. The entire lake
(Lake Hamilton) that we were fishing on was really wide.
But when you came to this certain bridge, the lake necked
down and was only a couple of hundred yards wide at
that point. Nobody fished this small section of the
lake because there was so much boat traffic, you really
couldn’t fish there. This area had some little
deep pockets and some really big boat docks. Some of
these docks are 30- to 40-feet long. The pockets are
kind of flat and drop off into deep water. But bass
are always feeding in this area, behind the boat docks
in little openings where you can get to the bank.
On the last day, I ran straight to this section of
the lake, hoping to get to fish it before the boat traffic
made the area impossible. On my first cast, I missed
a bass. On the second cast, I caught a bass on the Baby
Chug Bug. And I saw two other bass following the hooked
bass back to the boat. I was fishing the Baby Chug Bug
on the days when we had no wind at the tournament. Then
when we did have wind, and I needed a bigger splash,
I’d fish the Spit-N-King. But on this last morning,
the wind was dead still so I fished the Baby Chug Bug.
In the next pocket I came to, I caught my third bass.
In the next pocket I fished, I caught another bass.
Then I pulled up behind a boat dock that looked like
it was 40-yards long. The dock was secured to the bank
by about 20 cables. I’m certain that no one ever
 considered
casting bait on the back side of the boat dock with
all those cables in the water. But I was using 15-pound-test
line on my own cranking rod, and I had a War Eagle ¼-ounce
buzz bait tied onto the end of my line.
I threw that buzz bait as far as I could throw it across
those cables, to the back of that boat dock. The bait
would go over one cable, make a click-click sound, go
over another cable and make a click-click sound. Then
when the bait was about halfway back to the boat, a
3-pound bass attacked the bait. I drug those bass over
three sets of cables before I got it to the boat, and
the bass fell off the hook. When I pulled on my line
just slightly, the line broke. I put that fish in my
livewell, and I thought to myself, “I’ve
just fished the most-perfect day in my life, except
for the two Bassmasters Classics where I was flawless.
On that day of the FLW Championship, I was totally focused,
my casting was excellent, I caught every fish that bit
my bait, and within the first hour of that last day
of the tournament, I’d caught my limit. I probably
had 9 pounds of bass during the first 40 minutes of
the tournament. By 8 a.m., when I turned around to go
back down that bank, there was so much boat traffic
I couldn’t fish. So I left that area and went
to two other places, caught a few more fish and was
able to cull a bass. By 9:30 a.m., I left that area,
went about a mile from my house, caught another nice
bass and was able to cull another fish. From looking
at the fish in my live well, I knew I had almost 11
pounds of bass. I was using the War Eagle buzzbait because
I’d already fished the Strike King buzzbait, and
on this day, on this lake, the bass seemed to want a
different type of squeak than what the Stripe King buzzbait
put out. To win the tournament, I had used the Spit-N-King,
the Strike King Fancy Worm, the Baby Chug Bug and the
War Eagle buzzbait. Throughout the tournament, I caught
and weighed in bass on all these lures.
As I went to the weight-in, I felt confident that
I had won the tournament. When I first started on that
last day, I only had 5 spectator boats with me. After
I’d caught my limit at 8 a.m., I looked around
and saw 30 spectator boats behind me. By 9 a.m. there
were 40 boats around me, and by 11 a.m., 62 boats were
following me. In this tournament, every time you catch
a fish, the officials put a notice on the internet.
So, the people following the internet postings knew
I’d won before I did. When I arrived at the weight-in
site, all the fans were cheering for me and yelling,
“You got it, you got it.” Then when I saw
my daughter after the weigh-in, she said, “Dad,
it happened just like I saw it in my dream.” Now
if that doesn’t give you goose bumps, you don’t
have a heart. Also in the tournament, they gave me a
Field and Stream boat. When I was nine years old, my
mother started buying me “Field and Stream”
magazine, and I’d read it from cover to cover.
I thought it was  really
ironic that the boat I won and the shirt I wore were
sponsored by the magazine I stared reading so many years
ago.
QUESTION: What’s next for you George?
COCHRAN: When I hang up this phone, I’m going
to take the check I’ve just won down to the bank
and put it into my retirement found. Then, I’m
going down to my local boat dealer and buying everyone
there a steak dinner. I had boat trouble during the
tournament, and those people at that dealership worked
really hard to get my boat up and ready. As I was leaving,
one of the employees said, “George, what are you
going to do with that half-million dollars if you win
it?” I said, “I’m going to come back
here and buy all of you steak dinners.” I’m
planning to fish the Bassmasters Classic this year,
and then I’ll retire from the Bassmaster circuit.
I’ll only be fishing the FLW tournaments next
year.
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