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Through the years we’ve always enjoyed fishing together for fun,” said Klein, who belonged to a bass club as a teen. “The team format made it possible for us to work together instead of against each other like we would in a normal tournament.”

How did they do it? Klein and Grigsby, already familiar with each other’s fishing strengths, leveraged their respective angling skills to the max. Klein grew up fishing western waters and mastered finesse fishing long before he picked up a flipping rod to win national tournaments from coast to coast. On the flip side, his Florida partner is recognized as one of the most skilled shallowwater sight fishermen in the sport. Obviously, the pairing made it possible for the two experts to effectively and efficiently seine the entire water column.

“Our game plan was fundamentally based on a team strategy, and we executed that principle to the fullest extent,” added Grigsby, who personified the concept, drop shotting for the first time after learning the technique in practice from Klein.

“One of the most overlooked aspects when two guys share a boat is they don’t work together as a team,” reasoned Grigsby. “They are paired in a ‘team’ tournament yet they mentally fish like they’re in a draw tournament. That’s the competitive spirit coming from within.”

Grigsby and Klein avoided that mental drawback as follows.

“We made it a point to use different baits, or variations of them, to avoid duplication of effort,” explained Klein. “Anytime we went into an area we’d dialogue over it, analyze it and work different angles.”

“The most important thing was communication,” added Grigsby. “I’d speak up if I saw something that would work for us, playing off my strengths, and Gary would do the same with his skill sets.”

While their peers struggled in the sweltering 105-degree heat, the shallow-deep connection of Grigsby and Klein had the fish dialed in, catching spotted bass, largemouth and smallmouth at the rate of 25 a day. Double hookups were common. The scenario might be historical but the fundamentals of bait selection, once again, prove how combining strengths can be advantageous in a team event.

Grigsby, also a skilled topwater angler due to his passion for saltwater fishing, scored keepers as the sun rose over the rolling hillside. The tactic was to catch fish moving up to feed on smelt roaming across tapering points in the northern California bass fishery. As his Florida partner caught topwater fish, Klein caught those less reluctant to take the floating offering by drop shotting along the bottom.

After the topwater bite ended, Klein took over the trolling motor and the pair went drop shotting. Klein kept his eyes focused on the depthfinder to keep the team’s boat in what they determined was a prime strike zone in 25 feet of water. Meanwhile, Grigsby kept his eyes trained on the lake’s clear bottom in the event he could spot a cruising fish through his polarized sunglasses. He did in one case and a two-pound spotted bass was brought aboard as the evidence.

“I was just kidding when I told him the only thing that would make the day better at one point was for him to catch a sight fish,” recalled Klein. “I knew he’d done it when I heard him from the back of the boat, laughing. But again, what this proves is we maximized our strengths.”

In all fairness, the longtime friendship between the two veteran anglers was a plus and made the team approach gel smoothly for Grigsby and Klein. But they also point out that bass club anglers less acquainted with each other can excel at the team format.

“Gary and I were paired in a random draw and it became the luckiest of the tournament,” recalled Grigsby. “But one of the first things we did was to identify our strengths and weaknesses.”

“What that allowed us to do was eliminate any potential faults that could prevent us from doing well as a team,” added Klein. “We agreed that if we came up on any sight fish that it’d be up to him to make the first cast. Likewise, we had a system for deep fish and it was the same plan of execution.”

“We talked constantly when we worked an area,” said Grigsby. “That’s really a key and guys should dialogue about what’s going through their mind.

If you are trying to work as a team then how else can you be a team player?” Klein also believes that picking a suitable teammate from the opposite end of the angling spectrum can be advantageous, especially on a seasonal trail.

“If you are fishing a team circuit that runs over the course of a spring, summer and into fall, then try and pick a partner who is very good during a season that might be weak for you.”

He added, “What that does is make you the student during the weak season while being driven to do well when there’s a tournament on the line.” “And if you are good at deep cranking or offshore fishing then it’s sensible to get a partner equally as skilled in shallow water,” recommends Klein, who says the two sides can play off each other as he did with Grigsby.

The total team approach has emerged as a popular strategy in tournaments with multiple anglers. A case in point was a regional tournament held by B.A.S.S. with 12-man teams competing from seven states of the organization’s affiliated clubs. The tournament, held on the Tennessee, Cumberland and Ohio rivers, was won by Kentucky with a threeday cumulative weight of 226 pounds, 2 ounces. Alabama’s team came in second with 154-7, giving the winners a cushy margin of victory.

Each night, the Kentuckians met to review the day. The ensuing openended conversation provided an exchange of dialogue from the perspective of 12 individuals, all of them eligible to advance to a much more prestigious tournament down the line.

“What happened with us was the team really gelled after the first day,” noted Donnie Keaton, president of the Kentucky B.A.S.S. Federation. “We had five guys stand up at the team meeting to say they didn’t care who went to the championship. They wanted to win the state title.”

How they did it was by sharing productive water based on the takeoff times for the team. In their case, a gold mine near the Kentucky Dam below Lake Barkley produced more than 40 keepers during the tournament. Whoever drew the earliest flight had first shot at the spot with a limit inevitable within minutes. The early arrival relinquished the hot spot to another teammate upon his arrival. Again, another limit was caught and the cycle was repeated by other teammates.

In other similar circumstances, teams have split up to concentrate on hot spots. In one tournament held on Mississippi’s Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, the winning team found itself in position to win after tapping into two productive patterns. The caveat was the bite was in two separate pools, requiring the team to make lengthy round-trip passages through locks at opposite ends of the tournament waters.

At one end was a hot crankbait bite with the team captain sending his best deep-water angler to capitalize on the opportunity. At the other pool was a flipping-and-pitching bite, where the best long-rod man on the team went to work.

“We had guys who were paired with partners from other states and they couldn’t go either direction because they were the non-boaters,” recalled Robert Cartlidge, former president of the Oklahoma Federation whose team won the competition. “But they knew that was the bite so they fished accordingly, so there was always some sort of contribution made to our overall effort.”

“We met every night and sent guys who weren’t on fish to areas found by teammates that were producing,” he added. “It’s like the saying goes: ‘teams beat individuals.’”

The adage works brilliantly when two anglers agree to the concept and check off their strengths and weaknesses to work as a total team. BCD

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