David Gaston gained his Elite Series berth with Top-10 finishes in four 2022 Opens.
July 25, 2023
By John Johnson David Gaston pretty much waltzed through the first half of his initial Bassmaster Elite Series season. The 26-year-old from Sylacauga, Ala. posted finishes ranging from 12th to 44th in the first five events and went into the early June derby at the Sabine River sitting at No. 12 in the Angler of the Year (AOY) points standings.
He stumbled hard at the always-stingy Sabine, however – his 96th-place showing dropped him to 31st in the points. He's still well within the cutoff (Top 40) for the 2024 Bassmaster Classic, but now there's a bit more pressure to avoid another major bomb in the final three tournaments at Lake St. Clair, Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence River.
"I've been to all three of those places and I've caught fish at all of them," said Gaston, who competed on the FLW Tour/Pro Circuit in 2019 and '20. "It's just a matter of whether they'll be good enough to bring me back up.
"I've had success at Champlain. I've never fished a tournament on the St. Lawrence, but I've done quite a bit of fun-fishing there, and I've been to St. Clair a few times. I'm very familiar with smallmouth and by no means do I have any negative thoughts about any of those events – I'm comfortable and I know what I have to do. They're always about getting away from the 1- to 2-pounders and just finding a wad of big ones."
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His goal coming into the event was to cash a check (Top 50 after the first 2 days) in each event. That won't happen, but the Sabine disaster hasn't robbed him of any confidence. The massive venue with scattered bass (and few sizable specimens) residing only in select locales is an easy place to tank and it's happened to a lot of well-established pros.
That doesn't mean it was easy to swallow, however.
"I got pretty ticked off and aggravated," he said. "I thought I was onto something decent, but I ended up having to share that with a couple of people withouth knowing it and I made some bad decisions."
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To get it out of his system, he went saltwater fishing off the coast of his home state. He said that's something he does at least once or twice a week.
Lately, his quarry has been tuna.
"I hate to say it, but I like it better than bass fishing because of what you get to eat and what you get to see," he said. "Being 100 miles offshore, there's nothing like it. It's really addictive."
He'll get back to business this week at St. Clair, where he'll attempt to regain some of the ground on the points list that he surrendered at the Sabine.
"At each tournament I've been practicing to find the fish to cash checks and a lot of the times I've been on something that ended up being a little better than I first thought it was," he said. "I'd been doing pretty good, just plugging away. I was kind of nervous at the first tournament, but after that I just kept rolling to the next one and it's been a fun time. Hopefully I can make this a longterm thing, so I plan to ride it out and see how far I can go with it.
"I've gotten the Sabine out of my head and I'll just try to get back to doing that."
Notable
> Gaston and wife Sara are the parents of a 2-year-old daughter and they have another child due in February.
> He's attended just one Classic in person – the 2014 event at Lake Guntersville won by Randy Howell. "I'd love to fish one, but I've heard that everything leading up to it (i.e. the media obligations) can be a little stressful," he said.
> He qualified for the Elite Series via the 2022 overall Opens standings, logging Top-10 finishes in four of the nine events across all three divisions.
