Alaska Fishing

When he was 12, Chad Griffin often rode his bike near the family home on Baxter Road, clutching a fishing rod on his handlebars en route to Cheney Lake, where he would coax a few rainbow trout from the shallow waters.

Those fish didn't stand a chance.

Neither did the fish of Lake Oneida in Syracuse, N.Y., last week. The 1995 East High graduate, now living in Texas, caught 20 bass weighing 65 pounds, 10 ounces on the final stop of the Bassmaster Elite Tournament Circuit to win the event and take home $101,000.

Along the way, he fulfilled a dream he had cherished since he first watched the "Bassmasters" television program as an 8-year-old.

"It's the NASCAR of bass fishing, you can't go any higher," Griffin, 32, said by phone on Friday from his father's home in Granbury, Texas.

"Can it get any better? Absolutely not. And you never think it's going to happen."

The victory marked the first time an angler who grew up in Alaska captured a Bassmaster event, and it came on Griffin's last chance to remain on the circuit.

Competing is expensive, especially for a rookie like Griffin without major sponsors. Entry fees are $5,500 for a single tournament, $41,800 for the season, with gas, lodging and other expenses on top of that.

Until last week, Griffin's prospects looked dismal. His average finish in five previous tournaments was 59th.

"Here is a young man on a shoestring operation down to his last tournament, knowing if he did not make a good showing he was done in -- and he won the thing," his dad, Gene Griffin, wrote in an e-mail.

Alaska anglers can earn cash at such tournaments as the Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby, the Seward Silver Salmon Derby and the Ship Creek King Salmon Derby. But the prize money -- and fame -- is considerably less that what the Bassmasters tournaments offer.

Seward's top angler earned $10,000 and Homer's derby, Alaska's richest, paid California angler Jeff Pardi $45,475 last year for his 348-pound flatfish. Those contests are not a draw for professionals and winners never appear on national TV.

Neither smallmouth nor largemouth bass were available to Griffin growing up in Alaska; Washington state and British Columbia are the closest places with bass.

As a kid, the only bass Griffin encountered were in magazines or on televised fishing programs. He sharpened his fishing chops chasing salmon, rainbow trout and Dolly Varden on the Kenai Peninsula once school ended each spring.

"My grandparents used to drive up every summer, and my grandma dumped us down there on the water," he said.

Popular Kenai Peninsula waterways such as the Anchor and Ninlichik rivers and Deep Creek became familiar.

"I had my fishing friends and my school friends," he said.

Among the latter was Trajan Langdon, the first Alaskan to play in the NBA and a teammate on the East baseball team. Among the former was fellow T-Bird Austin Klassen, now an electrician in Las Vegas.

"He's always been good at it," Klassen said by phone. "He's like a doctor on the water. A surgeon can tell you what's going on with your body; he can tell you what's going on with the fish."

Klassen grew up fishing with Griffin, but never quite matched his passion.

"The guy could fish forever," Klassen said. "After eight hours, I would be ready to go in and he'd say, 'I'll drop you off at the hotel' and he'd be back out there.

"He was patient, always under control, and I think that served him well. I'm the short-fused one."

In the New York tournament, Griffin outlasted a final-round field that included one of his bass fishing idols, Louisiana's Greg Hackney, who Griffin watched fish on television as a youngster.

His parents worked in the oil industry and returned to Texas after Griffin finished high school. His mother, no fan of winter, was happy to see him finally graduate.

"The day after graduation, we were on a plane," he said.

It was in Texas 10 years ago that Griffin caught his first largemouth bass, along the banks of Lake Granbury.

Last year, he fished all the Bassmaster Invitational tournaments and performed well enough to qualify for the Elite Series.

But by then, the stock market downturn cost Griffin and his family much of their savings, forcing his parents -- who had retired and were supporting him -- back to work. The money was running out.

"I decided to go for broke," said Griffin, whose previous best in the Elite Series was 32nd place. "I knew I didn't have the money to continue competitive fishing next year. Even if I had finished the tournament in second place (earning $25,000), it would have been the end of my fishing career. The first-prize check will pay a lot of bills."

It could also open a few sponsorship doors. Regardless, he'll never lose his love of bass fishing.

"It's more about the hunt than anything," he said. "You got to figure them out. It's the challenge of figuring out something you can't see."

Reach Mike Campbell at mcampbell@adn.com or 257-4329.

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