Catching trophy largemouths consistently was Pat Cullen’s payoff for combining perseverance and a focused strategy fine-tuned over time. (Photo by Craig Buddo)
April 04, 2024
By Craig Buddo
In an era in which technology plays an ever-increasing role in tournament and trophy bass fishing, and intensively managed, private fisheries can charge $1,500 a day for a shot at a double-digit bass, perhaps it’s a good idea to tap the brakes. You don’t need to spend a fortune or glue yourself to a monitor on a bass boat to make your trophy dreams come true. Pat Cullen of Valdosta, Ga., proved it.
Cullen, who passed away in 2014, was one of the most successful trophy-bass anglers of all time. Over four decades of fishing exclusively for big bass, he racked up more than 1,200 fish weighing more than 10 pounds, including six over 15 pounds. His biggest weighed 18 pounds, 3 ounces, though he hooked and lost bigger fish, including one he felt would have become the new world record.
Remarkably, all his fish came from small private and public lakes within an hour’s drive of Valdosta—none from famous waters or expensive pay-to-play fishing clubs. Valdosta is a solid area for bass fishing, sitting just above the Florida state line, but hardly known as a big-bass mecca. Cullen’s success rubbed off on others, most notably his wife Linda, who with 27 bass heavier than 10 pounds is very likely the most successful female trophy-bass angler ever.
A large, black buzzbait was Cullen’s secret weapon for enticing big bass at night and in low-light conditions. (Photo by Craig Buddo) HIS LEGACY AND FORMULA Despite his undeniable bass-fishing prowess, Cullen did almost nothing to cash in on his achievements. There were no endorsements, no book deals and no tackle or boat sponsorships. Only a handful of articles about his catches made it to print over the years, and he put out a seminar on DVD outlining his formula for landing big bass.
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Cullen acknowledged in the video that a percentage of his trophy fish were recaptures, proving the value of careful catch-and-release practices. He did keep two of 11 pounds, one of 13, and a 15-pounder for a spectacular four-fish mount that now resides in the Go Fish Education Center in Perry, Ga., but he never killed another bass to hang on the wall.
On his DVD and in interviews toward the end of his bass fishing career, Cullen stated his intention to pass on to future generations the exact system that worked so well for him, down to the smallest detail. The genius of his formula lies in how specific yet simple and universal it is, because the system incorporates just five basic elements—dedication, water selection, timing, boat and tackle, and presentation.
DEDICATION Probably the biggest factor in Cullen’s success, and also the least written about, was his incredible dedication to the game. For decades he sacrificed sleep to fish more than 300 nights a year, a feat he managed while holding down an accounting job with the U.S. Postal Service, raising a family and remaining an active member of his community.
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What fueled that drive is easily explained with a warning Cullen offered to anyone who wanted to emulate his nighttime quest for big bass: “If you have a bad heart, don’t do it. They nail [the lure]. They don’t suck it, they nail it! And it’s loud and it’s exciting, and your heart leaps out of your body.”
WATER SELECTION Cullen targeted bodies of water at least 10 years old and ranging in size from 20 to 200 acres. In favorable conditions, largemouths in the South grow about a pound a year, so he reasoned that a pond or lake needs a decade to produce bass of double-digit weights. That frequently meant fishing waters overlooked by the crowds and underharvested, yet perfectly capable of supporting multiple trophy bass.
Cullen preferred waters with some kind of cover spanning a quarter to half their expanse (a requisite for a healthy forage base) and sections with a depth of at least 10 to 12 feet. No matter how ideal their topography, any candidates with a fish kill in their history were stricken from the target list.
How did he get permission to fish so many productive ponds? A combination of determination and ingenuity. We know that he once convinced a friend to take him up in his light aircraft to scope out potential waters from the air. He likely mined every connection he had made through work or family, perhaps even church. You would be surprised how many people will grant you access if you simply ask politely and promise to adhere to catch-and-release.
TIMING While Cullen placed a lot of emphasis on his boat, his tackle and his approach (more on those later), I can’t help but think the “where” and the “when” are the real keys. He determined early on that unpressured ponds (or small lakes) were his most fertile hunting grounds, and that their biggest bass lie up in the day and feed at night in the upper water layers, especially during the intense heat of summer.
It is said that trophy fish thrive on neglect, and large, nocturnal bass in no-name waters are often neglected, left to roam and hunt freely, unbothered by even the occasional angler. Cullen claimed that, in all his years of night fishing, he never saw a single other bass angler on his ponds. That makes you wonder: Do your local waters come alive just as you usually pull out of the parking lot?
Though he fished year-round, the majority of Cullen’s oversized bass came during June, July and August. The darker the night, the better, so the new-moon period proved particularly prolific. Full-moon nights broken up with cloud cover and drizzle could also be productive. And when he timed it right, the period immediately after a summer thunderstorm rolled through was often dynamite for big fish.
BOAT AND TACKLE A Gheenoe—a lightweight, fiberglass canoe-skiff hybrid, powered by an electric trolling motor—was the ride Cullen selected for his trophy-bass incursions. Small but stable, quiet and easy to get in and out of the water, even at the most rudimentary boat launches, the Gheenoe let him keep a low profile and allowed a stealthy approach, advantages he credited for their contribution to his success. Before launching, Cullen would pause and just listen to get a bearing on the part of the pond with more frogs croaking, more crickets chirping and more fish jumping or feeding. He would then set out for the noisiest area and start fishing.
The tackle that he used to amass one of the most impressive big-bass records in history was also simple and inexpensive. We can guess his entire array probably cost him about the equivalent of two premium swimbaits nowadays, but it was meticulously selected and refined over the years.
He opted for 6-foot, medium-heavy Ugly Stik rods, to which he added a second grip above the reel. With this set-up, he could tuck the butt into his stomach and hold the rod higher up the blank for a more instantaneous and powerful hook-set.
For reels, Cullen chose Abu Garcia Ambassadeur 5500C baitcasters and loaded them with 17-pound Vicious Ultimate monofilament tied straight to a Cotton Cordell safety snap. He stretched the line by hand to take out some of its memory, and simply respooled whenever he suffered a bad backlash. The drag on his Ambassadeurs was tightened to the point where the reels would only give up line under extreme pulls, so the stretch of the mono he preferred provided a welcome cushion when battling sizeable largemouths.
Large, black buzzbaits, ideal for surface fishing at night, produced the vast majority of Cullen’s fish. Not only are these lures proven big-bass catchers, but the sound they create during the retrieve lets you stay in touch with them, even when it’s pitch black. And when he sensed the bass were lethargic, he would cast a Hula Popper to spark the fish’s territorial aggression and get them going.
PRESENTATION On the water, Cullen was as much a hunter as a fisherman, and all his actions were directed toward remaining undetected. He made sure there were no lights and no loud noises or pinging electronics to announce his presence. He employed a minimal casting stroke, and he even wore a hunter’s mask to break up the outline of his face. Before launching, he would grab a handful of pond mud and work it into his hands to conceal any unnatural odors, and he also sprayed his baits with a homemade scent mixture consisting of two cups of pond water and one cup of liquidized minnows.
During the summer months, despite focusing his efforts on the surface, Cullen always wanted to fish over the deepest water within a pond or lake’s noisiest section, and he developed his own version of fan casting to methodically cover the water in front of him. He would first line up the Gheenoe to face a likely spot and treat that as his 12 o’clock. Using only a wrist snap, he would flick out his first cast to the 12 o’clock spot and rip the lure back as fast as he could to wake the fish up and alert them that a potential meal was in the area. The second cast, and sometimes the third and fourth, also went to 12 o’clock, but he paused two or three times during those retrieves. These were the money casts, accounting for about 80 percent of his hits.
If nothing developed on the 12 o’clock trajectory, Cullen would progress to one o’clock, two o’clock and three o’clock targets before switching to the other side of the skiff and casting to nine, 10 and 11 o’clock. If there were no strikes during a full rotation, he simply eased the Gheenoe forward until he reached the initial 12 o’clock spot and began the process again. Throughout the night, the trophy-bass chaser would change his buzzbaits and vary the speed of his retrieve until he found what worked best.
BIG-BASS BUZZBAITS You, too, can own the lures Cullen used. Photo by Craig Buddo Bert’s Big Bass Buzzbaits, the ones Pat Cullen used with such great success, are still made and tuned by hand by Capt. Bert Deener, a fisheries biologist, outdoor writer and master lure maker in Waycross, Ga. Deener and Cullen became good friends and exchanged many late-night phone calls.
“Pat and I were both night owls,” says Deener. “I’d make lures up until about midnight, and many nights I would call his cell before going to bed to see how the bite was going.”
The two worked together on Cullen’s vision for the ultimate big-bass buzzbait. After a lot of tweaking and on-the-water testing, they settled on four designs: the Gurgler (Cullen’s usual go-to), the Squeaker, the Wobbler and the Slow Poke. Each has a slightly different sound or vibration profile, but the same extra-long, oversized hook extending to the back of the skirt, which is carefully tied to make sure nothing impedes the hookset.
Cullen said the fish often preferred one over the others for no apparent reason. And, despite all the adjustments to the lures, his hookup rate was only about 50 percent. It dropped to 25 percent on the really big bass.
All four models come with an extra-sharp trailer hook and are sold exclusively through Capt. Deener’s Facebook page, Bert’s Jigs and Things.
