Elites keep memories under hat

Davy Hite hoists his Classic trophy in 1999. He's kept the hat he's wearing as a remembrance.

PART II: HATS OFF TO ELITES

This is Part II of a five-part series on Elite Series anglers and their relationship with hats.

There’s a treasured hat in Bassmaster Elite angler Davy Hite’s collection, which despite continual weeding is north of the century mark.

“If you own 100 hats, I guess you have to call yourself a collector, but I don’t really collect them – I just can’t throw certain ones away,” Hite said. “You don’t want to throw away memories. This is my 23rd year, so I have a lot of memories.”

Although he does have two AOY titles, Hite’s greatest memory is his 1999 Bassmaster Classic title. He knows exactly where that white Evinrude hat with blue bill and lettering sits.

“The hat I wore when I won the Classic, I’ve got,” he said. “I got a picture of me in it, standing there holding the trophy with my wife and son … it really means something.

“There are those that you just can’t throw away even though you’re not going to wear them anymore because of the memories. I really don’t have every tournament win. I really should have thought to do that.”

Mike Iaconelli has kept ahold of his winning hats, but he’s a collector by nature. In his home office, he has hundreds of inkwells and ink bottles dating to the 1800s. In specially designed racks in his closet, there are around 100 Philadelphia Phillies caps.

“That’s my big hat fetish,” Ike said. “I’ve been a Phillies fan since I was a little kid and collected since I was 12, 13 years old.”

That’s a separate collection of his bass fishing hats, which are more personal. There he has the BassCat hat he wore during his win on the Delaware in 2014.

“In the 2003 Classic, I wore a Mann’s bait hat – that’s my all-time favorite hat, just because it has so much significance to it,” he said, adding he mostly wore a red Toyota hat during his Angler of the Year season.

Kevin VanDam, the most decorated angler of all-time, has hundreds of hats with special meaning but most of his hats get donated. He said he has kept a “bunch of hats that I’ve gotten from certain people. I’ve got one from George Bush, an autographed hat.”

Gerald Swindle said flat-bill hats have some advantageous features he likes.

DON’T KNOCK FLAT-BILLS TILL YOU TRY ‘EM

Among the first to wear a flat-bill hat on the Elite Series, Fletcher Shryock has been seen trying to spread the trend.

“Tommy Biffle needs a new flat-bill,” he said as the veteran angler walked past him during a fog delay at Lake Norfork.

In one dismissive syllable, Biffle offered a sarcastic “Yeah,” his funny yet emphatic no. Biffle already has a set hat, and it ain’t no flat-bill.

Shryock and several others have brought the flat brim to the Elites. Swindle said don’t knock ‘em till you try ‘em, because he finds they hold some beneficial features.

“Ninety percent of the time I wear a flat-bill,” the 2016 Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year said. “A lot of people ask why. I like a flat-bill because when you wear your sunglasses, the bill fits level across the top of them. I don’t get any light in on top of my eyes.

“And most of the flatbills are bigger in size, and you don’t get the headaches. They kind of fit looser on your head, so I’m looking for a hat that doesn’t give me a headache and blocks out the light.”

Shryock doesn’t just fish for the fashion, but he is all about it when it comes to hats. Wearing a two-week-old, fancy-schmancy, off-center logoed Under Armour cap, he professed his love of flat bills and confessed to an overall hat addiction.

“Aw, it’s bad,” Shyrock said of his collection. “I haven’t really thought much about it, but honestly, now that you’re saying it, my hat collection is ridiculous, and I’ve given a lot of hats away.”

Fletcher Shryock, the flat-bill kid, said, “My hat collection is ridiculous, and I’ve given a lot of hats away.”

Shyrock has a bunch of fancy lids, including a couple Under Armours he can’t live without. He wears one all the time because it’s so comfortable. But there’s one that holds much more significance to the Ohio angler who stormed onto the B.A.S.S. scene in 2011. While placing a B.A.S.S. sticker on his T-shirt, Shryock wore a flat-bill Hurley hat during his Open win on Lake Norman.

“I got that hat,” he said. “I wore that one out. That was a good one. I wore it that whole year in the Opens. I caught a lot of fish when I wore it.”

What’s more, he goes to great lengths to keep his hats looking their best, something no one else mentioned.

“I take good care of them,” Shryock said. “I actually have a flat-brim washer. It’s a hat deal I can actually throw it in the wash and it keeps it flatter. They’re not good till you wash them once.”

Yes, there is such a thing, and you put that plastic frame around the hat, wash on gentle and hang dry with care to keep the bill its flattest. (The ads show the buddy going in the dishwasher, and Shryock thought that might work too.) It’s quite the delicate process for a hat, and he said, “My girlfriend gets so mad.”

The Ballcap Buddy, which helps hats hold their shape through the wash, can be found for under $10.

SELF-ADMITTED HAT GUYS

Most of the Elites admit to being, as Todd Faircloth called himself, “a hat guy.” So let’s get a sampling of some Elites’ takes on their hats, starting with Faircloth, who says he’s rather picky about ones he wears.

“I’ve got my fishing hats, I got my play hats, then I’ve got my hunting hats,” he said. “I don’t keep hats if I don’t use them.

“In tournaments, I wear the same hat every day, but I’ve got five or six just like it … in case one blows out, or gets wet, or whatever.”

Faircloth said he had just culled out 20 hats to knock his collection down to around 25, which does include an all-time favorite.

“I’ve got a real, real old Skeeter hat that I used to wear whenever I was home fishing, team fishing,” he said. “It’s in my tackle room. It’s an old red and black Skeeter hat. It’s hung up. It’s no longer in action.”

Jeff Kriet said he won’t be switching to flat-bills – it’s an old school hat with the nice bend in the bill for him.

“I tried to wear them because I guess it’s the cool thing to do, but I look goofy when I wear them – my head’s too small,” he said. “I do have so many hats my wife goes behind me and tries to throw them away.”

An avid saltwater fisherman, Kriet roaches many of his hats, and he has some he’d like to still be wearing but can’t, like his all-time favorite Longhorn cap.

“I was sponsored by them for five years,” he said. “I had a couple really incredible years with that one hat. I still have it, but I can’t wear it.”

Randall Tharp is with Kriet in saying no to flat-bills and yes to old school. Kriet chimes in that Tharp, with his “nice-sized head,” could wear either.

“I’m not that particular,” Tharp said. “And it’s all about comfort. I don’t like a billboard kind of hat, I like a normal hat.”

The curve in the bill of Chad Morgenthaler’s cap, at about 180 degrees, might be the most extreme of the Elites.

Chad Morgenthaler is in that exact same boat, but his very comfortable Phoenix cap has probably the most worked bill in the business. The curve suggests he’s left it overnight wrapped with rubber bands, like many did as kids with their new little league caps and gloves.

Steve Kennedy might switch to BassCat caps since he was recently named to its pro staff, but he’s almost exclusively worn one of his 20 or so Auburn University hats while competing.

“I got nice hats for wearing out and then I got ones that have been out in the sun forever, faded, ripped and all that other stuff,” he said. “So if I don’t throw them away, I end up donating them at some point.

“There’s one in every car, a couple in the closet, a couple hanging on the coat rack. They’re everywhere.”

Hidden in there somewhere are a couple of his all-time favorites, khaki-colored Auburn lids that are no longer made.

Dean Rojas carries a plastic container of his “tournament and TV” hats in his truck, but his big stash is in a box atop the Mustang in his garage. While he has a ton of hats, he discards just as many, but he does have a long-time favorite he’s had around 25 years.

“The one hat that I’ve kept is my high school baseball hat, the Crawford Colts,” the former San Diego Padres peanut vendor said.

Ike fishes in one hat then switches to his flat-bill cap with big sponsor representation on the front and sides for weigh-ins. He’ll stow away any ones he wants to keep and then at the end of the year “take the bulk hats and give somewhere to auction or for the Ike Foundation to generate income.”

Swindle said he’s not sentimental about most of his hats, jerseys, etc., which he signs and gives away, but he reported he had a favorite new hat to wear when he’s home.

“A buddy of mine sent me one to elk hunt with,” he said. “He and his team partner made them. It says Team Plowboy. It’s got a cowboy looking fish with a cowboy hat on it. It has absolutely no meaning to what I do, but I just wear it all the time because it says Team Plowboy.”

Hats aren’t for Bernie Schultz, he said, because he’s all about the visor, as is Cliff Pirch.

“Visors all the way,” Schultz said, “probably because I look pretty stupid in a hat. Less is best for me. I just need something to block the sun. The less I have on my head the better. I get headaches. It’s not about style, but that’s all I’ve ever worn.”

Bill Lowen is also like Grigsby. A hat is for shading the face and eyes and seeing better, so he just wears his sponsors cap until he needs to replace it. But how long is that?

Like the old Tootsie Roll Pop commercial, where the boy asks woodland creatures how many licks it takes to get to the center, Bassmaster’s Mr. Turtle was asked how long a tournament hat lasts. He didn’t pass it off to wise, old Mr. Owl (maybe Rick Clunn, who we’ll hear from later), but did give the same number.

“Three tournaments,” he said.

Now you know how many licks it takes to wear out a Bassmaster Elite Series tournament hat.

Click links for photo galleries on “Brief history of fishing hats,”  and Hat Couture 

Part I: Elite pros hold on to their hats | Part III: Hats fill bill as No. 1 ad space

Part IV: Purging hats a delicate endeavorPart V: ‘Catching hats’ and wrong ones