I can’t honestly say how I’m going to do in this week’s season-opening Bassmaster Elite Series event on the Sabine River.
With so many variables and so many amazing fishermen in the field, you’ll eat some words in a hurry if you start making wild predictions.
But one thing I can say before we ever make the first cast is that this will be my kind of tournament. It’s going to be a tough event that forces you to scrape and scratch for every ounce, and I’ll take that over a Guntersville-style slugfest any day.
I have my father, Danny, to thank for that competitive nature.
He and my mom, Donna, started taking me fishing before I was born. They actually fished tournaments together while she was carrying me.
I became my dad’s regular tournament partner when I was 10, and I wasn’t out there just to be his net man. He put me up on the trolling motor and told me, if I was going to fish with him, I was going to learn how to do things right.
He always helped me learn things any way he could, but he wouldn’t do them for me. Because of that, I could do everything a lot of fisherman twice my age could do by the time I was just 15.
Dad never took it easy on me when we were out fishing for fun, either.
He was a crankbait fisherman, and still is today. But for some reason, even at a young age, I always hated fishing with a crankbait.
I had watched Denny Brauer and Tommy Biffle on television catching all of these fish with jigs, and that’s what I wanted to do. I learned how to do it pretty fast, but there were still a lot of days when I’d be on one end of the boat struggling with a jig and he’d be on the other end just wearing me out with that crankbait.
It always made me mad, but he enjoyed every minute of it – and that just fueled my competitive fire even more.
We won some tournaments fishing together. But more than checks and trophies, the losses and near misses were what really drove us to go back and fish the next one.
That’s the kind of attitude you have to have on the Elite Series, because you’re not going to win every single tournament.
By now, a lot of people know my dad made the blade runners I used to win the Bassmaster Classic last month on Lake Hartwell. But he was helping me as a fisherman long before that.
Instead of leaving me at home and fishing tournaments with someone who might have been a little more help to him, he led me straight into the fire and treated me like a grown-up.
He made me into the angler and the man I am today, and he provided the example I want to follow for raising my own son, Troy.
So bring on the Sabine River and all of its obstacles.
I was lucky enough to have a dad who taught me how to face tough challenges head-on.
I sure hope you were, too.
