Balsa crankbaits aren’t the only wooden objects in Tristan McCormick’s boat and, while a foot-long piece of cedar won’t catch any fish this week, it’ll definitely bring him the clarity and confidence he needs to compete in his career’s biggest event.
Hailing from Dixon, Tenn., McCormick earned his Classic berth through the Bassmaster College Classic Bracket on Alabama’s Coosa River. He had the cedar stick with him then, but the story goes back even farther.
“My college partner Stevie Mills and I were having a couple of bad tournaments in a row and his dad said ‘You boys need to go get a lucky piece of cedar,’” McCormick recalls. “His dad used to tell him that back in the day and the lucky cedar is kind of a redneck thing in Tennessee.
“Sure enough, we did that and had two top-10s in a row and a second at the National Championship. That cedar stick has been riding with me ever since and it’s going to continue riding with me.”
The connection is remarkably strong, considering that McCormick’s actually allergic to Cedar. More so the resin than the dried wood, and as McCormick has found, his lucky stick adds a pleasant aroma to the boat.
Most importantly, that cedar stick brings the sweet smell of success — the stuff that got him to the sport’s biggest event and motivates him to give it his all.
“The biggest thing is I can open that box up and look at it and know that I can do this and I deserve to be here just as well as all these other guys,” McCormick said. “That’s a big thing for me — just having confidence in myself and going out there and doing what I know how to do.”