KVD’s thinking 23

Kevin VanDam enters Day 4’s finale with a 2-pound, 7-ounce lead over his nephew, Jonathon VanDam. When asked is he’s got a goal today, Kevin said, “It’s hard to catch 25 pounds here, so if I can catch 23 pounds, and I’ve got a two-pound lead…”

But nothing can be taken for granted. VanDam emphasized that other than the relative ease of fishing in Saturday’s calm conditions, it has taken a lot of hard work and constant adjustments to reach his three-day total of 66-7.

“It’s not easy,” VanDam said Saturday. “Yesterday (when he had 19-8) was a real struggle. On my best spot Friday, there was a guy watching me, and he was sitting there this morning when I got there. I never got to even fish it.”

That’s just one more example of why it’s not always good to be king, so to speak, like Kevin VanDam is in the bass fishing world and has been for a long time. As one Elite Series pro told me several years ago, “If the rest of us had to fish under the same conditions as Kevin does, he’d win every tournament.”