Another fellow who has thrown me a bone every once and a while is Kelly Jordon. He’s best described as a true Southern gentleman — always soft-spoken, mannerly, well groomed and well dressed. He’s one heck of a fisherman, too. We go way back, back far enough that I can remember when he won his first tournament.
The story I want to tell today happened on Clear Lake when we were there for the first time. I knew very little about the lake except that it had a good population of decent sized largemouth. At first I thought my practice was going fairly well. I was catching lots of 3 and 4 pounders. But then I overheard some dock talk. Several of the guys were complaining that all they could find were 4 and 5 pounders. That got my attention.
As my practice continued I realized that my fish just weren’t big enough. It wasn’t happening for me. I had a good dock pattern going, but it was inefficient. I was skipping a Berkley PowerBait Heavyweight Thump Worm. The problem was it took forever to sink. In essence it was an early version of the pattern on Cayuga Lake I talked about last week.
Jordon was fishing nearby docks when I heard him call for help landing a fish. Shortly after that I heard things like, “Oh my goodness. Did you see the size of that one that just followed me in!”
He finally got to the dock I was on.
He asked how I was doing. I said I had a limit but they were small — small for Clear Lake anyway. He cast a hollow belly swimbait over to my boat and told me to try one. I looked at it lying on my boat deck. I didn’t own any and had no idea of how to rig it or fish it. I don’t think I’d ever seen one before.
Feeling sorry for me, Kelly gave me several of his baits, took the time to tell me about them and showed me how to rig them. This wasn’t in practice, mind you. It was in competition.
I think it’s Gerald Swindle who’s fond of saying that our sport is round. Everything you do, good or bad, will come back to you at some point; everything’s a big circle. I agree. You can call it luck. You can call it fate. You can call it God’s will. But whatever you call it it’ll be there, every time. Do good and your reward will be good. Do bad and you’ll get your just deserts. I’ve seen it happen too many times to believe otherwise.
No one knows that, or appreciates it more, than Kelly Jordon. He’s a role model for everyone regardless of their age or their skill level. I think more fans should know about him, what he is and what he does. I’m proud to call him a friend, not because he catches lots of big bass but because of what he is as a man.