My favorite part about life on the Bassmaster Elite Series is the traveling with my family. We’ve built a life together in the camper, and we do a lot of things together between events. Jen is my best friend, Nevaeh is doing her thing with photography and Fischer loves the outdoors, so he is always fishing when we’re at a location.
After that, the next thing that I really enjoy is the camaraderie with the other anglers and their families. We spend a lot of time with Matt and Candy Herren. We eat together most nights and spend a lot of time with each other in the campground and off the water. Our families have a lot of fun together, and it’s nice to have that bond with people you can count on.
On top of that, being able to talk to the other anglers and see my family interact with the other families in the campgrounds is special too. One of those days happened during our postponement day at the Harris Chain of Lakes in Florida.
B.A.S.S. made the right call and postponed the start of the event to Friday with extreme winds and thunderstorms coming through the Leesburg and Central Florida area on Thursday. The wind was rocking the camper, and the rain was coming down in sheets. It would have been dangerous for the field, the Marshals and B.A.S.S. personnel out there.
The hard stuff broke about four o’clock in the afternoon, and people who had been pent up in their campers started to get out and walk around. That gave us a little time to do a little more work on tackle and tie a couple of things on after having some hunches while waiting out the rain and wind.
That’s when I started seeing the guys. I was sitting in my boat, and my Ark Fishing teammate Wes Logan walked over and hung out. Then Hunter Shryock came over and soon Gerald Swindle and his little dog Bama came over too.
We were all hanging out around my Xpress boat shooting the breeze. The stories start getting told, we all discuss little fishing tips about tackle or colors or some techniques. Sure, there are times we start talking about the fishing or the conditions about the specific tournament we are fishing, but for the most part, it’s just random stuff – fellowship amongst friendly competitors.
Those kinds of moments are the ones that I really enjoy. Yeah, we’re all competitors on the water. We all want to beat each other, and we realize there are paydays and points to be had. But for the most part, we all respect each other enough to share tips, stories and laugh together.
Once the tournament starts, we’ll all get in our routines and we kind of do our own thing, but there are those special days that I love – hangin’ with the boys.
