I’m six events into my 2025 season, and I’ve cashed six paychecks. Obviously, the highlight of the year was winning the FXR Pro Fish Bassmaster Elite at St. Johns River, but really the fact that I’m fishing more like myself has been the best feeling. My “Dollar Bill” nickname came from how I just seemed to be in the paycheck line at the end of a lot of events.
When I was getting ready for the 2025 season, I took a look at how my past couple of seasons have gone, and I realized I needed to get more focused. I had spent too much time divided between two approaches. I was basically splitting my time between trying to learn how to use my Mega Live 2 Forward Facing Sonar and fishing to my strengths.
In looking at things over the offseason, I figured out I can’t do both efficiently. I decided to focus on doing things my way. What that means to me is listening to my gut and fishing to my strengths as my primary approach. I didn’t do that last year at all, and it was the worst season of my career.
As an example, at the 2025 Whataburger Bassmaster Elite at Lake Hartwell, I came to a spot on Day 2 where I really felt like I was on the bubble. I felt like I was a couple of bites away from making the Top 50 cut and earning a payday.
My instinct was telling me to cover water so I picked up a chartreuse Ark Z-Alpha 1.5 squarebill crankbait and started trying to trigger some reaction strikes. It wasn’t long before I had one slack line it, got another one to roll on it, then caught a good one that culled for me and put me at my final weight of 12-10. I made the cut. I’m not sure I needed that extra bite to make it, but I thought I did. I let my instincts guide me, and I put some extra fish in the boat.
All of us who have been fishing for a while have instincts that come from our experiences, and the longer we do it, the more those gut feelings can end up being a guide to making decisions on the water. The more we make decisions like that, and the more they work out, the more we begin to trust them.
That’s what my year has been — four Elite events and two other events into the year and I’ve cashed checks in all of them. In other words, it’s all working out pretty well.
Learn to pay attention to gut feelings, and I bet it will work out for you too.
