I’m one of several established professional anglers fishing the 2024 Bassmaster Opens Elite Qualifiers. Many of these guys are former Bassmaster Elite Series pros and Bassmaster Classic contenders. I’ve never fished the Elite Series or a Classic.
I’ve made my living over the past 20 years or so by fishing FLW and MLF. Despite my success, I’ve dreamed of fishing the Bassmaster Classic since I was a kid.
When I was 5 years old, I told my parents I wanted to be a pro fisherman. I remember hearing Bob Cobb’s voice and the theme song for The Bassmasters television show. My idols were guys like Larry Nixon and Roland Martin.
My father, Rick, is an avid outdoorsman. He encouraged me and my brother and sister to get out of the house to play and complete chores. He fished mainly for stream trout with ultra-light spinning tackle. I caught my first bass on one of his rods from our backyard pond.
I was probably reeling upside down when a 14-inch bass hit a little spinner. I remember screaming to my dad for help.
I had access to a bunch of ponds in the subdivision where we lived. It was divided into 5- to 10-acre lots, and every lot had a stocked pond. I got permission to fish scores of those ponds. I cast into them relentlessly, accompanied by Bullet, our family’s German Shorthair. I would experiment with the lures and techniques I’d seen on The Bassmasters and learned from Bassmaster Magazine.
My parents were very supportive of me and my brother and sister, but they demanded that we pay our own way. They told us if we wanted it bad enough we had to work for it. I’m very appreciative for that. When I’ve had hard times and wanted to give up, that mindset helped me get through.
To pay for my bass fishing addiction, I worked on a cattle farm, washed dishes and did other jobs. My first boat was a hand-me-down from my grandfather, a 14-foot aluminum V-hull.
That boat was awesome. My dad made a deck on the front just like a bass boat. When I was done fishing for the day, I’d hang the 9.9 hp outboard on a fence.
When I was 15 I fished my first bass tournament from that boat — a local derby on Lake Oroville. My mom backed me into the water and picked me up after the event. I never left sight of the ramp that day. I won the tournament and the $500 first prize. I felt like a millionaire.
After that event, I bought a larger aluminum boat with a 75 hp outboard. Over the next several years, I fished every tournament I could get into with my lifelong friend Russell Jeffers. California’s diversified bass waters gave us a solid fishing foundation.
The California Delta is tidal water. Clear Lake has shallow grass, and it’s where Dee Thomas invented flipping. Lake Shasta has gin clear water, fluctuates a lot and has big spotted bass.
Jeffers and I had been best friends since Kindergarten. We dreamed of becoming professional bass anglers. That dream ended for Jeffers when he was killed in a freak accident while running a backhoe. He was only 21 years old.
In 2006 I went all in to become a bass pro. I bought a 2003 Ranger 520 at a car auction and ran the hell out of it for a long time.
The Bassmaster Opens were my preference, but B.A.S.S. had stopped holding Western Open tournaments the previous year. I didn’t have the time or money to fish Bassmaster Opens in the eastern part of the country, so I elected to go a different route.
It has taken a leap of faith to fish the Bassmaster Elite Qualifiers this year. It would be easier and safer to keep doing what I’ve been doing. I just decided that B.A.S.S. is where I’ve wanted to be since I was 5 years old.
There’s no guarantee that I’ll qualify for the Elite Series. It’s unbelievably hard to compete against those guys. But it would be a huge accomplishment to pull it off and fish with the best fishermen in the world on the Elite Series. I feel really good about fishing with Bassmaster and finishing my career where I should have started.
