August brought an interesting mix of experiences. Some were good, some were disappointing and some were unpleasant. Thankfully, I trusted the Lord’s plan, and he blessed me with some great memories. I was able to end the season on a high note.
I had one of my worst finishes in the Bassmaster Elite tournament at Lake Champlain, where I placed 95th. That really bothered me, so I stayed for a week before practice began for the final event at the St. Lawrence.
I fished Champlain every day just trying to learn more about the lake and figure out what I missed and what went wrong during the tournament. I fished hard and worked myself to death and, while that time was very productive, I ended up hospitalized with Rhabdomyolysis.
In my case, this illness was caused by extreme dehydration and exertion. Basically, your muscles release enzymes into your bloodstream, which attack your kidneys. After pushing myself hard on Champlain, my kidneys got drop-kicked right before the final tournament.
I was on the water for two hours for the first day of practice when I realized I was not feeling well enough to continue. I made it back to the marina where we were staying, but I wasn’t feeling well enough to trailer my boat, so I left it tied up at the marina.
Kayla Jocumsen picked me up at the marina and took me to the hospital, while Justin Atkins pulled my boat out of the water and fixed a flat tire on my truck. I gotta give them both a shoutout, because they helped get me through a very challenging time.
I ended up spending two nights in the hospital, so I missed most of practice. When the doctor released me, I was able to get on the water for about six hours on the final practice day.
I actually had a pretty productive practice, caught some really nice fish and found one promising area. Obviously, there wasn’t time to break it down, but I got a clue there might be some nice fish there.
We had an off day that allowed me to regroup and recuperate. After that, I fished Day 1 in the river and caught almost 24 pounds.
With it being so windy, all I wanted to do on Day 1 was survive. I didn’t feel well enough to go out on the lake. I was still pretty dizzy and loopy, so I didn’t want to go out in those waves and risk my health.
The next three days, we had fairly gorgeous weather by Lake Ontario terms, and I was able to go out there every day and piggyback off what I learned in practice. I ended up with a Top 10 finish. It was pretty crazy how the week ended.
During the tournament, I drank as much fluid as I possibly could. My family bought me a giant water jug, and I drank a couple of Gatorades each day to get the electrolytes. My muscles didn’t hurt anymore, but it felt like I had just played four pickup basketball games in a row. I just felt very tired.
After what I went through, it felt extremely rewarding to have such a strong finish. I’m fully aware of how hard Top 10s are to come by, because these guys get better and better every year.
It was a sweet way to end the season, especially after my Champlain finish. I got all those bad thoughts out of my head, and I feel like I’m ready to go for my third Elite season.
It was definitely a super good feeling to end the season on a high note, but to make my St. Lawrence trip even more rewarding, I got to compete in the Bassmaster Randy Moss Pro Football Hall of Fame Pro-Am tournament the day after the Elite.
I was paired with Randy and that was an amazing experience. It was one of my favorite fishing events. It was a lot of fun hanging out with those guys, talking about their world and seeing that they were extremely interested in what the fishing world was all about.
Randy hand-picked all those guys because he knew they were all really interested in fishing and they were fans of the sport. They were all eaten up with what we had to say about our day-to-day life, and we had never gotten a behind-the-scenes look at what the NFL life was like, so it was super cool to compare our worlds.
We realized that even though our sports are way different, they’re also kinda similar. Every day you’re waking up trying to strive for something in our game and their game.
For both of our worlds to collide in a day on the water was super cool.
