The notebook of Matt Herren

Ring the bells…”

Dateline: T-Bend

It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.”
John Wooden

Someone in Canada painted a house and my Grandfather never caught another fish because of it.

True story.

Since Grandpa Clay died long ago, over 50 years now I don’t think I’m breaking angler etiquette by giving up his favorite, top secret, “not even your Grandmother knows,” fishing hole.

From “his spot” on the public pier in Buffalo on the Niagara River, this is how you got to his double dog top secret fishing hole: You lined up your right eye with the “R” of the old Firestone spare tire that was still visible a foot or so under water two left foot steps from the rusty cleat with only one side still left.

Once your right eye was aligned with the “R” you took the half smoked cigar out of your mouth and with your left arm and left hand you lined the cigar up with the top of the spray painted capital “A” of the Sam Loves MAry on the breakwall.

Now, you took the fishing pole you made “the kid,” me, carry and you put the butt end of it up to your nose and moved your head just slightly toward the Ted’s hot dog stand until you could smell the hot dogs and with that first whiff, you stopped moving your head and the end of the fishing pole would be pointed at the second small window from the picture window of the blue house in Canada.

You then took the fishing pole off your nose and with Grampa’s arm you stuck it out as far as it would go over the water of the Niagara River and then hit the button on the Zebco reel and when the stuff at the end of the pole fell straight down into the water…that was Grandpa Clay’s really really secret fishing hole.

That’s where we always caught fish in that secret fishing hole.

Until someone in Canada didn’t like blue.

And repainted the house another color which made it look like all the other homes over there with the same picture windows and small windows next to it which made Grandpa confused on exactly where his secret, now to him as well, fishing hole went to.

We never caught another fish together there.

I still have a deep seated problem with Canadians who live in blue homes.

But even at an early age I knew there was a whole ritual of catching fish that involved more than just sticking the butt end of a chewed stogie cigar in peanut butter and throwing it in the water.

Fishing Donnie is all about the details, the details.”

Yep” I said as I stood and looked up into the face of an old man who loved me and took me fishing, “yep,” I said again even though I didn’t really know what a “details” was or where Grandpa kept them.

Whenever we came home my father would always ask, “Did you catch any fish, Donnie,” and I would always say, “Yes I did,” to which he would reply, “What did you catch them with Donnie,” and I would always say, “Details Daddy we caught them using details.”

And my father would look at me with the look that somehow conveyed he favored my sisters.

“…that still can ring…”

Details create the big picture.”
Sanford I. Weill

db, you okay man.”

Huh, oh yeah, flashback man sorry…”

To the 1960s…”

Dude, lighten up on the 60s…but um, no…the 50s…1956 or 57 actually.”

Across from me is my buddy, Elite angler, Matt Herren and he is giving me the look that conveys he favors other reporters.

Matt is sitting in his boat in a Dandridge, Tennessee hotel parking lot, I am leaning up against it, it is several weeks ago at Elite event No. 1, Matt is showing me unrecognizable pieces of paper with what looks like scribbles on it.

These are my notes db the details of each and every time I go fishing.”

Fishing + Details = Flashback in my mind. 1960s issues or not.

I mark down everything and then during an event when I get back to the location I can refer to them so I stick them all over the inside of the boat.”

Uh huh.”

Yeah sometimes they get wet…”

I’m trying to read a wet one as he is talking.

“…but at the end of the event I take my notes and stick them in this big notebook I have where they are safe for the next time I come back to the lake.”

Dude, I’m going to buy you a gift…going to buy you a small notebook that you can write on even in rain and I’ll buy you one of those astronaut pens to write with as well, that way you can have paper notes in your boat and not worry about them getting wet.”

Cool man. You know my Great Grandfather kept daily logs of all his fishing trips, wrote it all down, details, details, details, I still have his log books, I got the idea from him, my notebook has 10 years worth of notes now of my fishing trips and events on lakes, it’s invaluable.”

“…forget your perfect offering…”

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”
Vincent Van Gogh

It is the word invaluable that bangs around inside my head as once again I’m leaning up on his boat, now here in Toledo Bend, and he takes out his phone and shows me this photo:

“That’s my truck, I hit the other car at 40mph, big hit, all the airbags deployed, I was banged up some, really disoriented.”

Matt is holding the phone with one hand and rubbing the top of his head with the other hand.

“So I call my buddy who owns a collision shop and he comes and gets the truck, tows it away, little while later he says it’s not totaled and he can fix it, I tell him okay…”

Matt I can tell is once again going through the accident as he stands next to me, he’s hoping he can change it, change all of it, certainly change one part of it.

“…he tells me that there’s a bunch of coffee cups, McDonald’s cups all spilled all over everything in the cab and all over the floor over garbage…”

I want to reach into his thoughts and abba-ka-dabba it back to that phone call.

“…so I tell him just throw it all out, nothing there for me, just toss it…”

And then Matt stops talking.

I put my hand softly on his arm.

Matt looks at it and then up and past it to the lake in front of us, what he says next hurts, hurts him, hurts me some, it is said though not to me but to the lake, but to his great grandfather.

“…and so he did what I said tossed all of it in the dumpster…”

His head is now down eyes focused solely on the boat carpet.

“…I didn’t remember db, I was still sort of groggy from the accident, I just didn’t remember…”

Remember that under the empty cups, under the tossed papers…

“…my notebook was down there on the floor…”

And the notebook was tossed in the garbage as well.

“…10 years of fishing logs, gone db, just gone.”

“…there is a crack…”

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.”
Arthur Conan Doyle

In his hand Matt holds the grand sum of all his fishing notes, three maybe four pages written on the waterproof paper with the “Space” pen I bought him a couple weeks ago.

“I’m lost db…”

These are the notes he hastily made during the practice days for the Bassmaster Classic, all of his very detailed notes on the hours he spent on Lake Conroe were on the floor of the smashed up truck, and now gone.

“…I still can’t believe I told him to chuck it all…”

I have nothing to say, I have no right to say anything.

“…I had going into that Classic a lot of time on that water, had 3 other events there, I had all those details in my notebook without it I was thrown a curve I just didn’t recover from.”

On day two of the GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by DICK’S Sporting Goods on Lake Conroe Matt…zeroed.

“But that ain’t the worst part db, the worst part is right there, right there…”

And as I back up from leaning on his boat Matt’s right arm comes up and goes straight as he points past me to…

“…right there on Toledo Bend, everything I know about this lake was in them notes…”

It is an hour past weigh-in on Day 1 of the Elite Toledo Bend event.

Matt just weighed in 3 fish.

Total weight 6 pounds, 2 ounces.

He is 105th place, out of 110.

“…just lost db, lost.”

I knew it didn’t go well today for my friend before he said a word to me, knew it from what I saw in the viewfinder of my camera as he stood in line behind stage.

This is a photo of a man…lost.

“…in everything…”

“Success in any endeavor requires single-minded attention to detail and total concentration.”
Willie Sutton

“db it’s not all about waypoints, waypoints just get you to a certain location on earth, a log book, my notes they told me about the nuances of the spot, of the lake, of the fish. The details electronics don’t pick up.”

“I know.”

Matt just looked at me when I said that but Gramps also would talk details, clouds above, boats in the Marina, what other guys on the pier were throwing, “look around Donnie it all matters thems live creatures down there with a brain, you want to catch them get inside that brain of theirs.’

“I would write down the water temperature, the depth of the water that day, what the surface looked like…”

With that he slid his waterproof notebook over my way, as I thumbed through it one thing jumped out at me…as the days went on the notes to himself GOT SHORTER.

Matt was boiling down the details.

“I look for tendencies, for patterns, by the second or third day of watching the details I’m getting a feel for what’s going on…”

The second last note he wrote was simply this, humps…depressions.

The last note Matt made to himself narrowed that to one.

“I had all of that for this lake, for all the lakes we will fish this year but you know as we get older our memories, you know, I just can’t remember the details I wrote down.”

“…that’s how…”

“The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail.” Charles R. Swindoll

I’m going to be brutally honest here, probably get my journalism pass revoked for it but you want to know these guys then you’ve got to take the good with the bad.

At this point Matt started talking about maybe having an exit plan out of the game, I knew that was the note taker talking and not the good friend and great angler standing next to me.

This is an angler who has made seven of the last nine Classics. In 102 events he has placed in the money 68 times, in my book that’s a .667 batting average.

I basically responded to his comment with having none of it, “What are you talking about, you are a great angler, come on man.”

And we stood there and talked as two buddies, which in my book is a private talk, I didn’t take any notes, won’t say what we talked about, it was the talk of two guys at a bar without the booze involved and for me, those words stay between us.

Do I think Matt will recover from the loss of the 10 year fishing notebook…absolutely.

Do I think it will take time for that to happen…absolutely.

This next part is for Matt but it’s okay if you read it too.

Matt Buddy:

Those notes didn’t write themselves. Notes are the end point of observational skills, skills you have highly honed over the past decade, YOU HAVE NOT LOST THAT SKILL ONLY THE PAPER YOU WROTE IT ON.

The intangible you tell me that your notes contained is in fact, you.

It is impossible for those notes to have what the note taker has and that my friend is…wisdom.

You worked it out in your head then put it on paper.

IN YOUR HEAD, then paper.

Do it again, do it now, do it in your head the rest of the year.

It is never about the notebook, Matt, it is always about the note taker.

You got this my friend, you got this.

By the way another waterproof notebook is heading your way and it is on me as well.

And this one is bigger.

It will hold the next 10 years of your notes.

“…the light gets in.”
Anthem
Leonard Cohen

“The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.”
William Osler

db

P.S.: Thanks Gramps for opening my eyes to the details in life. I still have your tackle box, it’s where I store, my notes.