Daily Limit: Clark not counting any chickens

It’s still too early for Clark Wendlandt to seriously consider winning another Angler of the Year title, although he said it’s nice to be leading.

“It feels real good. The good thing is that I’ve been fishing well,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to win, but I’ve had a good year so far, so I’m excited about that.”

With three Top-10 finishes in five events, the 54-year-old from Leander, Texas, leads the season-long race with 423 points, just seven ahead of rookie Taku Ito and eight up on Paul Mueller. Wendlandt returned to B.A.S.S. last season after a great two-decade run in FLW, where he won four tournaments and three AOY titles.

“What I’ve learned from that is, you’ve got to do the best you can at every single event,” he said. “It’s going to take really good finishes, even from this point out to win, so I’ve just got to do the best I can.”

There are four more tournaments on the revamped schedule, which resumes Wednesday with the NOCO Bassmaster Elite at Lake Guntersville. It’s the first of back-to-back-to-back events, which include Santee Cooper Lakes and Chickamauga Lake before closing the season with Texas Fest on Lake Fork.

If Wendlandt excels during this grueling stretch, he could become the oldest AOY champion in B.A.S.S. since Gerald Swindle. G-Man was 46 when he won his second AOY title in 2016, eclipsing Roland Martin, who was a year younger for the last of his nine titles in 1985.

“That would be an honor, but I still feel young,” Wendlandt said. “I’m getting older, but I still feel like I can fish and hang with those young kids.”

Several of Wendlandt’s contemporaries have long known his abilities to compete wherever he goes. He’s a fisherman’s fisherman.

“It’s not surprising to me at all that Clark leads AOY and has a good chance to be the oldest to win it,” said Bassmaster TV analyst Davy Hite, who first met him in 1993. “He is one of the best ever. He’s got a lot of God-given talent and is a very hard worker. I think he’s very focused on fishing and having a lot of fun doing it, so I’d say the rest of the field better look out.”

There are four anglers over 40 years old in the top 10 of the AOY standings, with Wendlandt their senior. Of the 88 Elites who started the season, there are a dozen born in the 1960s, two in the 1950s and one in the 1940s. Jay Yelas, recently announced to the 2020 induction class of the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, turned 55 in September, and he said Wendlandt must have a map to the fountain of youth.

“Clark is killing them this year,” Yelas said. “I think it’s cool that he’s doing so well. It is inspirational for him to compete at the top of the pack at our age. It’s good for the sport to have a sprinkling of veterans in there. Part of the fan base is the same age as us or older, and they like having guys their age to pull for.”

Yelas admitted it will require some stamina to excel in the upcoming stretch, where anglers will compete six of 18 days and more if they make cuts. Wendlandt is one tough Texan, and part of that is because he’s conscientious of his health, and he won’t be beat by lack of effort.

“I’ve had some health problems in the past. I’m a diabetic, and I had a heart attack seven, eight years ago now. That was a setback,” he said. “Diabetics are just more prone for heart disease. I work at it. I try to keep myself in as good of health as I can.

“As far as hard-working goes, that’s the only thing I can control. If anybody can outwork me, they deserve it more than me. So I’m going to work as hard as I can, fish as hard as I can and let the chips fall where they may.”

Hite said some of Wendlandt’s success of late can be that more of his full focus has returned to fishing. A family man, Wendlandt and wife, Patti, are now empty-nesters. With their daughters grown and married, he has been able to concentrate more on fishing.

“What happens,” Wendlandt explains, “when you come kicking out of the gates, you’re driven, you want to do well. You’re trying to figure out how to make a living and navigate this sport. If you don’t focus every bit of your time and energy on it, then you just can’t compete. It’s too competitive.

“Then it comes a point, you’ve had some success, and you have kids and you just have other things in your life. There’s more than just fishing. My kids were growing up, and I wanted to be there with them. They started getting involved in sports, volleyball mainly, and I wanted to be here to enjoy that with them, go to their games, just like every dad wants to. You just kind of get to a point where you’re still doing it, still competing, still traveling, but you’d just as soon not leave. You want to stay at home.”

It’s now easier to go on longer trips around tournaments, pre-practicing before or after events, and his wife as a travel partner has him looking forward to hitting the road as she offers great support.

“I really can’t give her enough credit,” he said. “She does everything from social media to reservations, to moral support to just companionship. Having her around is really important to me.”

The Southern Swing will be quite a road trip, but Wendlandt is looking forward to his first fall tournaments in some time. He said he loves fishing this time of year, when things usually get a little tougher.

“I’m picking out baits now — I haven’t thrown this in a long time because I haven’t fished in the fall that much lately,” he said, adding that Santee is the only one he hasn’t competed on recently. “It’s been years since I fished it, and it’s a totally different fishery right now.”

As many others in the field have noted, there’s not much recent history on these lakes in fall, so previous patterns can’t be followed. Wendlandt said he’ll just have to get there, fish the conditions and hope his experience of competing in around 300 events pays dividends.

“I think the fact that I have fished quite a few tournaments might be an advantage, but it’s still all got to fall right,” he said. “I’ve got to figure it out when I get there. I’m looking forward to them. I know they are great lakes and they’ll be some big sacks, but overall I think it could be a lot tougher than normal. We’re all in the same boat, though. I’ve been fishing well and I just hope that holds.”

If it does, Wendlandt might just fulfill a rarity of AOY titles on both major circuits, which he said would just be an extension of his passion for the game.

“What I’ve learned about myself, I really love to fish,” he said. “Every lake I get on, I want to try to figure it out. That’s what I’ve always liked about going to all these new places. It’s just what I enjoy.”