(Editors Note: During Day 2 of the 2019 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Elite Series Tournament at Lake Guntersville, we caught up with Dale Hightower and discussed his results so far this season and what he plans to do to right his ship during the second half of the 2019 Elite Series.)
“I don’t’ think I had unrealistic expectations coming into the Elites, but I did have expectations. I knew fishing at this level was going to be the biggest challenge of my career,” Dale Hightower said. “But I haven’t been fishing to my abilities. Thankfully Guntersville has been treating me pretty well so far. I needed the boost — both for the points and for the mental relief.”
Hailing from Mannford, Okla., Hightower has completed five tournaments of his rookie season as a Bassmaster Elite Series pro, and so far it’s not going as he had hoped.
He started his career this year at St. Johns River with a respectable 39th-place finish, 75th at Georgia’s Lake Lanier, 72nd at Hartwell, 31st at Winyah Bay and a 73rd-place finish at Lake Fork.
“It’s not an excuse, but there is a different kind of pressure fishing at this level,” he said. “I made choices on lure selection and targeted locations that I thought would produce the kind of fish required to stay competitive against this crew of anglers. But I kind of got away from what I was good at.”
Hightower came into the Guntersville event knowing he needed to turn things around if he were to qualify for the 2020 Classic, which also happens to be scheduled for the same location next March.
“I decided that if I was going to shift gears and get back to how I like to catch bass, Guntersville was the place to do it,” he said. “Everything about this lake — the time of year and the way I like to fish — lined up, and I was intent on making the most of it.
“Professional bass fishing is all about making good decisions, and I wasn’t doing that at all. I feel like I was fishing in a way that was expected, and it was taking me away from what I do best. I was trying to force things when I should have been slowing down and focusing.”
During the first day of the derby, Hightower caught 20 pounds, 4 ounces, and followed that up with 16-1 to have a strong shot at making the Top 10 on Championship Monday.
“If the Classic is in my future, I need to finish 35th or better in the remaining events,” he said. “We head north in August, an area I don’t have a lot of experience with, but I’m going to learn everything I possibly can about smallmouth bass in that region of the country, put my Humminbirds to work when I get there and be as prepared as I possibly can. I don’t have a choice. But the good news is I’m not out of it yet.”
Interestingly, the regular Elite Series season will wrap up on Oklahoma’s Ft. Gibson, an event that was postponed earlier this spring due to severe local flooding. It is now scheduled for September, and happens to be in Hightower’s backyard.
“I’m excited to get to Ft. Gibson,” he said. “That’s a tough time to catch big bass consistently in that part of the country, but I know I can do it. My goal is to put myself in to position to fish that tournament in a way that’s stress free, and not worry too much about making the AOY championship in Detroit. But, if I need the points from that event to make the AOY cut, Ft. Gibson is a good place at a good time for me to make it happen.”
If any young or aspiring angler can take something from Hightower’s season of lessons, he said it’s to slow down and learn to make the kind of decisions that move you forward, not backward.
“I put some pretty heavy expectations on myself this year, and I was fishing in ways that seemed foreign to me because I thought that’s what I was supposed to do it,” he said. “Having confidence in what you’re good at and trusting your gut will take you a long ways in this sport, at any level.
“Slow down, don’t expect to make it to the Elites in an unrealistic time frame — And everybody’s story is different. Just because one person made it work when they were young doesn’t mean someone else can’t make it happen later in life. That’s the beauty of this sport; anybody can do it. Anybody.”
Good advice for life in general.