CHARLES COUNTY, Md. – As morning turned to afternoon and the incoming tide neared its apex on the first day of the Bassmaster Elite on the Potomac River presented by Econo Lodge, Gerald Swindle had only two small keepers in his livewell. That didn’t necessarily surprise the current Toyota Angler of the Year leader after a three-day practice period which only saw him hoist one legal largemouth bass over the side of his boat.
“I never caught them in practice,” he said, reporting that he had two bites the first day, two the second day and three the third day. “This is the toughest tournament I’ve ever fished. I’m sure I’m wrong, but it just feels like there are not a lot of fish in the river.”
With little else to go on, he’d started the day on what he called “my best spot and my only spot,” the place where he’d landed his sole practice bass. For a brief time it proved to be a good decision. He landed two in the first 20 minutes and figured he was onto something.
Then he fished and waited.
Fished and waited some more.
The good outgoing tide switched directions, but his success did not. He didn’t get another bite until nearly 11 o’clock. It did not end up in his livewell.
“It felt heavy, but he came off,” he said. “It starts messing with your head, because you’re not getting many bites.”
The Swindle of 10 or 20 years ago might’ve spun out and lost his cool. “I would’ve had a sausage biscuit and gone home,” he said. The Swindle of today – the one whose hat reads “PMA” for “Positive Mental Attitude” – allowed himself no such option. As his fishing skills progressed over the course of the years, he took inspiration from old-timers like Denny Brauer and Guido Hibdon, who he’d watched at the beginning of his promising career. “No matter how bad fishing was, they held their composure. That comes with age. It takes time to believe in yourself.”
Today he is the wise old-timer; or, as a young angler he mentors in Alabama calls him, the “O.G.” (Original Grinder).
“I made a promise to myself that I would keep looking,” he said. As time ran out and both his boat’s gas tank and his mental stamina were tested, he took inspiration from the note that his wife wrote on his sandwich bag today: “Mental toughness is being able to find gas in an empty tank.” Before either tank had run completely dry, he pulled up on what he described as a “random spot,” one he hadn’t fished before, and before he could fully process what had happened, not only had he filled out his limit, but he’d vaulted from the bottom half of the standings sheet to inside the top ten. He currently holds down 7th place.
By the end of the tournament, or even the end of the Elite Series season, it could prove to be the most important random stop he’s ever made. The four anglers who followed him in the AOY standings heading into the Potomac – Keith Combs, Jacob Powroznik, Randall Tharp and Greg Hackney – are in 6th, 10th, 11th and 14th, respectively. If Swindle is to maintain his lead in the season-long race, he has little or no room to stumble. It would be particularly painful if he were to miss the cut and remain on the sidelines on Saturday while his pursuers have an opportunity to gain ground or even leapfrog him. If he can come anywhere close to Thursday’s catch on Friday, he’ll retain at least a modicum of control over the matter.
He may not be confident in the fishery right now, but he’s confident in his process, the same one that allowed him to grind through his repertoire of spots and techniques. Even if he’d zeroed, he stated, he would’ve known that he “had fished [his] guts out. I don’t want to feel like I beat myself.”
The best anglers, he said, are the “guys who can keep the false confidence going.”
Tomorrow Swindle will once again start where he caught his first two fish Thursday. With an extra hour of outgoing tide, he hopes that he’ll better this morning’s efforts. But he said that if it doesn’t work out there, or elsewhere, he can live with the results, as long as he keeps grinding.
“I’d love the [AOY] trophy,” he said. “But if I don’t catch them, it will be all right.”