Behind this house is a creek on Lake Guntersville, where the homeowner made history in 2014.
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Robin and Randy Howell are the owners, and Howell won the 2014 Bassmaster Classic not far from his own backyard.
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You might say this is the dreamiest of dream homes for Randy. The Howells moved in early in 2017, and soon another kind of moving was underway.
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Enter the man cave with dual parking bays. Running the length of one bay is a floor drain where the boat is parked. The drain is one of many amenities built into this custom home.
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This man cave is like no other. Behind this secret door is more than a place for storing tackle.
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The door opens to an interior hallway of the house. On the other side is another full size door that opens to another cave of sorts.
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That door leads to the indoor storage area for the RV trailer. The Howells live in a HOA-restricted neighborhood and RVs cannot be parked in the driveway. “We spent way too much time unloading, reloading and parking it at a storage place,” he said.
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On the other side of the RV garage is the man cave. To get the RV inside the other garage required raising the ceilings to 15 feet. The benefit of the extra tall ceilings is more storage shelves.
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To the right is another wall of shelves that hold all of the lures and related hardware that get rotated in and out of the RV and boat.
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On the opposite wall are more shelves for storing extra lure inventory. Randy likes the pegboard setup for current baits. The other side holds throwback baits and seldom used lures. “You never know when those might come back in style, though,” he admitted.
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This shelf is beside the secret door leading to the RV storage. Howell removes what he needs for a given tournament, slides the boxes across the hall and loads those into the RV.
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“I like to keep it all fairly organized. That way I can take what I need in the belly storage of the RV and leave the rest at home.”
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“What else I like about the space is my boat gets parked along the length of the shelves on that side,” he said. That keeps everything at arm’s reach.
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Nearby is a pegboard wall filled with packages of soft plastics from Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits. “I like the pegboard for the plastics because it’s easier to find what I need, instead of sorting through piles in a box.”
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Some packages already are sorted and categorized into boxes. Howell can grab what he needs and put it into the boat for quick use.
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This box will get heavy use throughout the season. Senkos are stored inside and Howell always has one or more tied on his boat outfits. “I always have one rigged and ready.”
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Yet to be sorted through are more Yamamoto plastics inside these bags. “We are still unpacking.” Loading, unloading and packing again. It’s all part of being a traveling bass pro.
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There’s a lot of secret intelligence info stored in these zip-close bags. Inside those yellow boxes are map cards for the Lowrance units at bow and dashboard.
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The basketball filled with signatures belongs to Robin. “I played high school basketball and my teammates signed it my senior year,” she said. Call it a round version of a yearbook.
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Here’s another throwback. While unpacking, the Howell’s discovered these life vests. In 1996 and the next year, Robin qualified for the Bassn’ Gal Classic. At left is her vest from the championship. At right is Randy’s vest from his first Bassmaster Classic in 1997.
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Here’s another throwback. It’s the basketball given to Randy when the family attended a Harlem Globetrotter game in nearby Huntsville. “They tried to get me to come out and dunk but it didn’t work,” he said with a laugh.
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More retro hangs on the wall. This is the actual windshield from the Triton Tr21 used by Randy to win the 2014 Classic. “I wanted a piece of memorabilia from the boat and that’s it.” A friend and wellwisher had the windshield mounted for wall hanging.
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A lot of these Livingston Lures are of Randy’s design and feedback. Some are provided to charity organizations for good deeds. “I like this setup because we can easily see our inventory, and they are much easier to find when I need to stock up for a tournament.”
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Call this the throwback shelf. You’ll find out of circulation baits and all kinds of lures used by Howell in years past. When he needs secret go-to baits this is where he searches.
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Every man cave has a mascot and here it is for Howell. The plush bass toy, like the retro life jackets, appeared from nowhere as the Howell’s unpacked from the move.
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Between the pegboards with Livingston Lures is this section with a hodgepodge of lures and terminal tackle. “If it doesn’t have an organized home, this is where it goes,” he said.
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Here’s another hodgepodge container with otherwise homeless items. Although the Mosquito Head Net went into the boat after this photo was taken. “I’ll used that for sure at Okeechobee,” he said. Okeechobee was the second stop of the 2017 Bassmaster Elite Series season.
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Randy christened the man cave with this Toyota Bonus Bucks Tournament flag. It flew at the most recent event held at Table Rock Lake in Missouri.
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As the sun sets the work continues. The first Elite Series event was scheduled for the next week at Cherokee Lake in Tennessee. The boat was backed into the man cave with more work ahead.
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Howell just returned from an all-day personal appearance at the grand opening of Duckett Marine in Guntersville. Fellow Guntersville resident and Elite Series pro Boyd Duckett owns the dealership.
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Extending 44 feet is a parking bay for Randy’s Tundra and Triton rig. That makes it convenient to load both truck and boat for a trip.
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The other parking bay can accommodate another vehicle, or the Tundra, if more space is needed.
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Robin sits in the recliner, at right, and gives instructions to Randy about what to pack. “Not really,” he said with a laugh.
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Randy loads his new boat for the first time. It’s an arduous task made much easier with the shelves loaded within arm’s reach of the boat.
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“We still have work to do in getting it just right, but we are pretty close,” he said. The work was put on hold the next week, as the Howell’s began a road trip to east Tennessee and south Florida for nearly back-to-back Elite Series events.
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“I really like this cool seat cushion because it has more than one use,” he said. “I thought we’d lost it but it turned up while unpacking all the boxes.”
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Look close and the function comes into clear view. It’s basically a seat cushion that functions as a bragging board for measuring bass.
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The work continues as the boat gets loaded with more gear for the road.
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“When we built the 15-foot ceiling for the RV garage we didn’t realize how much more storage room we’d have over here,” he said. When you build a house around a man cave, good things like that happen.
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