Rain day at Swindle's

After Day 1 on Smith Lake was canceled due to weather conditions, we got directions to Gerald Swindleâs house near Smith Lake and decided to see how he and his roommates were spending part of their day.

There was no doubt we had arrived in the right place when we saw all the tricked out Toyota Tundra pickupsâ¦

â¦amongst them the truck belonging to Elite Series pro Britt Myers.

Myers truck is always one of the more customized tow vehicles youâll see on the road. His company, CS Motorsports, rigs out a large number of Elite Series tow vehicles every season.

This includes trucks driven by Team Toyota anglers Gerald Swindle and Terry Scroggins.

Even though it may have been considered a day off, both Swindle and Scroggins had several projects in mind they needed to work on.

When Gerald Swindle purchased the farm where they were staying, he spent a lot of time refurbishing the barn you see pictured here.

It made for a dry place to back a boat into on a rainy day.

Swindle even installed custom light fixtures during the remodel.

Swindle showed us around a bit and said every man needs at least one tractor. Swindle has two. He explained his wife LeAnn preferred the bigger tractor because it rode better.

And of course you must have one or more ATVâs, too.

Swindle said the barn may be old, but it stays dryâ¦making it a perfect place to work on tackle, etc.

One of Swindleâs primary endeavors is deer hunting; there was evidence of that everywhere we looked.

Along with the evidence of his well-known Southern humor.

The âGâ Man gets his name on the truck, but so does his wife LeAnn, known as LuLu to many. When theyâre traveling together, the back seat is reserved for their dog Myrick.

Swindle had several projects in mind for today, one of them being a bit of tweaking on his trolling motorâ¦

â¦and organizing the tackle in the back of his truck.

Scroggins showed up with boat snacks for the next two days.

Swindle stopped for a few minutes and wanted to show his hunting building out back. In the freezer were a couple of deer he still needed to take to the taxidermist for mounting.

On the wall was his bow hunting gear, with backpacks for hunting different parts of the country. He started laughing then pointed at the floorâ¦

â¦and after pulling away a tarp, admitted he had a rubber boot collection problem.

In the corner stood several Quantum rod and reel combos he had removed from the boat for the tournament on Smith Lake.

Just last week Swindle nearly cut the end of his finger off, and he repaired it himself with duct tape and super glue.

But that didn’t stop him from working on the main project he had in mind today, installing a rack on top of his truck.

Scroggins offered a bit of supervisionâ¦

â¦but it wasnât long before Swindle had the help of the truck rigging guru himself, Britt Myers.

With a deer looking over his shoulder, Scroggins decided to stick with what he does best, work on his fishing tackle.

Swindle fetches yet another box of gear that will need to be loaded into his Tundra.

…

As we were leaving we couldnât help but notice the grill outside. Scroggins may not be the man when it comes to rigging up trucks, but weâll figure heâll shine this evening when the charcoal gets lit. His prowess with a grill has been enjoyed on many an Elite Series road trip.