One of my best memories of the 2015 hunting season was harvesting this beautiful axis in South Texas.  It was an odyssey of a hunt that lasted over two season and culminated in this big axis making a scrape and then walking right to the blind.  I shot him at 17 yards and can still remember getting half way back on my draw and having to freeze because he was staring right at me.  It was one of the coolest hunts I’ve ever had, and I gained a lot of respect for this exotic animal.  The show is being cut right now for Fishing and Hunting Texas.  I can’t wait for you to see it!

I just worked the banquet and the casting competitions for the Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship presented by Cabela’s. My big takeaway from the event is what a great event it is!  When you look back at college bass fishing over the past 6 or 7 years, it’s amazing to see how many of these kids end up working in the outdoor industry.  Some of them will become professional bass fishermen, but what I see in all of them is a real passion for the outdoors.  Not everyone can be a professional bass fisherman, but when you have that passion, there are many ways you can fit in to the industry.  In the casting competition, I realized how good these guys are technically.  But they are also marketable.  They look you in the eye in conversation, they have good people skills, and in my mind there is no doubt that many of them will have a great career in the outdoor industry.

Another unique thing about college bass fishing is how level the playing field is.  Think about it, a school like Bryan College out of Dayton Tennessee can go toe to toe with the University of Alabama.  It’s a level playing field because it’s fishing.  And good fishing has to with good decision-making and great instincts on the water.  I’m glad I get to work this event every year.  It’s refreshing to see the kind of passion these kids have.

Four years ago my oldest daughter left for college. Nothing in parenting fully prepared me and Patti for that day.  Throughout Emily’s childhood, we spent a lot of time as a family.  Patti homeschooled both girls so they could all travel with me on the Tour, and once they quit travelling because the girls were busy with extra curriculars, they were still around the house more than they would have been had they been in school all day, and we had flexibility to spend a lot of time together.  Watching her leave was difficult.  It was a big change for our family.  But Emily jumped into college, worked hard and has made us very proud parents!  This weekend, she graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in Kinesiology/Exercise Physiology and already has a job working in a hospital monitoring cardiac rehab for patients.  She got married in January to a great guy, and we love spending time with both of them and our other daughter, Katie.

Emily has always enjoyed hunting and fishing with me, and she’s really good at it (I never let her beat me in fishing, which made her pretty competitive!).  This year hunting with Emily was special as we filmed a couple of hunts for Fishing and Hunting Texas together. She harvested a great deer in late fall and shot a turkey this spring. We are just now cutting the show for Fishing and Hunting Texas. It should be a great show. I am one proud dad!  We couldn’t have imagined four years ago, how blessed we could be after our children left home, but we sure are!

I just returned from the FLW Tour event on Lake Pickwick/Wilson in Alabama.  In this event, one of the big risks you take is locking out of Pickwick and into Wilson. FLW had “guaranteed” lock times for us, and after my practice, I thought my best bet was to lock into Wilson Lake.  I locked into and fished Wilson that first day and had a decent day. Unfortunately, when I got back to the lock at 1:30, the designated time, there was a barge stuck in the lock. My weigh in time was 3:00, and by the time the lock opened back up, I was not able to make it back in time to weigh in my fish.  Of the 33 anglers who were stuck, 27 of us were not able to make it back for our assigned check–in times. In 28 years of competitive fishing, I have never been late – not even one time.

Things like locking in to different lakes or making 2 hour one-way runs are things that make our sport really unique. To be good at fishing, you have to take risks. It’s just part of the sport. Yes, there were “guaranteed” lock times, but we all know that we lock at our own risk.

Though I caught fish, I weighed in zero that first day. I did not choose to lock the next day and caught a decent limit on Pickwick, but it wasn’t enough to result in a very good finish.  I had to swing for the fences on Pickwick and came up short. Risk is just part of the sport we love, and it’s actually one of the thing that makes it so compelling and so much fun.  I’ll continue to take risks and pray for the best.  It’s what I do.  It’s fishing.  And I’ll get em’ next time!

Most Texas lakes are looking good! It wasn’t long ago that our Texas lakes were in bad shape – really low, very little cover, and very few ramps in the water. But look at them now! Wow. Many are back to full pool. There is cover everywhere. Take a recent trip we took filming for Fishing and Hunting Texas to Lake Buchanan – we had fished it last summer, and it was pitiful. Absolutely nothing in the water, no ramps and very few fish.  But now it’s a completely different story.  The lake is at full pool with shallow bushes all the way out to 20 feet of water. The Texas drought has been devastating in so many ways, but for Texas fisheries, drought is really very healthy in the longer term. Most fish thrive with cover of some kind. Even white bass who spend most of their time in open water still benefit from the bait fish thriving in cover.   With the water so low for so long, lots of bushes and grass grew where the water had been, and I think this is going to make the lakes that were really low like Buchanan, Somerville, and Travis, the very best they have ever been in the next few years. For fisherman and boaters alike it was about time.

Every once in a while something happens that just makes you stop and reflect. Not just reflect but really marvel. Two weeks ago my most influential fishing hero gave me one of those moments. He was fishing the BASS Elite event on the St. Johns River, and at the age of 69, just three months shy of 70 years old, he won the event. You may think that’s not that big a deal, but I beg to differ. It’s a really big deal!  To say the competition in these events is tough is an understatement.  He is almost 70 years old fishing against a field of 20-30 years old guys, and he whooped them. It’s significant to me because he is the guy that I dreamed of being as a kid. He helped inspire me to fish for a living, and now at the age of 69, he is still doing it, still able to not only compete, but win.

I’ve been professionally fishing now for 28 years, and the same week Clunn won, I finished second in an FLW Tour event – makes me realize that my best days may be yet to come.  I might still have another good 20 years ahead of me! Truly that is a great feeling. Fishing is a sport that is physically and mentally challenging. Clunn has always been one of the strongest mental competitors out there, and he has managed to stay strong physically as well. That is motivating! As I have reflected on the significance of Clunn’s win, I realize how rare it is that the same guy who inspired a 22 year-old to dive into competitive bass fishing is still a legitimate competitor in the sport and continues to inspire me 28 years later.

photo credit: bassfishingarchives