For Ashley, it all began at Hayden High
School – roughly half an hour north of
Birmingham – when Ashley and friend
Chase Kanute decided the school needed
competitive bass fishing. The two began
making phone calls and talked to the prin-
cipal, eventually pulling together the six
anglers needed for a team.
“We ended up winning the state
championship four years in a row, from
my eighth-grade season through my
junior year,” says Ashley. “We finished
third my senior year. So, we obviously
had some really good success.”
During this time, high school fishing
exploded in popularity. Ashley remem-
bers competing in 40-boat tournaments
his first season. By the time he graduat-
ed in 2015, field caps of 250 boats were
placed on some tournaments.
“It grew that much,” says Ashley.
Pay to Play
No matter an athlete’s talent, each
sport has requirements on when he or
she can turn pro. Football players must
be three years removed from high
school. Basketball, one year removed.
Fishing’s lone requirement: money.
Ashley says that’s the one thing keep-
ing the next storm of fishing stars at bay,
which is not surprising. Not many 18-
year-olds have the money for entry fees,
let alone the money needed for travel, a
boat and all the other expenses that
professional anglers incur.
Winning the 2017 Costa FLW Series event at Lake Okeechobee bankrolled the rest of Ashley’s tourna-
ment season. Money, or lack thereof, is always a determining factor for aspiring young pros.
“The biggest thing is being able to
afford to do it,” says Ashley. “I know a lot
of guys who can do what I’m doing;
maybe even do it better. They just can’t
afford it.”
Ashley certainly couldn’t afford it
after graduation, so he and Kanute
both went to Bryan College in Dayton,
Between tournaments, Ashley works for Duke Energy and saves up his cash to cover entry fees
and other fishing-related expenses.
36
Tenn., on fishing scholarships. However,
Ashley left after one semester, saying it
just wasn’t the place for him. Instead, he
went to work for Kanute’s dad, Chris,
who is a regional manager for Duke
Energy. Chase made it two more
semesters before he followed suit.
Which brings us to last fall, when
Ashley got a call from Chris advising
him he really should try fishing some
bigger tournaments in 2017.
“I told him, ‘Chris, if I do that I’ll have
to take off a lot more time from work,’”
remembers Ashley. “He said that was
fine, so I was like, all right. I’d been sav-
ing up my money.
“Even then, I’ll admit that if I hadn’t
won [the Costa event] at Okeechobee,
or at least made a check, I wouldn’t
have any money right now.”
That’s the reality, the risk and the
reward of the sport, but Ashley’s vic-
tory at Okeechobee and top-five fin-
ish at the Chickamauga Costa event a
few months later give hope to other
young anglers that they, too, can do
what he did.
“I’ll tell you right now, there are so
many good anglers in my age group,”
says Ashley. “Some of them are close
buddies, but there are guys all over the
country who are like me or probably
even better than me. They’re a bunch
of hammers; freaking sticks, and
they’re coming.”
FLWFISHING.COM I AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2017