TOUR LIFE
GOING FOR IT
PROFILE
By Sean Ostruszka
A DREAM OF FISHING PROFESSIONALLY HAS TURNED INTO REALITY FOR DYLAN HAYS
A
20
close examination of Flw tour pro dylan hays’
fishing career might make you shake your
head. his path doesn’t really match up with
what one might consider a “typical” pursuit of
a fishing career.
hays grew up in the angler-heaven state of arkansas,
saying he wanted to one day be a professional fisherman,
but he never really fished in grade school. well, maybe
not never. a kid in arkansas is bound to end up fishing at
one point or another, if only by accident. still, “rarely” is
not too strong a term to describe the frequency with
which he wet a line in those days.
no one in hays’ family fished, and it wasn’t until
around age 12 that he started to actually get into it. at
that point, he was fishing with some buddies in farm
ponds, including the one on his parents’ farm. their
species of choice was mainly catfish.
despite being “obsessed” with baseball and basketball
in those days, something about fishing spoke to him.
“every day i’d fish that little pond in front of my
house,” explains hays, who nostalgically remembers fish-
ing a Zoom Fluke all over the pond, which was so small
he could cast across it at any point, even with his little
Zebco 33 reel. “you want to know what my best day was
bass fishing? three. i caught three bass all day.”
it sounds like a pretty sad story, but a year or so after
that banner day, he and his dad drained the pond for
maintenance. they found three bass living in that pond.
Fast-forward a little to when hays finally got into tour-
nament fishing. after fishing just a few night tournaments,
FLwFISHInG.com I wInTEr 2020