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But you eventually started working for Operation Bass .
Charlie and I had been fishing a tournament on the weekend , and I asked him what he had to do when he got back to Benton ( Kentucky , home of the original Operation Bass / FLW office ) to work . He said he had to hire a couple tournament assistants and I asked him what that meant . I said I might be interested in that . To make a long story short , my daughter was just graduating high school and going to college , and I figured that would help pay for that .
So you worked part-time and then went all-in ?
I did it almost six years . I took all my [ UPS ] vacation in that time frame to attend the events , and eventually I retired from UPS . Six months or so after I had retired , it wasn ’ t long until I was offered a full-time position as a tournament director . I went from working fulltime back to working fulltime again and the rest is history .
How did you start tournament fishing initially ?
Right out of college I got drafted – I was one of the very first to get drafted under the lottery system . I went into the U . S . Army in 1970 . I spent two years there ,
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and once I got out of the Army , I started back with UPS and started fishing .
While I was in the Army , I became a member of B . A . S . S . My wife sent me the magazine , and I read the stories of the tournaments , and I couldn ’ t wait to get back home . I joined a bass club in 1973 , and it evolved from there .
I had grown up fishing farm ponds around my community , but I really fell in love with Lake Cumberland . I was really intrigued by the big water over there . I lived about 30 minutes from Lake Cumberland at the time , and one of my close high school friends , his dad had a small boat with a 10-horsepower outboard . He and I began to go to the headwaters of Lake Cumberland , and we grew from that when we were in college .
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Ever since I met you , you ’ ve been into night fishing , which is mostly a summertime thing . When did you branch out from that ?
I ’ ll never forget the first time I caught a bass on a jig was in late February . The weather got pretty , and I had bought an 18-horsepower Johnson outboard and I rented a boat in Beaver Creek on Lake Cumberland .
In those days , you could rent a boat for not much money , and I had an old “ doll fly .” It was a hair jig and I put a trailer on it and I caught a 6-pound largemouth for my first fish ever on the jig . I got hooked on jig fishing in 1973 and that ’ s how I got started in wintertime fishing .
I found out pretty quick after that if I wanted to really catch some big ones I went in the wintertime . I was one of the very first people in my area that really fished in the wintertime . I read all these articles about guys in Arkansas and how good they bit in the winter . It became my favorite time to fish .
What was your tackle situation like back then ?
The very first Abu Garcia reel I bought , I paid $ 38.95 for it , and I thought I ’ d died and went to heaven . My
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tackle consisted mostly of Bomber crankbaits , and I bought every jig and every spinnerbait I could buy .
I guess the biggest turnaround in my career was the “ alphabet baits ”: the Rebel Super R , and the Big Os . The first one I saw was a brown-colored Super R . It had black stripes , and I ’ ll never forget it . I paid $ 1.98 when most tackle was 75 cents to $ 1 . I thought it looked like a chub minnow . The first cast I made with it in Lake Cumberland , I caught a smallmouth that was 4 pounds .
You were fishing pretty steady in central Kentucky by the time Operation Bass started in 1979 . I think you finished second in the first tournament they ever ran , and it just went up from there .
I got lucky in 1981 . I won their end-of-the-year championship and went on to win 14 events and held the record for a while before I had to back off when I started working part-time . I won my last one on those circuits in 1997 on Cherokee Lake . The last 20 years I haven ’ t fished hardly any BFLs or things like that . I didn ’ t get to fish as many tournaments as I wanted to , but I ’ m going to fish a lot more next year .
I bet you have some great memories from all that time around tournaments .
I ’ ve met so many great people – not just professional anglers , but great people . I ’ d watched Jerry McKinnis on TV and I got to meet him . I really understood where he was coming from , how he got to where he was , and he was one of the great people I got to know .
Another one was Roland Martin . Bless his heart , Roland had so much energy . When he came through boat check , he was like a lost cat ,
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