Young people are more resilient to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than the rest of us; good thing, because they need to be. disappointments are frequent and triumphs rare, with only experience and willpower fueling the hope that somewhere in the winnowing process of life the scales will balance. flW tour newcomer Josh Weaver is beginning to understand the price that has to be paid. last summer, in only his second season as a pro, the Georgia angler seemed poised to fish in his first forrest Wood cup. Weaver knew that the only thing that stood between him and the championship tournament was the potomac River, which hosted the last qualifying tournament of the 2017 campaign. slam dunk; in practice Weaver located what he considered to be a winning concentration of bass that were foraging in bream beds.

“ i don’ t know how many good fish i caught off that stretch, but it was good enough that that night i phoned my dad and told him i was on the winning

After fish,” battling recalls the Weaver demons. of addiction for 15 somebody years, pro Johnny forgot McCombs to tell is the bass. back on Tour, thanks largely to the support When Weaver of his parents reached, Tyler McCombs his spot the first and morning Diann, Hays the. big cruisers he had seen had been replaced by much smaller fish. he wound up catching 11 pounds. instead of moving to plan B on day two, he decided to return to his primary spot. By early afternoon, he had one fish in the livewell and decided to make a 45-minute run up the river to a backup area. in an hour and a half, he scrounged up a 13-pound limit and realized that probably he should have gone there earlier.

“ up until the tournament started, i was looking at catching around 20 pounds a day in my primary spot. i caught tons of fish down there in practice. But the big ones moved out, and the smaller fish moved in,” adds Weaver.“ Going into that second day i thought the better fish might show up again and i could make the cut. about midday i accepted the fact that probably it wasn’ t going to happen. i think i needed another 6 ounces or so to qualify for the cup.”

Weaver wound up in 125th place in the tournament and 46th place for the year, or two spots away from reaching the forrest Wood cup. though it was a disappointing end to his 2017 campaign, Weaver otherwise had a promising season overall, finishing second on the Mississippi River, 56th at Beaver lake, 39th at lake cumberland, eighth at the harris chain, 148th at lake travis and 60th at lake Guntersville.

Weaver, who, at 22 years old, was the youngest pro on tour in 2017, earned enough checks to keep his fishing career going, but perhaps the most important asset he took away from last season is that sometimes ounces are more important than pounds.

“ When i started tournament fishing i had the mindset that i was going to fish for big bites and go for the win every time out,” explains Weaver.“ i’ m still young and learning, but i know that sometimes it’ s better to drop back and punt than to go all in. My biggest goal now is to qualify for the forrest Wood cup every year. i’ m going to be aggressive and take advantage of any patterns that might help me win, but getting that limit every day is the main thing.”

Weaver, 6-2 and 215 pounds, comes by his aggressive nature honestly. When he attended first presbyterian day school in Macon, he was a pitcher for the baseball team and envisioned a career on the diamond. after his junior year, however, Weaver underwent tommy John surgery to repair an injured ligament in his pitching arm and never fully recovered. he had a few

Bass Fishing Jul 2018 | Page 39

SUCCESS IN HIS SIGHTS