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 big cruisers he had seen had been replaced by much smaller fish .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