THE
LAST CAST
PRO ANGLERS ARE HUMAN, TOO
THEY MAY BE GREAT AT WHAT THEY DO, BUT EVERYONE MAKES MISTAKES
By Justin Onslow
S
o many weekend warriors and
amateur bass tournament
anglers dream about one day
fishing at the highest level. Those who
do are perhaps blocked only by their
own expectations and preconceived
notions – chief among them, how do you
get to the point where the big mistakes
just don’t happen? You know the ones
I’m talking about.
But if you don’t …
Imagine a scenario in which you’re
nervous fishing a new body of water in
your first-ever big weekend derby, and
you catch a fish that wouldn’t keep if you
were fishing your home lake because of
a slot limit. Only you’re not on your home
lake, and, without thinking, you unhook
that 3-pounder and toss it back over the
gunwale as if you were. That happened
to Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit pro Nick
LeBrun in his first big draw derby on
Toledo Bend.
“I’d been used to fishing Caddo all
the time, and Caddo had a 14- to 18-inch
slot,” the second-year FLW pro says. “I
caught probably a 3-pounder, got him
all the way to the boat, and took the Rat-
L-Trap out of his mouth and just threw
him back in the water.”
Perhaps you worry about mechanical
issues and the major malfunctions
you just don’t see on FLW Live. What
pro would fail to tighten a couple bolts
on a trolling motor mount and watch
rough water rip his trolling motor right
off the bow? LeBrun can tell you all
about that, too.
“I was running the boat as hard as I
could and it popped up in the air a little
bit too high, and when it came down the
trolling motor launched going probably 55
mph,” LeBrun says. “It locked in and tore
right off the front of the boat. It did $1,000
in fiberglass damage to the bottom.”
Sure, those kinds of blunders don’t
happen that often for any given pro, but
consider mistakes like the one Pro Circuit
veteran Tom Redington made at Lake
Martin back in March, when he unhooked
his best fish on the second day of the
event, paused for a quick photo and, as if
the tournament hadn’t started, tossed it
back over the side of his boat instead of
dropping it in the livewell.
Redington returned to that spot later
in the day and caught what he believes
to be the same fish, and he’ll tell you all
about it in his YouTube video entitled
“Lake Martin FLW recap: Overcoming
DUMBEST mistake ever.”
Surely that kind of thing can’t happen
to everyone, though. Unless you want to
ask James Biggs, who returned to the
Pro Circuit this season after having
fished the FLW Tour in 2013 and 2015
and who won the TBF National
Championship in 2014.
In the 2011 TBF National Championship,
Biggs got on a fired-up school of fish and
didn’t have time to spare between casts.
He culled and culled again, replacing his
smallest fish – a 1-7 – with a larger specimen.
He proceeded to throw back a 1-14
that he thought little of.
It turned out Biggs actually had
another 1-7 in his livewell, and he threw
back 7 ounces that would have helped in
a big, big way.
“Day three, I wreck ’em, and the
leader struggles, and I lose $100,000 and
the Living the Dream package by 4
ounces. I threw back 7 ounces.”
There isn’t a pro out there who
doesn’t have a similar story of opportunity
lost, though they’re not all of that
magnitude. Take Pro Circuit rookie Erik
Luzak, who hails from Canada and
once tried his hand at a pike tournament
with his friend and tournament
partner Tom Hardy.
Opting not to include a 50-inch aerated
cooler in his boat (which is sometimes
necessary as a livewell to house
massive pike for a full tournament day),
Luzak found himself with a broken
livewell and a 42-inch pike that wouldn’t
fit in it.
To make matters worse, he and
Hardy misinterpreted the tournament
rules that stated each angler – not each
team – was allowed just one pike over 34
inches and threw back several of their
own would-be winning fish.
“We ended up getting third or fourth –
we did win big fish – but if we’d kept one
of the other 34-plussers, we would have
won the event,” Luzak says. “It cost us a
couple grand, and I would have won my
only pike tournament.”
Even James Watson, an established
pro who spent nine years at FLW’s highest
level and now fishes MLF’s premier
circuit, has a story to tell. In 2018, his
FLW Tour season started with a whimper
instead of a bang when, during his very
first practice day on Okeechobee,
Watson took a wrong turn and ended up
running through a hayfield, staring down
the barrel of a boat lane about as wide
as his lower unit.
“There’s only one thing you can do:
Hammer it,” he says. “I hammer it, hit bottom
right there as soon as the big reeds
ended, and my big motor kicks up and
shoots me to the left into this grass.”
“I’m in no way, shape or form able to
get this boat off. I get out and assess the
situation, scared to death I’m going to get
eaten by a big python or alligator. Thank
God I had cell service and BoatUS.”
Each of these very true stories is rare,
sure, but everyone who’s fished at any
level has a similar tale to tell – and
sometimes several. Being a pro doesn’t
mean you don’t slip up from time to time.
After all, we’re all human, tournament
professionals included.
EXCEPT MAYBE BRYAN THRIFT.
WE’RE PRETTY SURE HE’S A MACHINE. n
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FLWFISHING.COM | MAJORLEAGUEFISHING.COM | JUNE-JULY 2020