Three Stages of Tietje
Posted by Pete Robbins on Oct 16th 2019
I met Dennis Tietje at a Bassmaster Tour event on Toledo Bend in early 2003. Although he would not join the Elite Series for another seven years, he was already fairly well-known in Louisiana/Texas fishing circles. More importantly, he was a crawfish farmer, so he hosted a bunch of the pros for a big boil at his camp on the lake. My friend Bill and I were fishing the tournament as co-anglers, and while we weren’t technically on the guest list, OT Fears, who’d met Dennis while pheasant hunting in Kansas a few years earlier, dragged us along.
At the time, I’d fished a handful of BASS and FLW events, but the social scene was still mostly new to me. There was Kelly Jordon, inside, watching videos of a trip Dennis had taken to the Amazon. Ken Cook introduced himself. Kenyon Hill taught me how to eat crawfish.
After that night, as my writing career progressed and Dennis fished more professional events, our paths crossed several times – socially, at tournaments, and when I called him for interviews – and he always went out of his way to be helpful. That first crawfish boil was certainly more memorable for me than it was for him, and I’m sure I thanked him for it a few hundred times more than necessary, but it was something of a line of demarcation – both of our roles within the sport changed substantially in a short period of time. When we first met, he’d fished six Opens and I hadn’t been published in a magazine. Within 7 years, he was competing against the best of the best and I was writing for the sport’s signature publications.
After seven years on the Elite Series and two years on the FLW Tour, Dennis stepped back from the highest levels of competitive fishing this year. It wasn’t that he couldn’t compete, but rather that it was no longer as enjoyable for him to be on the road so much. He took a more substantial position at Grosse Savanne, where I saw him this past weekend. Life does not end when one leaves pro fishing, unless that’s the attitude you buy into. On the contrary, Dennis was happier than I’d ever seen him, working hard at the lodge and fishing out of a pure love of the game. Bill, who’d been the one to get me invited to that first crawfish boil in ’03, was there to fish with him, so things kind of came full circle.
I have now been embedded in the sport long enough to see the prologue to a pro’s career, the career itself, and then the positive aftermath of leaving it behind. Seeing Dennis so happy, and so at ease, made me realize that there are multiple ways to live a good life in bass fishing – the key thing is to find the role that’s right for you at a given time, rather than hanging on when it ceases to be fun, profitable or meaningful.
All too often, fishermen complain that they “zigged when they should have zagged,” but seeing Dennis so excited about the next cast at this stage in his career showed me that he’d made the right decision. My only regret is that it wasn’t crawfish season – I’ll have to head back down to fish with him in the spring.
