A Different Seat for the History Lesson

I was there when KVD sealed the deal in Beeswax Creek.

Same thing the next year in Cataouatche.

James Overstreet and I were on boat number five for the day (long story) and had eaten the last of Kevin’s lucky cookies in 2012 as we watched Chris Lane close it out in Shreveport.

I’ve been there – I mean, really there – for several of the sport’s major moments. As a bass history geek, that gives me a case of the tingles. As a board member of the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, I’m sure that someday I’ll see a picture or artifact in one of our displays and remember the first time I saw it, in action, in the water.

But when Jeff Gustafson caught the winning fish on the Tennessee River last week, I was miles away. It wasn’t because I was covering someone else. It wasn’t because we couldn’t find him. It was because I wasn’t on the water. I never stepped in a boat all week in Knoxville, except to interview someone at the dock or in the parking lot.

After blogging from the water for over a decade, it was with a mix of regret and excitement that I had to give it up this year. The Bass LIVE team, which does an incredible job, has made on-the-water coverage with a pen and ink (or computer or phone or tablet) superfluous. I’m thrilled that the BASS team saw fit to bring me into town anyway and to give me carte blanche to write about anything I wanted, more or less. I’m thrilled that I didn’t have to freeze my ass off on the frigid and wet practice day, as I have in the past. Nevertheless, there are a few things I lost. First, I recall stepping into the hotel lobby, or the media room, in still-drenched clothes, trying to get back feeling in my extremities, and believing that I’d been a part of the action. No, I hadn’t fished, but I’d been there went things went down. I’d felt the same conditions that the anglers felt. I’d pounded through the waves to get there. Now, I was a regular jeans-and-sneakers-wearing-Joe like everyone else.

Furthermore, I probably will not ever again be there for the Cataouatche or Beeswax type moments. I won’t be the closest person to the action when history is made. So what can I do to make sure that I’m every bit as involved? For me, that provided the opportunity to do further analysis, and to provide color, to tell the stories that have never been told. I sat with Gussy’s wife Shelby on the morning of Day Three to ask how she planned to pass the stressful hours. I talked to Brandon Card’s wife, brother, road roommate, and past meningitis-sufferer Mark Menendez to find out how his recent illness might affect his mental and physical performance.

I’ve never had that kind of leisure or opportunity before. I kind of liked it. After all, if we just boil this sport down to a bunch of fishing automatons – increasingly possible in this age of advanced technology – it loses the fan appeal. I want to tell the human interest stories, because 20 or 30 or 40 years from now, we’ll remember that Gussy won, and we’ll know that he did it “moping,” but if I can’t feel the Tennessee rain pelting my face, I at least want to have the direct memory of the emotions that made it such a great event burned into my mind.