The Secret To Winning With Gerald Swindle
 The
Secret To Winning With Gerald Swindle
Swindle's Early Tournaments
Editor's Note: Thirty-four-year-old Gerald Swindle
of Hayden, Alabama, this year's BASS Angler of the Year,
has lived the American dream in the last 12 years. As
a $12,000-a-year carpenter, Swindle dreamed of earning
a living as a professional bass fisherman. This year,
Swindle already has earned more than $1/2-million in
his chosen sport. If he stays on track, he may earn
$1 million before December 31, 2004.
In the early 1990s, Swindle started fishing regional
tournaments known as the Fishermen's Bass Tournaments.
Swindle's dad would take him to the tournaments where
Swindle would fish as a non-boater. About a year later,
Swindle began taking his own boat and fishing the tournaments.
The first year he fished out of his own boat, he finished
in second place for Angler of the Year on that circuit,
a title that got him his first sponsor, Lunker City
Lure Company. Lunker City had decided that the company
would sponsor the Angler of the Year and the second
place finisher on the Fishermen's Bass Tournament Circuit.
Once Swindle had a sponsor paying him $300 a month to
go  fishing
in the 1993-1994 fishing season, he thought he'd died
and gone to heaven. With money coming in to pay his
way to tournaments, Swindle fished even more and harder.
Then during 1994 and 1995, Swindle won the Angler of
the Year title for the Fishermen's Bass Circuit, including
$5,000 for being the points champion and the right to
compete in the championship tournament. In that championship
tournament, Swindle won another $25,000, bringing his
total winnings to $30,000 for two weekends of fishing.
During this same time, Swindle only made $12,000 a year
as a carpenter. "Before I won that title and the
$25,000 in the championship tournament, I'd never made
that much money ever before in a year. I couldn't believe
I'd made more than a small house cost at that time in
just two weekends of going fishing. I was rich. So I
quit my carpenter job and decided to take that $30,000
and use it as seed money for my tournament fishing career
until the money ran out, or I won more."
The next year, Swindle started winning bass-fishing
tournaments, which often included fully-rigged bass
boats as prizes. He sold the boats. By the end of his
second year of tournament bass fishing, Swindle had
made between $70,000 and $80,000. Swindle's community
and his peer group considered Gerald Swindle rich, and
he'd made  all
that big money as a bass fisherman. With all that money
in the bank, Swindle decided, "I'm going to fish
on that money until I either make more money or lose
it all."
The following year, Swindle almost lost all the money
he made. He explains, "I spent a lot of money fishing
B.A.S.S. tour events and FLW events and finally pulled
my cash reserve down to $8,000. I wanted to go to Beaver
Lake to fish a FLW tournament when I realized I only
had about $8,000 left - which meant I only could fish
two or three more tournaments. I knew if I didn't make
a new check soon that I was about to be broke and be
a has-been as a professional fisherman. When I got the
call to fish the Beaver Lake FLW tournament (I was on
the waiting list), I had to send them $2,000 to enter
the tournament. Plus I knew I'd have expenses for the
week and also had my monthly bills still to pay at home.
I told myself, 'If you don't do well in this tournament,
you fishing career as a big-time bass fisherman is about
to be over.' "
Swindle's condition was desperate, but like the true
champion he was and is, when his money and his life's
dream were on the line, Swindle rose to the occasion.
He won the tournament and one of the biggest payouts
ever head of at a single event - $150,000. Swindle also
earned a berth in the Bassmasters Classic that year
and fished high up in the points  standings
on the BASS circuit. That's when the bass-fishing industry
and sponsors took notice of this young carpenter. "At
that point, I set myself up as a business and decided
to take the money that I made from sponsorships and
tournament winnings and continue to invest it in tournament
fishing, equipment for fishing tournaments and buying
the things I needed to be more competitive in tournaments,"
Swindle says. "Since 1998, I've never looked back.
I've been charging ahead to try to see how far I can
go as a professional fisherman."
At the first Classic Swindle participated in, Triton
Boats, Southern Comfort Vans and OMC Motors picked him
up to sponsor him. "That's when I knew I'd made
the big show," Swindle says. Although Swindle has
made plenty of money in tournament fishing, he's never
really felt that he'd arrived as a professional bass
fisherman until this year, 2004, when BASS crowned him
its Angler of the year.
TOMORROW: THE RUN FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP-THE HARRIS CHAIN
OF LAKES AND SMITH LAKE
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