MY WORST DAY OF BASS FISHING
Harold Allen and Chad Brauer
 Editor's
Note: You're supposed to have fun when you fish for
bass. When you go bass fishing, you don't expect to
find yourself chained to a wall in a medieval dungeon
to learn how much torture you can endure. However, many
anglers earn their living professionally fishing for
bass. Their vocations and jobs mean they have to go
to work when they don't want to, fish in bad, nasty
weather and endure sickness, disaster and disappointment
as parts of their jobs, although most of us think of
bass fishing as recreation. You may think that you've
had a bad day of fishing  before
or fished in a really bad bass tournament. But once
you read the experiences of some of America's best bass
fishermen and learn what's happened to them on their
worst days of fishing or during the worst tournaments
they've ever fished, your bad day of bass fishing may
not seem so bad.
Harold Allen: Fifty-nine-year-old Harold Allen of Shelbyville,
Texas, has fished bass tournaments for 27 years and
has earned more than $402,000 in BASS winnings. Allen
can remember plenty of bad days of fishing. "I
was fishing the American Anglers Circuit tournament
on Lake Livingston in Texas in the late 1970s,"
Allen recalls. "Although 150 contestants were in
the tournament, the weather and the  fishing
were so bad that only five anglers reported catching
a bass, none of which were big enough to measure. Then
on the last day of the tournament, I did have a bass
bite on a jig, but it escaped. Since the fishing was
so bad that not a single fish was weighed in, the tournament
promoter drew names out of a hat and awarded the trophies
and money based on whose names were drawn out of the
hat first. I never had seen or heard of any tournament
being that bad before or since."
Chad Brauer: Twenty-nine-year-old Chad Brauer from
Osage Beach, Missouri, has fished professionally for
six years, and has total BASS winnings of $245,375.
"When you fish in a tournament, you only have  three
or four days in which to earn a paycheck, so every day
counts," Brauer states. "Regardless of how
you feel, how bad the weather is, or whether or not
you want to fish, you have to go out and give it your
best effort. Being sick isn't an excuse you can take
home to your family instead of a paycheck. My most-miserable
day of bass fishing took place on a cold, windy day
on Pickwick Lake in northwest Alabama. I had the flu
and had spent most of the day throwing up on one side
of the boat and going to the bathroom on the other side.
I'd never been that sick in my life, but I still managed
to catch four bass and finish in the money. I never
want to go through a day like that again."
TOMORROW: WORST DAYS OF FISHING FOR RICK CLUNN AND
KEN COOK
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