MY WORST DAY OF BASS FISHING
Larry Nixon, Gerald Swindle and Kevin VanDam
 Editor's
Note: You're supposed to have fun when you fish for
bass because most of us think of bass fishing as recreation.
You don't expect to find yourself chained to a wall
in a medieval dungeon to learn how much torture you
can endure when you bass fish. However, many anglers
who earn their livings professionally fishing for bass
must go to work when they don't want to, fish in bad,
nasty weather and endure sickness, disaster and disappointment
as a part of their jobs. You may think 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, your
bad day of bass fishing may not seem so horrible.
Larry Nixon:
 With
BASS career winnings total over $1,550,000, Larry Nixon,
of Bee Branch, Arkansas, has proved that trying new
tips and tactics can work. The 54-year-old 1983 Classic
winner has won the title of Angler of the Year in 1980
and 1982. "The worst day of bass fishing I ever
had was on the first day of the 1992 Bassmaster Classic
on Logan Martin," Nixon reports. "I thought
I'd found the bass that I needed to win the Classic.
But the very first day when we took off from the launch
site, I had about 50-spectator boats chasing me, as
did Rick Clunn, Gary Klein and Kevin VanDam. None of
us had ever seen an armada of spectators like we saw
that day at that Classic. All four of us stopped our
boats to start fishing within a mile of each other.
For 1-1/2 hours, the water I fished in was so rough
from the boat waves that I had to hold on to my butt
seat on the casting deck just to keep from falling in.
I couldn't stand up because my boat was rocking and
rolling so bad from the boat traffic. I was so upset
about the number of spectators and the amount of boat
traffic and the waves they were creating that I finally
cranked up my big engine and ran toward the dam into
deep water. When I got there, I didn't even try to fish.
I just stopped my boat, sat down on the casting deck
and tried to get my head together to figure out what
I was going to do with all those spectators while I
was trying to fish. If I could have had someone pick
me up on the I-40 bridge that crosses Logan Martin,
I would have gone home at 9:00 a.m. on the first day
of that Classic. I have never been so frustrated, aggravated,
upset and wanted to quit a tournament more than that
day on that lake."
 Gerald
Swindle: Thirty-four-year-old Gerald Swindle of Hayden,
Alabama, the 2004 BASS Angler of the Year, has won over
$380,000 just on the BASS tournament trail. "I
can remember my worst day of fishing very well,"
Swindle recalls. "I was fishing a tournament on
Lake Hamilton in Arkansas and had made the top-50 cut.
Then I got food poisoning the night before the tournament,
and on the day of the tournament I had the worst case
of diarrhea I'd ever had. My stomach was torn up, and
I was using the bathroom so often that I was concentrating
more on my bathroom problems than I was my fishing.
All day long, I continued to jump fish off, break bass
off and miss bass that were trying to take my lure.
I was having hot flashes, sweating and trying to catch
those bass so I could win a position in the Bassmaster
Classic. I realized that day in that boat that this
day of bass fishing was the worse I'd ever had in my
life. I've never been that sick since, had that many
bites, had that many chances to do well in a tournament
and felt that out of control. When I came in to the
boat ramp at weigh-in time, I’d used up all the
toilet paper in my boat and even torn up my underwear
to use for toilet paper. When I wasn't having diarrhea
problems, I was throwing up. I was really glad that
both the front and the back of the boat had quick access
to the water on either side. That day of bass fishing
was the worse day of fishing I'd ever had, but it also
was the worst day of my life."
 Kevin
VanDam: Thirty-six-year-old Kevin VanDam of Kalamazoo,
Michigan, the BASS Angler-of-the-Year winner for 1992,
1996 and 1999, as well as the 2001 Bassmaster Classic
winner, has all-time BASS winnings totaling more than
$1,400,000. "I was fishing in a tournament on Lake
Gaston in North Carolina, which is the lake below Buggs
Island," VanDam explains. I'd had a phenomenal
practice and was really planning to do well in the tournament.
I'd found some really huge bass. The lake water was
very dirty, and the water level was high. During the
competition, the lake changed just a little bit. I was
so locked into the pattern I was using and knew I could
catch big fish on it, that I was hard-headed and wouldn't
give up that pattern, even though I wasn't catching
any bass. So, for three days I fished miserably and
finished about 165th out of 300 anglers. You have to
learn how to make those subtle changes in your fishing
when the water and weather conditions change. If you
haven't caught any bass by 10:00 a.m. on a pattern that
you know should be producing a lot of big fish, you
have to look at the weather and the water and decide
what's going on and what changes are taking place that
you haven't seen.
Then you must adapt your fishing to those changes.
"During those three days on that tournament, I
didn't do any of these things I knew to do or make any
changes. Those were the worst three days of bass fishing
of my life. However, I did learn from that mistake and
have tried never to make it again."
TOMORROW: WORST DAYS OF FISHING FOR MIKE WURM
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