Big dreams abound in Birmingham
Birmingham, Ala., native looks to cash in big at $1.5 million Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship on Logan Martin
On Sunday morning, Tyson pro Todd Ary of Birmingham, Ala., fired a cast toward a deep-water brush pile on his home waters of Logan Martin Lake.
“Just three years ago I was out here fishing buddy tournaments dreaming about being a full-time bass pro,” Ary commented while waiting for the lure to sink. “Never in a million years did I dream that I’d be here fishing for a half-million dollars today.”
Ary is likely not alone in his disbelief about the sum of money he is fishing for this week in the Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship being held on Logan Martin Lake near Birmingham, which touts a total purse of $1.5 million.
Three years ago, many people probably would have rolled their eyes at the possibility of a professional angler fishing for that kind of money in a single event.
FLW Outdoors, however, has made good on their promise to raise payouts in professional bass fishing to unprecedented levels, and on Saturday, Aug. 14th, one angler will walk out of the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex with a check for $500,000.
The amount of money on the line is certainly astounding, yet Ary is also amazed at how his fishing career has taken flight in the last two years.
“I honestly thought it was going to take six or seven years to get to this level,” Ary added while intently feeling for brush along the bottom. “This has all happened so fast, I still can’t believe it.”
Indeed, Ary’s professional fishing career has taken a rocket ride thanks to the lucrative FLW Tour payouts.
In summer 2001, Ary was a full-time employee of BellSouth in Birmingham as an employee trainer, a job he landed after graduating from the University of Alabama in 1998.
The job was secure and the pay was great, but in the back of Ary’s mind was a long-term plan to fish professionally.
In summer 2002, however, Ary’s angling aspirations inadvertently got put on the fast track.
“I got promoted, but the new position required a relocation to Atlanta and working behind a desk eight hours a day,” he said. “I love Birmingham and the fisheries of North Alabama. I had intentionally sought out a job here, and I wanted no part of moving to Atlanta or working in an office every day.”
So in August 2002, just before he was supposed to move to Atlanta, Ary quit his job with BellSouth.
“It was by no means one of those quit-my-job-to-fish kinds of deals,” Ary said. “I had put in for the FLW Tour, but at the time I had no idea whether I was in or not, and I figured the chances of actually getting in were pretty slim.”
After quitting his job, Ary started having second thoughts about his decision.
“For about six weeks that summer, I was pulling my hair out thinking, `What the heck have I done?'” he said. “I just quit a decent-paying job and now I’m unemployed.”
But Ary’s life changed in September 2002, when he learned that he was a confirmed entrant into all six FLW Tour events for 2003.
“It totally caught me by surprise and I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “Right after that, we learned that my wife, Misty, had been accepted into medical school over in Grenada starting in 2003. That’s when we took it as a sign that this was all happening for a reason, and it became a now-or-never kind of thing.”
Ary points out that even though he decided to jump on the fishing career opportunity sooner than expected, it was not a throw-caution-to-the-wind move.
“I had been planning and saving for about three years,” he said. “I had paid off all of my college and credit card debts, and Misty and I had paid off our vehicles. The only payment I really had was a house payment, but I had saved up enough money to get by on for a few more months.”
Ary fared well during his rookie season on the FLW Tour in 2003. He cashed a check in every event except one, made a top-10 at Kentucky Lake, qualified for the FLW Tour Championship, and ended the season with total winnings of $40,000.
His performance was enough to catch the attention of Tyson, a sponsor of the FLW Tour, and the company signed him to a corporate deal at the end of the 2003 season.
This season was a little bumpier for Ary. He only cashed three checks, but still managed to squeak into the FLW Tour Championship in 47th place.
His total winnings for 2004 currently stand at $23,400, but with a ticket to the championship, he is guaranteed to win at least $15,000 more, which would put his season winnings at $38,400, almost the same amount he won last year.
Pro fishing realities
Ary admits that 2003 was a carousel of rookie excitement, and this year he has dealt more with the realities of fishing for a living.
“After the first four events this year, I had only made one check and I was beginning to feel the financial crunch,” he said. “But I rebounded with two $10,000 checks at the end of the season, plus this championship qualification and the sponsor incentives that come with it, and that has saved me.
“This year I’ve learned that fishing for a living is not all fun and games – it’s a lot of hard work. These guys out here are good, and you’ve really got to work at it to stay on top of the game. Even when I’m not at a tournament, I’m somehow working on my fishing seven days a week. But fishing is what I love, and I’d rather work at fishing all of the time than work at something else most of the time just so I can fish a little bit of the time.”
Another thing Ary has learned this year is the importance of focus on the water.
“Learning how to stay completely focused while on the water has been the hardest thing for me this season,” he explained. “My wife is in medical school in Grenada. I’ve been trying to get a house built here in Birmingham while being gone all year. I’m not making excuses, I’m just saying I’ve gained a deeper respect for those anglers who are able to bring a pure focus to the water despite a hundred other things going on off the water.”
So far, Ary ranks his tournament fishing endeavor as a success.
“I view the simple fact that I’ve fished full time for two years without any other income as a success,” he said. “It’s also a testament to the great things the FLW Tour and sponsors like Tyson and Yamaha have done for the sport.”
Birmingham bound
Ironically, one of the distractions Ary has dealt with this year is having the FLW Tour Championship on his home lake.
“I know it sounds crazy, but that really worked on me this year,” he said. “Last year the championship was on the James River – that was just another tournament to me, and it had no bearing on the way I fished all season long. But having (the championship) on your home water is completely different.
“At the beginning of the season, I was already worried about making the championship and it affected the way I fished. You have to fish for the tournament you are fishing, not a tournament that’s seven months away. And that’s what I mean by being impressed with some of these pros who are able to shut those kinds of thoughts out of their mind on the water and focus only on water they are fishing for that day.”
Now that Ary has made it, he has been working hard to prepare for the FLW Tour Championship all summer.
Logan Martin is a 15,200-acre suburban reservoir that receives intense fishing pressure throughout the year. The lake may be small, but due to its rich diversity in terms of fishing cover, it offers a myriad of fishing patterns from which to choose.
According to Ary, there will be several patterns working for pros this week including deep-water structure patterns, skipping shallow docks, pitching deeper docks, fishing shallow grass beds, and fishing up the river where current has a greater influence.
“I’ve been fishing every way possible this summer, and I really haven’t found the fish to be grouped up one certain way,” he said. “Some days I’ve committed to shallow patterns and some days I committed to deep patterns, but my best days, weight-wise, have always been when I mix the two up.”
Ary thinks the tournament will be won by what he calls “jump” fishing, not “junk” fishing.
“I see junk fishing as more of a fish-anything-and-everything kind of deal,” he explained. “But jump fishing is more about jumping around to different defined patterns during the day. For instance, a guy might start the day with a top-water on a seawall, then run five miles and fish two docks, then run three miles back the other way and fish a deep brush pile, then run up towards the river and fish a shallow grassed – that’s how I see this tournament being won. It’s going to take a GPS unit full of waypoints and a deck full of rods.”
Ary says the trick will be timing the successive “jumps” based totally on current conditions.
“You can’t have a set, structured plan for each day,” he continued. “You have to let what’s going on out on the lake at that very moment dictate the jumps. For me, current generation, boat traffic and fishing pressure will be the three determinants on how I run my places.”
Ary has fished well enough to get to the championship, he has been putting in the hours on Logan Martin to find dozens of places to fish, and his tournament plan sounds solid. However, he does have one very big problem standing between him and $500,000: Greg Hackney.
Due to the FLW Tour Championship’s unique bracket format, Ary has been paired against Yamaha pro Greg Hackney of Gonzalez, La., in the first round. Ary knows he has his work cut out for him because Hackney has arguably been the hottest pro on both tours this season, and he is coming to Logan Martin hunting for a big win.
“Here’s the way I see it,” Ary offered. “I’m relieved that Hackney’s in my bracket, because if I was to win the FLW Tour Championship, I don’t want anyone to say it was a `gimme’ because my bracket was weak. You are defined by your competition, and if I beat Greg Hackney in the first round and then move on to win the tournament, then I deserve it.”
FLW Outdoors.com will take a good look at Ary’s competition, Greg “The Hack Attack” Hackney Tuesday.