It is evident that competitive bass fishing has become a legitimate professional pursuit with solid financial support when second-generation touring pros begin to make their presence known. One such pro is Missouri’s Dion Hibdon, son of Guido Hibdon, a well-liked and well-known bass tournament veteran.
At 31 years old, Dion has already been a professional bass angler for 13 years. It is the only job that he has ever had. With the support of his dad, mother, Stella, and wife, Jill, Dion has already won a major bass championship-the 1997 BASSMasters Classic.
Bass Fishing: Tell us about your early bass fishing experiences.
Hibdon: When I was young, dad was busy making a living as a touring bass pro. So, he and mom were gone all the time. I actually spent more time fishing with my dad’s best friend, Jerry Cox, and my uncles than I did with dad.
By the time I was in high school, I had my own boat. I spent my summer vacations traveling with dad and mom. During that time, the U.S. Open began. It was the first big-money tournament held, and it paid $50,000 in cash to the winner.
It was always held on Lake Mead during the summer, and we would go and pre-fish for a month. We camped on the lake, and mom cooked.
There was a short off-limits period between the pre-fish and the actual tournament practice. So, during that time, we would travel up into the mountains near Las Vegas and trout fish. It was a thrill for a 14-year-old boy from Missouri to spend the summer in Las Vegas.
Bass Fishing: How did your career as a full-time bass pro begin?
Hibdon: I was 17 years old when I graduated from Versailles High School. During high school, I had fished several regional circuits including Red Man.
I could have gone on to college. Instead, I asked dad if I could travel and fish national tournaments with him for a year. He said, “If you want to try it, we’ll try it.”
Dad, mom and I traveled the country almost non-stop. We didn’t have any ties to home. My older brother and sister, Chuck and Dotty, were out on their own. So, we just fished. Sometimes, we would be gone for over two months at a time.
Spending so much time on the water allowed dad and I both to do well in tournaments. Those two or three years that we fished so much on different lakes around the country gave me a wealth of experience that helps me to this day. It also allowed my dad and I to spend a lot of time together. It was a special time.
We had a double-stacked trailer so we could pull both Rangers with one Chevy Suburban. Mom would launch us in the morning and pick us up in the evening.
Bass Fishing: The traveling Hibdon clan has grown some since then hasn’t it?
Hibdon: Yes, my wife, Jill, travels with me full-time as well as my three sons. My wife home schools our 7-year-old, Payden. My twins, Lawson and Conner, are 4-years-old and too young for school.
We don’t plan on home schooling Payden for much longer. Once the twins are old enough for school, we will probably put all of them in school. But right now, while they are all so young, I want to be with them as much as possible. When you’re on the road like I am, it hurts to come home and see that your child has grown a foot while you were gone.
At tournaments now, Jill gets up with me. She does Payden’s school work with him before the twins get up. Then, she tries to take all of them on educational trips while we’re on the road. While we were in Las Vegas for a recent tournament, she took them to the Learning Museum, which the kids loved.
Bass Fishing: How does your approach to bass fishing differ from Guido’s?
Hibdon: I move around more and try to find aggressive bass. If dad believes there are bass in a specific area, he settles down and tries to catch the non-aggressive fish. He says, “If you know a bass is there, why go somewhere else?”
During a Classic, he once fished a single tree at High Rock Lake (North Carolina) for 2 hours. He caught 4 bass from it. He can sit and make bass bite by changing lures, making multiple casts and changing the angle of his retrieve. Sometimes, he casts to a piece of cover over and over until a cast falls over a limb a certain way and triggers a strike.
Sometimes, it makes it nice for me. Because, by moving around more, I may find several different schools of bass around the lake. If they quit biting, dad tells me how to make them bite. I find them and he figures out how to catch them.
Bass Fishing: Tell us about your early career as a lure designer:
Hibdon: When I was in the 5th grade, the class was assigned the project of making a creature of some kind by the art teacher.
Some of the kids made paper mache dogs. Some made clay animals. I decided to make something using a plaster of paris mold. Dad and I were using molds to pour worms, but I didn’t want to make a dang rubber worm. So, I got the idea to make a crawdad.
I pushed a live crawdad into the plaster to make a mold. Then, I poured a plastic crawdad.
When dad saw it, he recognized its potential as a bass lure. People weren’t using plastic crawdads then. They used pork frogs.
Soon, dad used the lure to win his first national tournament.
Word got out about all the bass that dad was catching, and soon we were hand pouring crawdads to sell.
We hand poured for two years. Dad had everyone in Morgan County pouring for us. I remember dad spent a week after a tournament making molds. In fact, we still hand pour a few colors that you can’t injection mold.
As for our tubes, they are the result of dad fishing the U.S Open. Back then, Bobby Garland was King of the West. He was winning everything on his Gitzit (tube lure). At the partners pairing for one of the Opens, dad joked that he was going to draw Bobby Garland and be the first boat out. Well, he ended up being paired with Garland, and he was the second boat out!
The next day, dad and Bobby caught the devil out of them on tubes. After that we were tube fishermen.
Not content with what he had, dad got to modifying the tube. He developed a body with a tapered design which trapped more air and made the lure more appealing as it fell. Soon, we were making tubes at home with dowel rods which we dipped in hot plastic multiple times.
We have been hard on the manufacturers that we are affiliated with. We take our time to make sure the lures are right before we endorse them. I’m concerned with making a handful of baits just right, and the manufacturer is worried about mass production.
Bass Fishing: You went to a sports psychologist before your victory at the 1997 Classic, why?
Hibdon: I had several mediocre years in a row, and I didn’t understand why. Three weeks before the Classic, Kenyon Hill, a tournament pro and friend, was over at the house to make some baits. He had been to see a gal over in Tulsa, and he was trying to talk me in to going and seeing her. He told me “It may not help you, but it won’t hurt you.”
I finally decided to go. When I met her, she read me like a book. She had researched me through Kenyon and fishing magazine articles.
She made me realize that I had seen dad win time and time again, but I had never seen myself winning. I always just thought about finishing high. I didn’t want to embarrass the family name.
She didn’t tell me anything that my dad hadn’t already told me. It just took a stranger to tell me for it to sink in.
A few weeks later at the Classic, I had a limit early on the final day when I broke off two good fish. I thought, I’m blowing this, but it’s no big deal. I’m still going to finish second or third.
It was then that I realized I was doing it again. I was settling for less.
I wanted to win, and I told myself if I fished hard, I could win this dang thing. I had already figured out the pattern for the bigger bass, I just needed to put them in the boat. And I did!
I used to think about having a good tournament. Now, I think about winning. When I think about first place, I fish better.
It’s easy to get down in the mouth. You can ride a bad attitude to total failure. You have to stop it. Now, at the end of a tournament, I’m as excited as I was at the beginning. I’m not that guy anymore who quits 5 or 10 minutes early on a bad day. When I get to the check-in boat, I allow myself a 30-second cushion.
It’s never over. In 10 minutes, you can catch what you need to win.