Money maker

Darrel Robertson has just come in from a typically tough day on the job. Business is booming at his company, the All-State Tank Company, which specializes in the construction of water tanks. He also runs a cattle operation that is small by Oklahoma standards, only about 800 head. As weary as he might be when he finally hits the bed at night, 49-year-old Robertson is content with the life he and his wife, Carol, have carved out for themselves. He has no intentions of changing a thing, even after winning $850,000 in two bass fishing championships.

“There are not very many people who make their living bass fishing,” he says. “There are still only a handful of people being promoted and that’s just the way it is.”

“I really enjoy fishing and fishing in tournaments, but the pressure on those guys trying to do this full-time is unbelievable. They’re like those old blue cranes… if they don’t catch fish, they don’t eat.”

And Robertson doesn’t plan on going hungry, although that scenario would be hard to imagine with the recent success he has enjoyed. Robertson, who knocked around local tournament circuits and a few Red Man Tournament Trail events for the past 15 years, won his first major tournament, the Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship, Sept. 25, 1999, a win worth $250,000. Just six weeks later, Robertson won the largest prize ever awarded in competitive fishing, claiming the Ranger M1 Millennium championship and a $600,000 payoff as FOX Sports made television history with live coverage of the final round.

Prior to those wins, Robertson was not exactly a household name, even among fishing enthusiasts. His competitive fishing career got off to a good enough start, finishing in third place and claiming big bass honors in the first Red Man event he fished. He also won many local tournaments and was the 1991 Angler’s Choice Angler of the Year in Texas. He has also fished in a half dozen B.A.S.S. Top 100’s. Still, before last fall, fourth place was his highest finish in any major tournament.

With such sudden success, one might expect an angler to contact every company who ever thought of sponsoring a bass fisherman and begin booking motivational speeches and the like. But Robertson’s plan for the loot, not to mention the accompanying glory, is merely to pay off a debt his church, the Full Gospel Church in Southwest City, Mo., incurred when it built its “Family Life Center.”

Robertson’s FLW win came on Ft. Gibson Lake, just a few miles South of Grand Lake, his home water. Robertson survived three elimination rounds to catch a final day limit of 14 pounds, 6 ounces, and easily outdistance runner-up Eric Holt, who caught a limit weighing 8 pounds, 12 ounces. The similarity with Grand Lake helped Robertson adjust to the tricky fall fishing. Advice from some locals, who also happen to be close friends, helped as well.

“That water is just about exactly the same (as Grand Lake) when the fish go to changing,” he says. “They don’t always stay where they feed, so I would just hit their feeding patterns for a few minutes, then hit another spot. But I’m not really that familiar with that water. I had so much good advice, if I had lost it, it would have been all my fault.”

Robertson had three good fish early on the final competition day, but when the sunshine that had been prevalent all week gave way to cloud cover, he scratched his way to just two more bites, which it turns out was enough to put him over the top. It also put him into fourth place on the Wal-Mart FLW Tour all-time earnings list behind such notable fishermen as David Fritts, Jim Moynagh and Davy Hite. And he sits comfortably in front of tournament fishing mainstays like Pete Thliveros, Clark Wendlandt and Rickey Clunn.

After turning in a performance more lucrative than most careers in just one week, Robertson, who in the weeks leading up to the events confided in friends that he felt he was destined to win both tournaments, focused on the Ranger M1. Adhering to a similar format as the FLW championship, the Ranger event featured four days of elimination before the final round.

Anglers fortunate enough to reach the M1 finale experienced the added excitement of a intense national spotlight as FOX Sports used a crew of more than 100 specialists to cover the event at Cypress Gardens, Fla. Well-known announcers Joe Buck and Bob Brenly teamed up to call the action as a television audience of more than 2 million tuned in.

“Everybody was really excited about it,” Robertson recalls. “The fishermen were conscientious about hoping it worked out, and we put on a good show.”

Although it was Robertson who won the tournament, he believes divine intervention was responsible for his being there. Robertson, who called his close friend and Sunday school teacher, Jean Short, every night of the competition, says he was struggling on the final cut day before two quick bites propelled him over the top. When he called Short to tell her he would be in the tournament’s final round, she asked what trouble he had encountered around 1:30 that afternoon.

“I told her I had lost my faith and asked how she knew,” he says. “She said that the Spirit of God came over her and she fell to the floor and cried and wept and prayed for me. She didn’t know what was wrong, but she knew that I needed some help.”

So with the help of friends and, perhaps, from above, Robertson has settled into bass fishing history and back into his normal life in Jay, Okla. His focus remains on his faith and his family, which includes daughters Terra, Abby and Tessa, and grandson Hogan. His tournament schedule will not change much in 2000. He will fish the FLW Tour and some EverStart Series events, but he will not seek stardom, choosing instead to represent God in a positive light.

“You know, I’m not really looking for a lot of sponsors or anything like that. If somebody is going to sponsor you, obviously they’re going to expect something out of you,” Robertson reasons. “I don’t really have the time. Sponsors don’t knock on your door … you knock on theirs. I’m not going to turn it down if somebody offers me a bunch of money, but I’m not out looking for it. I think I might represent them with a little different angle than some other people do, but that’s not really something I’m looking for.”

In fact, the merit system of promoting anglers based on performance rather than connections is one of the aspects of Operation Bass that draws Robertson to the company’s circuits.

“I think way back since the early days of the Red Man Tournament Trail, Operation Bass has created this environment where you don’t feel pressure to be a full-time professional fisherman. You might say you don’t have to be somebody to be somebody,” he says.

As for his own identity and place in the annals of bass fishing history, Robertson is more comfortable leaving that up to others.

“This whole experience has been rather humbling. I just feel like I’m a pretty good fisherman with the Lord with me,” he says. “And I don’t want to ever go without Him.”