Darrel Robertson of Jay, Okla., stricken days before with abdominal pains from a kidney stone, landed the two winning bass in his 10-pound, 6-ounce limit during the live Fox network television broadcast of the Ranger M1 Millennium tournament to win a record $600,000 on Nov. 7 before more than 2 million viewers.
His victory in the richest event in freshwater history, coupled with his victory at the Wal-Mart FLW Tour Championship in September, pushed Robertson’s 1999 first-place winnings to $860,000. Not bad for a guy who considers fishing third on his job depth chart.
“I’d quit fishing first,” said Robertson, 49, who tends 800 Black Angus cows on his 4,000-acre Circle-R Farms ranch and owns a construction business.” My farm is my first love. I get homesick when I’ve been away too long.”
Did he realize that his two bites in the final 30 minutes were putting on such a show for TV?
“I tried real hard not to think about that part,” said Robertson, who pulled in bass weighing 3-6 and 2-6 to separate himself from second-place David Fritts (8-5) of Lexington, N.C. “But I felt really confident that I was going to get those fish. I had been getting good bites all week in the afternoon.”
When Roberston held up his check for the TV cameras and the cheering thousands at Cypress Gardens, Fla., it confirmed that the future of bass fishing had arrived well before the new millennium. In the final Neilsen television ratings, the M1 scored a 1.8, with a 2.5 overnight rating going up against NFL games. Although only the final hour and weigh-in was live in only 15% of the markets, the M1 was on par with the Breeders’ Cup horse race and topped the New York City Marathon.
“It showed that it can hold its own against some other established sports,” said Steve Woodward, director of communications for Intersport, which marketed Operation Bass’ event for Fox. “There’s certainly room for development in this sport. But the fact is, these are really interesting guys. They come from walks of life that people can relate to.”
Robertson’s road to riches detoured through a local hospital emergency room, when abdominal pains prevented him from sleeping Tuesday night. Around 12:30 Wednesday morning, Roberston and wife Carol went to the hospital, where he stayed until 10 a.m.
“I felt like the dickens,” Robertson said.” I want to thank those people at the hospital.”
Despite continued pain during Thursday’s first round of action, Robertson caught five fish for 12 pounds, 14 ounces and second place. He passed a kidney stone that evening at the hotel.
A cold front that passed through the central Florida area quickly separated the anglers who found hot spots from those who did not. Only 13 of the 200 pro-division anglers took limits from the Winter Haven chain of lakes and only four of the 200 co-anglers. Fifty pros were skunked on day one.
On Friday, six pros and two co-anglers took limits. The fishing pressure of 200 boats and the cold front drew the Top 50 cut at a mere 6 pounds, 7 ounces. Jim Bitter of Fruitland Park, Fla., led the way with 16-9. Robertson was third (15-11) behind Marty Fourkiller of Cleveland, Okla. (15-13).
“I’m on a good spot,” Fritts said after day two, sitting fourth with 14-11, including the tournament’s big bass of 6-6. “I know I’ll get the bites, I just have to focus on getting the good ones and getting them in the boat. I want to win this thing more than anything I’ve ever done.”
Saturday brought warmer temperatures and big crowds to Cypress Gardens, where a city of tents and sponsor displays turned the botanical theme park on the banks of lakes Lulu and Summit into a sportsman’s fishing mecca. Adults took boat rides, test-casted the newest rods and reels, and swam through about every lure imaginable at the Wal-Mart tent. Children flailed away at casting targets and hooked their own fish at the stocked pond. Former baseball player Wade Boggs, who got his 3,000th hit with the nearby Tampa Bay Devil Rays last season, received his custom-made special edition Ranger Comanche in celebration of the milestone.
The same day, Robertson took a tip from co-angling partner Danny Moore that would prove profitable. Robertson’s early success came on a Bandit crankbait, but when Moore scored a pair of big fish with a Rat-L-Trap-like Daiwa shiner imitation, Robertson asked for a loan.
“He got a couple and said, `I’m not fishing any more.'” I said, “Let me see that,” said Robertson, who led day three with 8-8. “When you get too smart to learn anything from anybody, you’re not going to be too good. Anybody you fish with can teach you something,” said Robertson.
Robertson led the Top 10 into Sunday’s televised final, a logistical challenge beyond the in-car cameras fans have grown accustom to in NASCAR coverage. Radio frequency camera crews following the finalists bounced their signals across five lakes through a signal transfer boat, a tower and on to the broadcast site. But the effort gave viewers, at home and lakeside on two JumboTron screens, an otherwise bow-of-the-boat look at competitive fishing.
Robertson, working a large hydrilla flat on the west end of Lake Lulu, cranked in the final two fish 50 yards apart in the final 15 minutes shortly after the wind shifted from out of the northeast. “If the wind didn’t blow like that, I wouldn’t have caught these fish.”
For Fritts, the wind was his undoing.
“The big fish started to elude me,” said Fritts, who earned $115,000 for his 8-5 limit. “I knew if the wind ever came out of the northeast, it was going to hurt me. I fished for a big bite all day. I just couldn’t get it.”
The disappointment was even greater for Bitter, the only finalist who met all five sponsor contingencies to qualify for the maximum $1 million if he won. Bitter finished ninth with 4-9, good for $22,000.
“I fished a spot about 30 seconds boat ride from the weigh-in site,” Bitter said. “I hit it some every day. I guess I caught them all out of there.”
In the co-angler division, Babcock Furniture dealer Jerry Tice, 48, of Chipley, Fla., won $152,500 with a Zoom trick worm yielding a 7-2 total, including the big bass of 4 pounds. He outlasted a field that included the event’s surprising star, 16-year-old Ross Taylor of Burnsville, Minn., who finished fourth for $12,500. “I missed a little bit of school, but I’m sure it’s OK.”
The M1’s magnitude and encouraging TV numbers are the realization of Irwin Jacob’s vision.
“My goal is to make fishing a spectator sport,” said Jacobs, chairman of Operation Bass, eyeing an M2 in 2001. “Fishing is on Main Street and Wall Street. It’s been totally untapped until now. I think we have proven that it can be done.
“Was it done the best it possibly could? No. There were huge technical difficulties in pulling this off.
“But it’s nothing we can’t fix. The next one will be nothing less than spectacular.”
Still, it was Robertson who used the words made famous by Super Bowl MVPs.
“My grandson asked me if I won would I take him to Disney World. So I guess I’m going to Disney World.”