From poverty to prosperity: Larry Nixon shows that top-five finish in 2000 Wal-Mart FLW Championship is no fluke
A pro’s pro demonstrates why some legends are borne out of pure necessity
While many professional bass anglers began their fishing careers with lofty dreams of fame and fortune, pro Larry Nixon of Bee Branch, Ark., never entertained such visions of grandeur. For Nixon, fishing was quite simply a way of life.
“Back in the old days, we fished just to put food on our table,” said Nixon, who has become one of the most recognized names on the professional bass fishing circuit over the past three decades. “And if you would have told me in 1968 that I’d be sitting here in the year 2000 making a comfortable living as a professional angler, I would have told you that you were crazy. My career has gone well beyond my wildest dreams.”
And indeed it has. With four Wal-Mart FLW Tour top-10 finishes over the last two years, three consecutive top-20 appearances in the Wal-Mart FLW Championship – including a fourth-place finish overall in the 2000 FLW Championship – as well as multiple BASSMaster Angler of the Year titles, Nixon continues to demonstrate that, even at the tender age of 50, he still has a lot of gas left in the tank.
However, growing up in Greers Ferry, Ark., in the early 1950s, Nixon never could have imagined that he was destined for stardom on the tournament bass fishing trail.
Fishing for supper
Nixon was born in 1950 in the state of Washington. As the son of a preacher, expert mechanic and migrant worker, Nixon spent many of his youthful days struggling along with his family to rise above the poverty line in the rural South. For the Nixon family, life was far from easy. Traipsing back and forth from Arkansas to Washington to take advantage of seasonal fieldwork, the Nixons finally settled down for good in Greers Ferry in 1953. But despite the fact that the Great Depression had been over for nearly two decades, its lingering economic effects were omnipresent in Nixon’s small rural community.
“We didn’t have a lot of money back then,” Nixon said. “Times were really tough. But my father worked very hard to give us as much as possible under the circumstances.”
Consequently, as he grew older, Nixon found himself wading in the streams and rivers with fishing pole in hand in a regular attempt to catch the nightly supper. Taught to fish by his father, Lester Nixon, the younger Nixon quickly honed his skills as one of the premier anglers in his community.
“Back then, all we did was hunt and fish. It was a way of life for us,” said Nixon. “Fortunately, I had the opportunity to hang around a lot of good fisherman while I was growing up. And because I was young enough, no one ever lied to me about fishing secrets. I guess they thought I wouldn’t really be much competition.”
By the time Nixon was a teenager, it was all too apparent to the “expert” fisherman in Greers Ferry that Nixon did indeed possess a special gift.
“I was doing a lot of guiding by the time I was in high school,” said Nixon. “At the time, I was making about $9 a day. Not bad money. But, I didn’t even have my own boat, so I always had to borrow one from somebody else.”
While Nixon knew that he had a knack for fishing, it wasn’t until 1968 that he first raised the eyebrows of the state’s professional fishing community. With the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King serving as constant reminders of how easily dreams of young men could be shattered, Nixon decided that the time was right to enter his first real bass fishing tournament – the Arkansas State Bass Fishing Tournament.
“That was the first time I ever fished a tournament,” said Nixon. “I placed third in the state. But in those days, there wasn’t a lot of money in tournaments. You fished them just for the prestige.”
Playing hooky … forever
After passing his first real test in the competitive environment of tournament fishing, Nixon temporarily put his fishing ambitions on hold and began concentrating on college at Arkansas State University. However, thoughts of tournament fishing, guiding and casting into unknown waters would not leave Nixon’s young mind. In short, fishing was becoming an obsession that was too difficult to shake.
“I was going to college during the week and guiding on the weekends,” said Nixon. “But slowly, I started to realize that all I wanted to do was go fishing. So, I decided to take three months off from college to concentrate on guiding.”
Nixon packed his bags and moved to Hemphill, Texas, a town in close proximity to Toledo Bend Reservoir – one of the hottest bass fishing lakes in the tri-state area at that time. His plan was to fish for a few months, make some good money and return to college. However, things didn’t quite work out how Nixon expected.
“I stayed there for 17 years,” he said.
Nixon’s fishing obsession completely overwhelmed him while angling on Toledo Bend Reservoir. He bought a boat – costing roughly $6,000 – from his father and began guiding full-time. College was now a distant memory.
“I was fishing 250 to 300 days a year and I loved every minute of it,” he said. “I was catching about 100 fish a day and I knew I could get a job guiding every day of the year if I wanted to. Life was great.”
However, it wasn’t until he met Johnny Martin, a local pro from the Toledo Bend area who was making a name for himself on the B.A.S.S. Tour, that Nixon got his first real encouragement to turn pro.
“Johnny (Martin) went out guiding one day and he got completely skunked,” said Nixon. “He came back with his (client) and saw all the fish I had caught and said, `You know, you really should be fishing in tournaments.’ I thought about what he said and decided that I might as well give it a shot.”
So Nixon went to work “saving every dime” in an effort to pay for the $300 entry fee required to enter a B.A.S.S. tournament on St. John’s River, Fla. The year was 1977.
“Back in those days, tournament bass fishing wasn’t as popular as it is today,” he said. “So I didn’t have a hard time getting into the field. Basically, if you had your $300 check, you were in.”
First big break
Nixon finally scraped together the money and entered the tournament. He came in 19th place and received a check for $500 – a respectable finish for the rookie angler. Now he was hooked.
“It was just enough money to cover my expenses and help pay for the next tournament,” Nixon recalls.
The next tournament for Nixon was on Lake Gaston in Virginia that same year.
“The B.A.S.S. tournament on Lake Gaston was a long way away from my home and it cost me a lot of money just to get there,” Nixon said. “I remember it being very cold. But I finished in 10th place.”
The 10th-place finish also served to propel Nixon up through the B.A.S.S. rankings and boost his confidence to record levels.
“After the second tournament, my standing in the B.A.S.S. Classic was really high,” said Nixon. “I finally felt like I belonged.”
With his confidence growing, Nixon scored a paycheck at every tournament he entered the rest of the year and qualified for the BASSMaster Classic – the most prestigious bass fishing tournament in the nation at that time.
Weathering the pressure of fishing with some of the best anglers in the world, Nixon turned in a championship performance. Almost.
“I wound up finishing second right behind Ricky Clunn,” he said. “That tournament was a real mind-blower. I can still see the fish that got away that would have won the tournament for me.”
From that point on, however, Nixon’s fishing career snowballed. In 1980, he captured the title of B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year. He finished second in the rankings in 1981 and won the B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year title again in 1982. If that wasn’t enough, Nixon posted an even bigger accomplishment in 1983.
“That’s the year I won the BASSMaster Classic,” he said. “That was one of my most memorable fishing moments ever. It really propelled my career.”
After winning the BASSMaster Classic, sponsor endorsements started to roll in. Speaking engagements increased. And perhaps most importantly, Larry Nixon had finally become a household name in the sport of professional bass fishing.
Fishing becomes full-time job
“By 1987 I was so busy fishing and participating in sponsor activities that I didn’t have time to guide anymore,” he said. “Fishing, for the first time in my life, had become my one and only career.”
And what a career it’s been. With more top-10 finishes on the professional bass fishing circuit than he can count, Nixon has firmly established himself as one of the all-time greats of the sport. And in case anyone has any doubts that Nixon is in the twilight of his career, one need look no further than the 2000 Wal-Mart FLW Championship on the Red River in Shreveport, La. Competing among a formidable field of the nation’s best anglers, Nixon cleverly guided his way to a fourth-place overall finish on championship day.
“I really look forward to the FLW tournaments now,” said Nixon. “That tour has really changed the sport in ways that we never could have imagined before.”
Nixon said he has no plans of slowing down any time soon. He still competes in about 15 tournaments a year and still logs long hours helping out sponsors and traveling back and forth to various speaking engagements. But the most important thing for Nixon is that fishing has never lost its charm.
“The only reason I would ever quit fishing is if it wasn’t fun anymore,” he said. “And it’s still plenty fun. Admittedly, as I get older, tournament fishing gets a little harder. But I’ve got a good following and tremendous support from my family. I’ve had a great career.”
With his wife, Amy, and three children – Beau, 22, Christopher, 18, and Lindsey, 16, – cheering him on, there’s no telling what other accomplishments Nixon will achieve before his fishing career is finally over – which, by the look of things, doesn’t appear to be in the offing anytime soon.
“If I’m not tournament fishing, I’m not happy,” said Nixon, quickly summarizing his philosophy. “I’ve been so blessed and so lucky that sometimes it seems unreal.”
As in a dream come true?