Heir Jordon
With a win on Lake Okeechobee, Kelly Jordon is poised for a breakout year on the FLW Tour
Wheeler Lake. Guntersville. Santee Cooper. Okeechobee. What do these four lakes have in common? The casual observer would immediately note that all are well-known for one thing: big bass. However, savvy fans would know that there is another, more intriguing answer to this question: The aforementioned lakes have all been tournament winning venues for FLW Tour pro Kelly Jordon.
However, while the resident of Mineola, Texas, has had plenty of success on the Bassmaster trail over the past several years, Jordon’s recent win at the 2005 Wal-Mart FLW Tour season opener at Lake Okeechobee represented his first and only title on the FLW Tour to date. To be sure, the victory finally afforded Jordon the satisfaction of achieving his goal of scoring wins on both major bass-fishing tours. But then again, even though the feat was impressive, there are still thousands of bass-fishing fans scrambling to figure out one simple question of their own: Who the heck is this guy, Kelly Jordon, anyway?
Under the radar
Despite three Bassmaster Tour wins and a pro career that dates back to 1998, Jordon has generally flown under the radar, even prompting one pundit to declare him the most overlooked angler on tour. Why so?
“I’m new – I haven’t been around that long,” Jordon said. “I’ve fished the FLW Tour longer than the Bassmaster Tour, actually. But the Bassmaster Tour is where I had my good finishes previously. I started fishing the FLW Tour in 1998, and I didn’t have any real breakout finishes. I didn’t have any breakout finishes until 2001, so that hasn’t been very long.”
Indeed, with the win on Okeechobee, Jordon has achieved victory in four out of the last five seasons. “People know I’ve been around for a while, but I’ve really only been on the radar for four years,” he said. “And I don’t do backflips when I win, either.”
A fishy upbringing
Jordon’s mild-mannered, laid-back attitude began as a youngster near Austin, Texas, where he fished in the crystal-clear creeks that ran behind his family’s home. He caught catfish and bass, but mostly bass, and really became a diehard angler at age 16. An older man who lived down the street introduced Jordon to bass clubs. Shortly thereafter, a pro was born.
“I always loved to fish, and growing up I’d read fishing magazines and watch Bill Dance and Jimmy Houston on TV and all that stuff,” Jordon said. “When I got into college, I fished every chance I could when it wasn’t hunting season.”
In fact, during his junior year at Texas’ Abilene Christian University, Jordon took a one-semester leave to focus on tournament fishing. He was a natural from the start.
“I won the first tournament I ever fished,” Jordon said. “It was on Lake Fork, which is my home lake anyway. There were probably about 70 teams. I thought, `This is easy.'”
Jordon went on to graduate from ACU and entered graduate school at the University of Texas. In the meantime, he was guiding full-time on Lake Fork and still fishing the local team tournaments.
“I fished team tournaments for several years, and finally I won a boat,” he said. “I didn’t have a bass boat. I won a brand-new Skeeter bass boat at the year-end championship in 1995, and I thought that was a good enough boat to try to fish pro, so I did that in 1996. I won a boat in the first pro tournament I ever fished. That gave me a little jump.”
On to the big show
Two years later, Jordon fished his rookie season on the FLW Tour, competing in five tournaments and ranking 131st. Jordon continued to rise in the standings, however, peaking in 2003 with a 37th-place ranking that earned him his first trip to the FLW Tour Championship, where he finished 30th.
He fared better on the Bassmaster Tour, advancing to the Classic four times and earning three tournament wins.
“I’d won three Bassmaster Tour deals, and I always wanted an FLW (win),” Jordon said. “That’s just a big deal. It’s an awesome circuit, and I’ve always wanted to win one of those shoot-out deals, the way they do that (on the final day). FLW is a first-class organization, and it was neat to win one. It just ties it together. I think everybody would like to win one on both tours.”
Jordon’s first FLW Tour win was carried out in dominating fashion, as he defeated day-three leader Steve Kennedy by more than 4 pounds. Jordon’s two-day weight of 30 pounds, 13 ounces included four huge bass on the final day that he caught in an amazing 30-minute span.
Jordon’s victory was nothing short of a surprise, given that Jordon was nearly 10 pounds out of the lead going into day four. “It was especially exciting to me since I didn’t think I was going to win,” he said. “It was a very good, big surprise.
“Most of the tournaments I’ve won have been pretty big-weight tournaments,” he said. “Okeechobee was not a big-weight tournament, but it had big fish. You had to have big ones to win. Every place I’ve won is capable of producing big stringers.”
Diversity pays off – big time
Although Jordon claims that low-weight tournaments are his downfall, he contends that his fishing prowess stems from his diversity. With a tournament schedule that stretches everywhere from Florida to Arkansas to Maryland, it’s a good quality to have.
“People ask me what’s my deal – am I a jig flipper, am I a sight-fisherman, am I a crankbait guy?” he said. “I say I don’t have a specialty. I do lots of things, and I love fishing different ways. I have my favorite ways to fish, but I can’t say I’m that much better at them than I am fishing other ways.”
Indeed, Jordon used simple common sense to figure out a lake that had so many of his fellow pros confused. Okeechobee was a muddy mess in January 2005, thanks to the hurricanes that ravaged the state of Florida just months before. Anglers found themselves fighting for what little clear water had been left behind. Jordon, however, remained undeterred.
“Going in, you know what it’s basically going to be,” he said. “You can look at the history, and almost without exception, it’s been won flipping. Surely Okeechobee can be won a different way, but flipping is strong, especially when you have the conditions that we had.
“It was cooling off there, it wasn’t a spawning deal and there wasn’t very much clear water,” he said. “You’ve just got to know what you’ve got to be doing. Sure, you can mix it up, but I love to flip, especially grass. We do that a lot in Texas. That’s probably my favorite way to catch bass anyway.”
Jordon earned $100,000 for the win and put himself in the enviable position of starting out the year at No. 1.
“Hopefully it’s a great start,” he said. “Everybody talks about momentum, and that’s pretty exciting. It really gives you a head start on everybody else in qualifying for the championship and (winning) the angler-of-the-year race. It’s a great place to be.”
Nature’s own
When he’s not fishing, Jordon can almost always be found outdoors, mostly pursuing his other favorite passion – hunting. Jordon said he likes to go hunting, not so much to claim trophies of nature, but for the overall experience of being outdoors and experiencing nature in its most simple and unadulterated form.
“I love to hunt,” he said. “I’ve hunted all my life. I like to bird hunt and deer hunt with a bow and with a gun. But I’ve only taken three in the past 12 years. I really like to go because I like to be out there and I like to watch them.”
Jordon also is not afraid to test out the saltwater side of the fishing spectrum, often heading off the coast of Texas to fish for grouper, tuna and other offshore saltwater species.
This past offseason, Jordon was invited to compete in the Euro Cup, an international fishing competition held in Spain. The first-ever event was dominated by Jordon and the rest of the U.S. team, including FLW Tour pros Michael Iaconelli, Ishama Monroe, John Murray and Jack Gadlage.
“That was awesome,” Jordon said. “That’s part of the opportunities you have as a pro fisherman. I’ve had a lot of good breaks and a lot of opportunities to do some fun stuff.”
The rest of the FLW Tour season will certainly provide Jordon a few more of those opportunities. And, with any luck, it will give the so-called most overlooked angler the recognition he surely deserves.