Back Story: A work in progress
By his own reckoning, Alex Davis has caught no more than 15 bass or so on a spinnerbait this year, which doesn’t help explain his nickname: the Spinnerbait Kid.
Davis came up with that handle as a teenager when he was putting in his two cents’ worth in various online bass-fishing forums and such. The nickname stuck and eventually became associated with Davis’ guiding business (spinnerbaitkid.com) at Lake Guntersville. Instead of a Jimmy Houston or Guy Eaker, however, Davis is more a JT Kenney or Andy Morgan – a power-fisherman who eschews flashy blades and open water for grass beds and soft plastics.
Though only 26, Davis has gained a reputation for catching good stringers of bass at Lake Guntersville consistently. It stands to reason; he spends about 200 days a year putting customers on bass there. He first came to the attention of everyone outside Guntersville radar range when his name was bandied about on the Internet as a possible favorite to win the Walmart FLW Tour Open there in October. We all know how that turned out; Mississippi pro Paul Elias and the Alabama rig cleaned everybody’s clock. Still, Davis finished 10th in the event and collected a nice check. He used an Alabama rig too, but relied mainly on frogs to amass his 62-pound, 10-ounce stringer. Had the Alabama rig not been in play, Davis might have lived up to his pretournament billing.
The $12,608 Davis earned is going in his tournament stash and will help fund his startup campaign as a Walmart FLW Tour contender. Davis has it all figured out, or at least the timeline part of the equation. Unlike many young anglers who want to jump into the pro ranks as soon as they finish high school, Davis has carefully considered his career path and figures 2013 will be the year when he fishes the national circuit.
“Since I was about 10 and saw Rick Clunn on TV fishing, I’ve wanted to be a pro,” says Davis. “But I want everything to be right. From a financial point of view, I knew I needed a certain amount of seed money in the bank. I also knew that I needed more experience fishing different types of water with different presentations. My strength is power-fishing with frogs and flipping stuff, and my weakness is finesse-fishing. I’m working on that. I want to be as prepared for anything as I can be before I jump in and give it my best shot.”
Davis was born in Virginia, but his parents, Jeff and Ann Davis, moved the family to Colorado when their son was 8 years old. A couple of years before, when Davis was 6, he attended a family get-together at his great uncle’s place and slipped away from the clan to fish the pond behind the house.
“That’s when and where I caught my first bass,” recalls Davis. “My uncle had left a spincast rod and reel there with some kind of lure rigged up to it. I couldn’t cast it 10 feet. The next thing you know, my relatives hear me hollering and think I’ve fallen in. But I was backing up the bank with about a 6-pound bass on the end of the line. That was it – I was a bass fisherman from then on.”
Davis spent his teen years fishing every farm pond with bass in it that he could find in Colorado. He joined a bass club when he was 15 years old and won two tournaments his first year, even though one of his parents had to shuttle him to and from meeting places because he didn’t have a driver’s license. In every way, Davis became obsessed with the sport. After one year at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, he decided he wasn’t cut out for college or any of the careers that it might prepare him for.
“Probably if there had been such a thing as the National Guard FLW College Fishing circuit back then, I would have stayed,” admits Davis. “But all I could think about was becoming a bass pro and spending the rest of my life fishing. That’s what I wanted and what I was devoted to doing – still am.”
Davis decided that the best place to pursue his dream was in the bass-fishing heartland, which is why he moved to Guntersville when he was 18. During the next few years, he established his guide business, fished local and regional tournaments, and started stockpiling cash. Along the way, he averaged out his annual income, factored in expenses, projected savings and came up with a game plan for the FLW Tour.
One year from January, Davis will set it in motion.