Making Memories at the Cup

I knew I was going to fish the Forrest Wood Cup on March 8, 2014, when my University of Minnesota teammate Austin Felix and I won the FLW College Fishing National Championship and earned a spot in the biggest tournament of the year. The Cup is a tournament every angler dreams of fishing, but I had no idea what the implications of a berth in this legendary tournament would bring.

Preparing for this tournament was far different from getting ready for any college tournament. As a co-angler, I didn’t need to worry about many of the typical things. It was not as if I needed to pick out any spots. The best in the business were doing that for me. I concentrated on what I could control, which included picking five rods to take and filling one bag of tackle that I would likely need.

Austin, who fished the Cup as a boater, spent some time on Lake Murray before the off-limits period and had a pretty good idea of what was going to work. Before practice, we stopped at a tackle store, and he walked me around, telling me what baits had worked for him. What a guy, right? I spent the three days of practice switching out bait colors, line sizes and other variables until I was confident on what I was going to throw.

Until this point the tournament had felt like any other. Going down south and practicing with Austin was nothing new. That all changed when I got off the water on Tuesday, the third day of practice. Once the boat was on the trailer, we headed to the ramp pavilion at Dreher Island State Park for Media Day. That’s when it hit me: I’m fishing in the Forrest Wood Cup.

At the Media Day get-together, I was eating barbeque and trimmings with some of the biggest names in fishing. I’m not going to lie, I was a bit starstruck at first. I had only seen most of these guys on TV before. However, when I started talking with them that feeling evaporated. Everyone I talked to was more than willing to chat. Each was super-nice. I even talked to Matt Stefan about fishing on my home lake, the Boom Lake Flowage in Rhinelander, Wis. They are not members of an elite club. They are just a bunch of dudes who love to fish.

The only crazier part than meeting the pros was that some of the media wanted to talk to me. I did interviews, posed for some pictures and exchanged numbers with the numerous members of the media. I even signed some autographs. They say everyone gets his 15 minutes of fame. Being in the Forrest Wood Cup, you get a whole week of it.

Wednesday brought the registration and red carpet dinner. Registration might sound like a drag, but it was awesome. I walked into this large hall lined with FLW sponsors who were ready to hand me their products to use – free.

Many college tournaments often hand out “swag bags” as well. I’ll come back from tournaments with about 10 hats and tell my roommates to take their pick. At the head of the Cup registration line, an attendant handed me a giant duffle bag labeled “Forrest Wood Cup Qualifier.”

As I walked down the line, I couldn’t believe the things they were handing me: all sorts of brand-new Livingston Lures tackle, a $100 Ranger gift card and an iON video camera. I stood there in disbelief with that camera in my hand until someone told me I was holding up the line. By the end I could barely zip up the duffle bag. I also found out my boater for the first day would be Randy Haynes. I was pumped. As a co-angler, I feel it is to your advantage when your boater is fishing deep. Up against the bank, co-anglers get second shots at cover. Fishing deep evens out the playing field, and everyone knows Randy likes to fish deep.

I was pretty nervous that first morning. The Cup hype was in full effect. Getting into Randy’s boat – what with its four giant graphs – was pretty intimidating. Then he pulled out the biggest spoon I have ever seen – more amazement. Once it was our turn to launch and Randy hit that throttle, my nerves seemed to be left in the wake. I was still a little worried about upsetting my boater though. Up to that point I hadn’t fished as a co-angler since high school, but some of the Tour co-anglers have been in the back of the boat for years. I’m used to fishing as one of two guys in the front. If we cross lines we just switch sides. I knew all the rules, but I didn’t want to step on my boater’s toes and mess up his chances of winning a half-million dollars.

That fear was quickly wiped away. We started fishing out deep and Randy said, “Cast right toward that white house and you’ll be right on top of the hump.” I kid you not, about halfway through the day, Randy missed a fish and said, “Throw at that tree. I just had one.” I could not have drawn a better boater.

The low and high points of my Cup came in a 10-minute span. It was the last hour of the first day, and I didn’t have a fish in the boat. Then, as I fished a brush pile in 30 feet of water with a drop-shot, I felt my line slowly moving off to the left. I set the hook and wrestled a fish of about 3 pounds right up to the boat. It was tough to get it to go where I wanted it to with light line and a light drag. It cost me. That fish darted toward the Power-Pole, wrapped itself around it and came off. Fishing so hard all day and coming so close to getting one, only to watch it get away, was a tough pill to swallow. Anger and frustration had me shaking so bad I struggled to put a new worm on the hook. I couldn’t tell you what happened during the next nine minutes. I think I blocked that out of my mind.

Ten minutes later, I felt a similar bite. I set the hook and felt something BIG on the other end. As I reeled it in, I was just hoping it wasn’t a striper. But when we got it into the net and I saw the size of this bass, feelings of relief and excitement rushed over me. I shouted, ran around the boat and basically went nuts until Randy reminded me, “Get your line back in the water! You need to catch two more!”

I never did catch another, but I knew that fish was going to get me a long way. I’m not sure how long I waited at the tanks, but it felt like hours. I finally made it to the last waiting tank. I was so anxious to get the bass weighed I did not say a whole lot getting there. Shad Schenck, a former Big Ten college angler, was in front of me, and before leaving to go on stage he said, “You’ve been awfully quite this whole time. What do you have in there?”

I opened my weigh-in bag and saw his eyes widen. “You grab that, walk to the front of the stage and hold it up for every camera you see,” he told me.

My time to weigh in finally came: one fish for 5 pounds, 4 ounces. After showing it off to the crowd, which included my family sitting in the fifth row, I tried to answer Chris Jones’ questions. I took public speaking last semester. I’ve been on a lot of weigh-in stages and usually love it. But that stage and all those people left me speechless. I think I was able to muster one word for his first question. Chris, being the great MC he is, bought me a little time, and I caught my breath and was able to speak English again. That bass won me Bridgford Big Bass of the day, which was $500. I was in second place at the end of day one.

After walking off stage, Jason Harper asked me if Austin and I would like to be on the morning show. That was quite the honor. The next morning I rushed from the boat and ran up to the stage. Jason had just finished interviewing David Dudley and threw it over to Chris who was with Cody Meyer on the dock. Those two are not easy acts to follow.

Fun fact about Jason Harper: He works on the fly. I asked him moments before we were on what questions he was going to ask me so I could think up some answers. He told me he doesn’t think of the question until the camera is rolling. The show was really fun, and they even showed our college championship highlights, which I never mind watching.

Day two I was paired with Jacob Wheeler. When I got the text from FLW the night before, I was ecstatic. It’s crazy how as a college angler, I’m considered one of the “young guns,” but Jacob is only two years older than me. When I got in his truck in the morning, he was on the same XM station Austin and I had been listening to for the past month. He is a cool dude.

Fishing with Jacob isn’t an easy task. That guy fishes HARD. The second he cuts the engine he is sprinting to put down the trolling motor, never wanting to waste a single second. When he says we’re moving, you have a couple seconds to throw down your rod and get that life vest on before he’s taking off. He told me to yell at him if he slowed down at all. I never had to. It was inspiring to fish with him. I know I fished harder that day because of him. I hope to emulate that kind of drive in my upcoming tournaments.

Unfortunately, I didn’t catch a keeper bass that day. I boated five short fish, though I consider that an accomplishment fishing behind that guy. My 5-4 bass from day one carried me to an eleventh-place finish, one tiny ounce from a top-10 finish.

I spent the remaining two days hanging out with my parents and sister who came all the way down to South Carolina to support me. My dad loves to fish, but he is more of a musky guy. My mom and sister were very new to the sport. We rented a pontoon on Saturday to watch the guys. It was tough to keep up with them, but we caught some of the action. Seeing Scott Martin land his fifth fish was the highlight of day three.

Sunday we explored the FLW Expo, saw Rodney Atkins rock out and watched Gagliardi bring it home. It was funny to see my family immersed in the experience. My sister arrived in South Carolina not being able to name a single angler. Driving to the final weigh-in she told me that she wanted “Gags” to win, but after following Twitter all day she thought that Ehrler had it.

I think the Forrest Wood Cup experience earned a few new FLW fans in my family, and certainly earned a place in my lifelong list of accomplishments.