How the All-American Launched My Career
Clark Wendlandt recalls his BFL championship experience
(The writer's opinions and observations expressed here are his own, and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views, policies or positions of FLW.)
You never truly know until you know. The FLW Bass Fishing League All-American let me know.
Prior to the 1992 All-American, I’d been considering making the leap to fishing professionally. I’d been fishing what were Redman tournaments (now BFLs) for years, and a lot of local team tournaments. I’d even won a Redman and qualified for the Regional two or three years in a row.
I knew that’s what I wanted to do was fish for a career, and I’d more or less made up my mind to do it. Still, I was a 26-year-old fishing guide who’d only had tournament success locally.
That changed when I won the Regional at the Columbus Pool of the Tombigbee River and qualified for the All-American. I’d never been to the Tombigbee before, but I stumbled on some good fish. I remember winning a truck and boat. I sold the boat, but I drove that prize truck for a long time.
The 1992 All-American was held on the Arkansas River near Muskogee, Okla. I was feeling pretty confident after the regional win, and I decided to avoid fishing by most anglers and opted to run up into the Chouteau Pool to a backwater oxbow. I caught about 8 pounds from what I remember, and I was sitting in eighth place.
The thing about that tournament was a lot of guys were counting on moving water, and the water didn’t run that day. I was fishing out of the current in an oxbow, so moving water was not necessary for me. I ended up catching more than 15 pounds flipping shallow cover with a Texas-rigged craw to come from behind and win by only 7 ounces.
I’ll never forget that tournament. Not only was it my first big win, and the money from that and the regional gave me the security to go pro, but it was the tournament itself. I’ll always consider that one of the hardest tournaments to win. Just to fish in it you have to be a great angler. It’s hard to get into, and even harder to win.
Then there is the challenge of trying to focus, knowing what’s at stake. Most guys who fish the All-American realize if they win it, it will springboard them forward to becoming a pro. It certainly did that for me.
I still kind of think that even if I hadn’t won I would have still had success as a pro, but that win accelerated the process quite a bit. To win like that on such a big stage put my career into overdrive and allowed me to fulfill my dream of making a living at this.
This sport is also a lot about momentum, and it gave me a lot. That fall I entered my first professional, top-level tournament, and going into the final day I was in second. I think the momentum I had from the All-American carried over, and I never looked back.
Follow the 2016 All-American
The 2016 FLW Bass Fishing League All-American tournament will be held June 9-11 on Lake Barkley out of Cadiz, Ky. The 49 boaters and 49 co-anglers in the tournament qualified through the 2015 BFL Regionals, the 2015 BFL Wild Card and the 2016 The Bass Federation National Championship. The All-American boater champion wins a six-figure payday and a spot at the 2016 Forrest Wood Cup on Wheeler Lake.
Click here for more details.