25-year-old Cole Herb of Cedar Rapids, Iowa stood on the stage Friday at the FLW Tour presented by Evinrude on the Mississippi River, waiting stoically as day one co-angler leader Tim Beale’s bag was weighed. Herb had just taken the top spot on the co-angler leaderboard thanks to a 12-pound, 3-ounce day two limit that put him at 24-11 for the tournament.
Beale, meanwhile, had bagged 15-8 on day one, and if he could put nine pounds, four ounces of bass on the scale, Herb would go home in second-place.
But when Beale’s weight – three bass for 5-12 – was announced and Herb finally knew he’d won $20,000 and the co-angler title, the young Iowan finally allowed himself some emotion, bursting into an excited grin and pointing at the sky. Herb’s weight edged second-place finisher Jeremiah Shaver’s 23-11 bag by sixteen ounces.
“I don’t have any sponsors or anything, but I think I’ve got the best sponsors a guy can have, my family,” Herb told the crowd as he hoisted the $20,000 check and trophy.
It was an especially sweet win for Herb, who is expecting his second daughter with his wife, Mackenzie, and daughter Emersyn.
“This is pretty amazing,” says Herb, who, when he’s not fishing, works for a lead and asbestos removal company. “We’ve got a baby girl due in September, so this is a big thing for us. She’s 24, I’m 25, it’s a big step for our family.”
This is Herb’s first time fishing an FLW Tour event as a co-angler, and he won it by being versatile.
“I fished with [Madison, Miss. pro] Pete Ponds on day one down at Stoddard,” says Herb. “I caught my first fish on a spinnerbait, my second and third on a swimbait, and my fourth and fifth on shaky head.”
On day two Herb was paired up with Bellevue, Ontario pro Curtis Richardson. “We started out at the dam, where I caught some shorts on a Strike King KVD Squarebill, but I caught my first keepers in the Black River on a Berkley Power Worm.”
The key to finding fish, says Herb, was looking for areas of grass and current that had the clearest water. “That’s what we were keying in on both days,” says Herb. “All our bites came in weeds and current. It was all backwater, but had main-channel current flowing through it.”
As for his future plans for his winnings, Herb says that is solidly tied to the most important thing – his family.
“No, no plans to eventually go pro,” he says with a laugh. “If the opportunity presented itself, maybe, but it’s tough. I travel a lot for work, my kids are young and I like seeing them when I am home, so I don’t think so. This money’s getting invested in our future.”