Ross Taylor, 16, turns heads with an impressive Ranger M1 finish.
The only thing missing was a peppy bubble gum rock band tune providing background noise as Ross Taylor returned to his Burnsville, Minn., high school just before Christmas break. He strolled down the same halls he had just two weeks earlier. He even wore the same garb – jeans and a fishing shirt. But there was that extra bounce in his step – the one a 16-year-old finds by throwing the winning touchdown pass against his school’s cross-town rival, kissing the homecoming queen goodnight after an improbable date, or doing something really out there, like saving some kid and having the story broadcast on the local news.
Just the kind of thing you might expect to see in one of those “coming of age” movies, where the class nerd pays the most popular girl in school to date him so that he can build up an impressive image. But in real life, high school students hardly ever thwart bank robberies or win downhill slalom competitions with just one ski. No, the reason for Taylor’s sudden loss of any teenage awkwardness that he may have harbored came from a highly unusual, yet seriously less dramatic source of high school celebrity.
Ross Taylor was only three years old when his father, Rich, took him fishing at nearby Prior Lake. The younger Taylor took to the sport and the quality time his father had hoped to find with his son. Young Ross always looked forward to the outings with his dad. As he grew older, though, the outings – while still fun and relaxing – began to bring out a more serious side in the boy.
“He always really enjoyed fishing,” Rich recalls. “A few years ago, he just began to get into it more and more. He has always studied the art of fishing, and I’ve just done a lot of fishing. But he started experimenting with different techniques and reading all the magazines and how-to articles. He was serious about this. It’s a passion for him.”
The Taylors began making appearances in local buddy tournaments, usually finding modest success. But Ross’s skills were just blossoming. When a solid year in his first season on the Silverado tournament circuit qualified him for the Ranger M1 Millennium event’s co-angler division, his fishing career took off.
His father used some of his frequent flyer miles to fly himself and his son to Cypress Gardens, Fla., for the November event. Leery of his son’s getting caught up in the glamour of big-time fishing, Rich made him sign a contract that obligated him to reimburse his dad for expenses with any prize money won. Rich never expected to see a penny.
The Ranger M1 Millennium was the brainchild of Operation Bass Chairman, Irwin Jacobs, whereby anglers from circuits across the nation qualified for a showdown in either the professional or co-angler divisions. The event’s pro winner would collect up to a staggering $1 million if certain sponsorship criteria were met. FOX Sports made television history by broadcasting the event’s final day live to a national audience. In a dramatic battle, Darrel Robertson of Jay, Okla., grabbed the pro’s top prize, $600,000 and most of the limelight. Taylor, however, grabbed some of the attention as the week wore on.
The Ranger M1’s format eliminated the field from day to day, and anglers started each new round from scratch. No matter how impressive the previous day’s sack of fish, each round was a new tournament, placing a premium on consistency and strategy – a tall order for a teenager going up against seasoned tournament veterans.
In the pre-tournament meeting, Taylor realized just how out of place he was. “I definitely got a lot of weird looks,” he said. “I guess those guys weren’t used to seeing a 16-year-old kid at their tournaments.”
At that meeting he discovered that his partner for the first day of competition was not very confident after some slow pre-fishing. Still, it took only two casts the next morning for any feelings of not belonging to disappear for Taylor. He boated a keeper on his second cast. Fishing slowed for a while, but another keeper was good enough to move him into the next round.
On day two, with a new partner, he enjoyed another quick start, nailing a keeper within the first 10 minutes of flipping a worm. Switching to a Rat-L-Trap, he boated three more bass, but his new partner had yet to net a fish. His partner (who had control of the boat under the tournament’s format) decided to move. That move paid off for Taylor who brought in a 3-pound bass to secure a spot in the next round. But his elder partner wasn’t enjoying the show.
“When I hooked that 3-pounder, it dived down in the hydrilla,” Taylor said. “I asked (his partner) nicely to move the boat around for me and nothing happened, so I asked again and he moved around kind of sluggishly. There was some frustration in his voice. I told him what I was doing, but I guess he didn’t really want my advice. He’s a great guy, but sometimes people don’t always want to listen to some kid even if he’s hitting fish.”
On the third day of competition, being paired with veteran Marty Fourkiller boosted Taylor’s confidence.
“I’d begun to have doubts in my mind, but I knew Marty was a real good fisherman and I had seen what he had been doing earlier, so that helped my mindset,” Taylor said.
Within 30 minutes, Taylor boated a 3-pounder. He later netted a 2-pounder, and eked into the final day.
On the final day of the co-angler competition, the fishermen got their own boats, but were restricted on which waters they could fish. That accounted for some low weight totals, but after several adjustments, Taylor used a Carolina rig to net a 2-pound bass. He held on to win fourth place and its $12,500 prize, becoming a bit of a story in fishing circles and an item back home.
“It was kind of cool, going back to school,” he said. “There were reports on me on the local radio and television stations and in the papers. When I showed up at school wearing a tournament shirt, everybody wanted to ask me about it. They really hadn’t paid much attention to that kind of stuff before.”
Now things have changed. His love of fishing has blossomed even further. And he has a new girlfriend. Fishing has become fashionable at Burnsville High. A little national and regional attention and a $12,500 check go a long way for a high school junior.
The only thing Rich Taylor is concerned about is his son keeping his priorities in order. So far, that’s not much of a worry.
“Number one, he’s going to have to get a college education,” he says. “As long as he is willing to do that, we’ll back him in his fishing career or whatever else he decides he wants to do. We have more or less been his sponsor so far. He’s very mature and, unlike a lot of kids his age, has the ability to talk to adults on an adult level. I think that’s why so many of the professionals have taken to him. He’s not some kid taking up time – he’s very serious about this.”
Rich and his wife, Judy, have been through the typical little league routine and even know a little about taking a sport to a higher than usual level: Ross’s older sister Melissa recently graduated from the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse where she played two years of soccer. Ross’s father, though, says fishing presents a different set of dynamics than more conventional sports.
“It’s very nerve racking,” he said. “You see him off at around 5 a.m. and you have no idea how he’s doing all day. When your kids play other sports, you go to the game and watch them. This is a lot tougher to handle as a parent.”
It is something the Taylors will have to handle. Ross is set on competing in the summers until he is out of college and then taking a shot at professional fishing.
In the meantime, it’s back to the grind of homework, school dances and cafeteria food. Other than a new stereo, television and VCR for his room, his prize money has been stuck away for later. Although Hollywood hasn’t come calling for the movie rights to his story, Taylor is working out an endorsement deal with Ranger Boats and is sponsored by area radio station KFAN as well as fishing industry powerhouses Berkley, Fenwick and Abu Garcia.
So while his story may not be flashy enough for the silver screen, Taylor’s perspective on his favorite sport may say it all. “I really love fishing, everything about it,” he says. “I look up to so many of the pros. There are so many great people in the sport to look up to that you really can’t single out a role model, except maybe my dad.”
That may have been what Rich Taylor had in mind when he first took his three-year-old to Prior Lake.