Rogers on the mark
Florida pro overcomes disappointing 2000 season to win 2001 EverStart Eastern Division points title
The immortal Yogi Berra once said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.” Like baseball, Berra’s distinctively skewed insight also applies to professional tournament fishing. It’s a mental game. Many of pro bass fishing’s most successful anglers, like Rick Clunn or Kevin VanDam, are those who apply a Zen-like discipline to the mental rigors of fishing. Sure, these anglers have matchless physical ability and fishing technique, but it is their remarkable powers of concentration in competition that repeatedly puts these anglers at the top of big-money tournaments.
EverStart Series pro Mark Rogers is well aware of this. This year, Rogers employed a stronger mental regimen toward his fishing and ended up capturing the 2001 Eastern Division standings title. With 759 points, he edged out perennial contender Frank Poirier by the narrowest of margins in the final regular-season tournament at Kerr Lake, N.C.
“I was really excited about winning it,” Rogers said. “This year I got my mental game together and it really kind of worked out.”
Indeed, Rogers had a great year and it worked out for him in the end, but his mental toughness was tested by the closest points race of the year on an Operation Bass pro circuit.
Kerr Lake
It came down to the regular season’s final day of competition. Mark Rogers came into the last Eastern Division regular-season tournament, at Kerr Lake, in second place in the standings behind Koby Kreiger of Osceola, Ind. By the end of day three’s semifinals, Rogers had taken over the standings lead by posting a 13th-place finish in the tourney.
Unfortunately, Rogers wasn’t fishing in Saturday’s final round. Kreiger, too, had missed the semifinal-round cut and dropped out of the standings hunt during the week. But one finalist, Frank Poirier of Hopewell, Va., had a shot to steal away the points title. In fifth place in the standings coming into the tourney, he needed a first- or second-place finish to overtake Rogers.
That Saturday, all Rogers could do was wait nervously as Poirier caught a limit of bass and made a valiant run toward the title. But his five fish were light, and Poirier could only manage a sixth-place finish for the tournament to end the season with 755 total points. Rogers edged out Poirier in the standings by a mere four points.
“I thought it might be possible at the beginning of the year when I had two good finishes,” said Rogers. “I’m thrilled it happened.”
It was the first points title for the 29-year-old from Naples, Fla. – and it was a well-earned one.
On the rebound
Rogers began fishing the Red Man Tournament Trail (now Wal-Mart BFL) in 1996 and the EverStart Series in 1998. The first several years he enjoyed moderate success on tour, particularly on his home waters of Lake Okeechobee. By the end of 1999 he had already captured two Red Man Gator Division tournament top-10 finishes – a win and second place – as well as two more top-10 finishes in the EverStart Eastern Division. All of the top-10s happened on Okeechobee. He fared well in the standings his rookie and sophomore years on the EverStart Series, finishing 16th in 1998 and 15th in 1999 and making the Invitational Challenge both years.
But things didn’t go so well for Rogers in 2000.
“My third year was a horrible year,” he explained. “My mental game wasn’t there. I just wasn’t focused.”
After such a promising start, his self-described lack of focus led to a year where he finished no better than 80th place at an EverStart tournament and ended the year ranked 147th overall. Even more crucially, he finished in the money exactly zero times.
“I would get so frustrated in practice that I would bring it into the tournaments,” Rogers said. “There were times when I almost didn’t want to be there.”
For the moment, the young angler’s tournament fishing career looked bleak. A guide by trade, Rogers came to Florida from Southern California to make his way in the fishing business. He began his early career fishing with his father, Roger Rogers, for stingray and bonito off the Pacific coast and for striper and largemouth in the deep, clear California inland lakes. Having moved to Naples to establish a guiding business that takes charters offshore as well as onto Lake Okeechobee, Rogers was primed for tournament success. But after the last tournament in 2000, the Challenge at Cypress Gardens, where he came away with a disappointing 127th place, he decided something had to change if he really wanted to make it on the pro tour.
“Even those first two years I felt I could fish better, that I wasn’t up to my potential,” he explained. “After last year, I just worked harder in practice so that when I got into the tournament I had fun. I was able to relax more and just fish.”
And it worked. By focusing less on the pressure of the big tournament and more on doing his homework in practice, Rogers made a big rebound from his disappointing 2000 season. At the first two Eastern Division tournaments of 2001, he cashed in a third-place finish at trusty Lake Okeechobee and a fifth-place finish at Lake Eufaula.
His stock in the Eastern Division standings only continued to rise as the year wore on. At Santee Cooper lakes, Rogers notched a career-best one-day tournament weight by catching a massive five-fish stringer on day two that weighed 25 pounds, 6 ounces.
“That was probably my most memorable moment,” he said. “Boy, that was a great day. I’ve never caught them that big in a tournament.”
Rogers’ 24th-place performance that week positioned him comfortably near the top of the standings heading into the final regular-season tourney. When he took a commanding tournament lead at Kerr Lake on day one with a 19-pound stringer and Kreiger fell out of contention, the rest became history.
Practice makes perfect
Rogers wisely subscribes to the power of versatility in achieving tournament success. While he acknowledges that he “likes to pitch and flip a lot,” it’s hard to pin him down on his favorite fishing technique.
“It all depends on the conditions of the lake,” he said. “I just try to adapt my bait to the conditions and make the best of my presentation. You’ve got to be versatile.”
That approach made all the difference for Rogers in 2001 – that, and a monkish discipline in practice. Every tournament, he and his dad, Roger, would arrive at the location as early as possible and search religiously for the most fruitful fishing holes. He kept his concentration level high for two weeks straight every tournament, even when the fish weren’t biting.
“This year, if I found one fishing spot per day with 10 days of practice, I would have 10 spots for the tournament,” Rogers said. “By focusing, I was able to turn even my mediocre spots into productive areas for tournaments.”
And with the help of those so-called “mediocre spots,” he was able to turn 2001 into the year he not only won the standings title, but also took home the most winnings of all Eastern Division pros, $20,600.
“I want to thank my wife, Chrissy, and my mom and dad for all their support,” Rogers said. “I couldn’t have done it without them.”
For his efforts, he earned a berth in the EverStart Series Championship in November and an invitation to compete with the big boys on the Wal-Mart FLW Tour in 2002 – where the money alone is enough to shake an angler’s concentration.
“I’ve just got to try to push that out of my mind,” he said about the big FLW payouts. “I’m just going to fish for the fish and not worry about it.”
If he maintains his focus and keeps fishing like he did this year, Rogers should have nothing to worry about. He’ll be one to watch next year.
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