Performance Profile: J.T. Kenney
7 UP pro experiences a breakout year
In his first few years as a professional bass angler, J.T. Kenney of Frostburg, Md., has learned plenty about competitive fishing and beyond.
“When you start to smell yourself,” Kenney said with a laugh, “it’s time to take a shower.”
The 7 UP pro on the Wal-Mart FLW Tour recalled that in his early days as a pro fisherman he often found himself driving around motel parking lots after a day of tournament fishing, looking for friends’ trucks.
“When I found one, I would park and sleep in the back of my truck,” he said. “The next morning, I’d be pounding on their door and asking if I could use their shower.
“From 1999 to 2001, I don’t think I ever stayed in a motel.”
Kenney can laugh now.
At press time, the 30-year-old pro was flying high, holding the points lead in the Wal-Mart FLW Tour. He also finished second in the points standings in the EverStart Series Southeast Division.
He hasn’t slept in his truck in months.
Kenney’s phenomenal 2005 season seems even more remarkable when you consider just how rough he had it in 2004.
Kenney got off to a great start that year with a fourth-place finish in the EverStart Series opener on Lake Okeechobee. Then the bottom dropped out. He didn’t make another cut, finishing 111th in the EverStart Southeast Division and 146th in the Wal-Mart FLW Tour points standings.
As Kenney’s good friend, BFGoodrich Tires pro Chad Grigsby said, “It’s tough to fish all six events and finish that low.”
A year like that might lead some anglers to think about a career change. The thought never crossed Kenney’s mind because he wasn’t ready to go back to his former job as a fishing guide.
Kenney simply knew he was capable of doing better. He had proven that by winning his first FLW Tour event, the 2002 season-opener on Lake Okeechobee. In 2003 he finished second in the points in the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League’s Northeast Division and eighth in the BFL All-American.
To Grigsby, it seemed his friend had lost his confidence in 2004.
“He would get nervous,” Grigsby said. “Instead of fishing, he would just start scrambling around.”
Kenney, whose career earnings in FLW Outdoors events top a quarter-million dollars, doesn’t argue that point.
“I got into a funk,” he admitted.
The Frostburg native entered the 2005 season with a renewed sense of confidence.
“You just go into each tournament and know you’re going to catch them,” said Kenney, who has been fishing competitively since he was in high school.
And that’s what Kenney is doing.
Kenney started the EverStart Series Southeast Division season with three top-10 finishes in a row. He has been more than steady on the FLW Tour, with a 14th-place finish at Okeechobee to start the season, then finishing fourth at Lake Toho, 52nd at the Ouachita River, 20th at Beaver Lake and 69th at Wheeler Lake.
Kenney’s clutch performance, however, was his 20th-place finish at the Wal-Mart Open on Beaver Lake – a finish that allowed him to take over the FLW Tour points lead.
Kenney managed the finish despite only being able to fish one hour on the tournament’s first day because of engine trouble.
In fact, Kenney pointed out, his great season hasn’t been perfect.
“I’ve had a lot of weird things happen,” he said. “It’s been a great time, but there also have been a lot of little heartbreaks.”
For example, at the Toho FLW Tour event, Kenney lost seven fish in the finals. Then, the real heartbreaker came when he lost a tiebreaker to Allan Glasgow at the EverStart Series event at Santee Cooper.
Becoming the 2005 Land O’Lakes Angler of the Year would certainly help ease some of the disappointment, and Kenney knows he’s got an edge heading into the season’s final tournament. The Potomac River is essentially Kenney’s home water.
Instead of thinking that the tour points lead is his to lose, he’s going into the tournament believing the title is his to win.
The way he has been fishing in 2005, who could blame him?
Flippin’ fandango
J.T. Kenney was an enthusiastic young weekend bass angler when he saw something that changed his life.
“Pete Thliveros was on TV, and he was flipping mats at Lake Okeechobee,” Kenney recalled. “I thought that was the coolest thing.
“I packed up my truck and headed down there to try it.”
Kenney caught a couple of hefty bass on that trip, and he’s been relying on flipping to put prize checks in his pocket ever since.
He wasn’t necessarily the “flippin’ fandango” at first try. On one early trip, Kenney said his fishing buddy looked at him and said, “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
When a bass picked up his bait and started swimming away, Kenney would set the hook in the opposite direction.
“But that just turns the hook and pops it right out of its mouth,” Kenney said of the lesson his buddy taught him that day. “You have to set the hook in the direction the fish is swimming.”
Usually the technique results in a solid hookset in the fish’s top jaw and, subsequently, a fish in the livewell.