Check-in Time: Jeremy Lawyer
What an FLW pro is up to right now
From time to time, FLW checks in with its anglers to find out what they’ve been up to, what they’re listening to, who they’re following and where they’re heading while out on the tournament trail. This week, we caught up with Missouri pro Jeremy Lawyer.
What are you up to lately?
Well, since the Costa FLW Series Championship on Cumberland I’m in full-blown deer mode. This is the perfect time to be killing some deer, and I’ll be spending every moment I get before the gun season comes in out in the woods. I already killed a nice buck, so now I’m just trying to kill a few does to make it through the winter.
I bought an 80-acre farm last year, and we put some food plots on it, and it’s kind of like hunting a senior citizen farm because it’s so easy compared to how I grew up hunting. We have a good time.
I should have guessed you’d be in the deer woods. Do you have a bucket-list hunting trip you’d like to take some day?
Ah, man, I’d love to go to Alaska and go hunt a moose. If I’m in the kitchen and hear that moose cow call on TV, I’m going in and watching. That gets my attention more than anything. I wouldn’t have to shoot a big one, either. It’d just be a cool experience.
Where are you headed next?
Actually, my wife and I leave next week for the Missouri Invitational Fish and Golf Tournament. It’s a really fun event and pays, like, $30,000 to the winner and only has 30-some boats, but they are some of the best anglers in the Midwest. I think it started five years ago, and this will be the fourth year I’ve gone. I got invited after I won the All-American.
It’s a fun format. You fish the first day, golf the second day and fish the third. They auction off spots for people to bid on to fish with the pros, and that’s how the teams are made. And when we golf there is a golf pro added to the team. A couple years ago I got fortunate to win, and during the golf part I sank a putt and fishing my partner caught a bass, so we each did pretty good outside of our element.
What are you listening to or watching these days?
When I’m driving, I’m listening to either Eric Church or Cody Jinks 90 percent of the time. But no, I don’t watch a lot of TV. If I do watch anything, it’s Andy Griffith. I never got into college football; never got in that groove. But my wife is a huge NASCAR fan, so that’ll be on.
Honestly, if a sport is on a TV that I turned on it’s probably a fishing or hunting show.
What bait or technique are you trying to master right now?
You know, I’m not saying I’m trying to master anything, but I’m trying to get more comfortable with finesse stuff. I wasn’t sold on braid to fluorocarbon on a spinning rod, but at the [FLW] Cup this year it opened my eyes to that. So, I’m trying to tune into more of that.
I honestly don’t know what knot I tie for braid to fluoro, but I think it’s an Albright knot. I run into Jason Christie from time to time over the season, and this spring I cornered him and asked if he’d show me how to tie a knot. So, he’s tied it with me four or five times this year and helped me a bunch.
Aside from hunting and hanging out with your family, do you have a favorite offseason activity?
Being at home from day to day is really nice, but I love catfishing on Grand Lake in the winter. Nobody is out there and you have ice freezing on your rods, but the cats gang up and you can murder them. I’d say 100-fish days aren’t out of the question. We keep some to eat, but we also give a bunch away. In Sarcoxie, we used to cook fish every Tuesday and Thursday from Nov. 1 to March 1, and that doesn’t take long to eat some fish up. We’d have 20 to 30 people show up, but now it’s not as big. But it’s fun.