April 23, 2025 • 39 mins
When you've had a taste of your dream, Garrett Paquette will stop at nothing to make it happen again. As a former Bassmaster Elite, his dreams ended with mistakes and poor finishes. All that has done is fuel his fire to get back there!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The pursuit of trying to become a professional fisherman is
maybe one of the hardest things an angler can do
in their lifetime. Whether it's becoming a bass Master Elite
or part of the BPT Tour with Major League Fishing,
the road to get there is filled with a lot
of challenges. It's even harder when you had a taste
(00:20):
of it. You were at the highest level and then
you were kicked off. Garrett Paquette joins us he's currently
going through the bass Master Opens to requalify to get
back up to the bass Master Elites. He's a phenomenal dude,
an incredible fisherman, and he has so much insight into
(00:41):
fishing and what it takes. We're happy to have him
on lines and times. I'm Spencer, this is my buddy, Daniel.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Care. How's your season going so far?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
It's okay. It's been a little up and down. We
fish three tournaments so far and the weather has been
absolutely insane for all of them. If you guys have
been watching the news at all. But we started in Texas.
I had a really good event. I finished second on
Sam Rayburn and then our second event was on Kentucky Lake.
I think I was like forty second, forty third somewhere
(01:11):
in there. Got one of the last checks, which was nice,
and then we just finished up in Arkansas Lake Norfolk,
where I bombed. To put it lightly, I finished one
hundred and forty third there.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It was just you know, I could sit here and
make a ton of excuses, but generally have a great
practice ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I mean, look, let's be real. We've all talked about weather,
and I think most of us that have done any
sort of tournament fishing, it is really hard to get
the ideal conditions for three days of practice and then
roll into a four day tournament. So did weather play
a factor or did you just misread the.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Water on both So coming in, you know, we we
have three days of practice to come these lakes and
scout it. In my three days, I did not have
a great practice. I caught a bunch of fish, but
I never felt like I was on you know, tournament
winning size or even top ten size. I kind of knew,
which was fine. The first two tournaments were the exact
same for me, So I know coming into the event, hey,
(02:06):
I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to make it
happen during the tournament, which a lot of guys are
in the same boat. And I went out there day
one of the tournament, and I guess the night before
we had a bunch of rain and I was fishing
kind of far up these creeks. So I get to
my first area, the water is a lot dirtier than
it was in practice. There's some floating debris, you know,
kind of some stuff like that, which messed with my head.
(02:28):
But surprisingly the fish didn't really change a whole lot.
I actually went their Day one, caught a bunch of fish.
I'd probably call it twenty five keepers, which for me
is a lot in a tournament day. Usually I'm like,
you know, five to ten keepers on average. So I
catch a bunch of fish I had. I had a
little section there where I think I took like five
casts and lost three fish over two pounds, which on
(02:49):
this lake was pretty Uh that's a pretty good size fish.
Like my best five weighed under ten pounds, so those
three two pounders would have went a long way. And yeah,
I finished the day and one hundred and forty fifth
or sixth or third wherever I was there. We had
a bunch more rain during that tournament day in the
in the night, you know, or that night, and the
(03:13):
second to the point where the second day got canceled.
So our second day of tournament fishing got canceled. So
I'm kind of stuck here. And it was going to
be a two day tournament. It rained so hard the
second day and stormed so bad that they canceled the
third day and one day canceled the third day, it's
just a one day tournament. So here I am. I
had one day of fishing, and then I'm stuck with,
(03:35):
you know, that kind of finish. So it is what
it is, you know, That's why you don't That's why
I got to catch them every day. But I was
definitely excited because you know, I'm fairly experienced now, you know.
I mean, I'm only thirty years old, but I've been
traveling for ten years, and I was really looking forward
to getting out there on day two because I knew
how much the water was changing, and not that I'm
ultra familiar with those conditions, but I've you know, I've
(03:57):
seen a lot more than some of these guys, and
I kind of fell that was gonna be a good opportunity,
not to have a good tournament, but you know, maybe
gain forty fifty places and you know, walk out of
there feeling a little better by myself.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
God, I had a tournament like that on Sante Cooper.
They canceled the final day, but I was so pumped
to get out back on the water because I was
smashing them. I was all over them. And then they
were like, we're canceling. And it sucks because it pauses
you exactly where you are in the standings.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, and you could be thinking, hey, I'm on some fish,
I can really make up some big ground, and then
you don't have that opportunity to go out. How bad
does that mess with you going into the next tournament?
If you have a situation like that where you get
halted in the middle of a good.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Run, you know, honestly, the way fishing is gone, you
just kind of come to expect it. So you got
to kind of go into these tournaments like the next
one are going to is Leech Lake actually where me
and Daniel fish a little bit last year, but it's
a big lake. It's notoriously windy and rough, so I
already know coming into that event, and the same with
these first three events. I know, coming in that weather,
(04:56):
it's going to be a factor. Cancelations are possible, so
there's no hold.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So do you plan to have a one day shootout
every day if you're lucky enough to fish multiple days,
or you just kind of like, I'll just see what
happens and I'll try to play it safe by getting limits.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Ye. Now, you really can't play it safe honestly anymore.
You have to, or at least I don't. I'm fishing
to win these tournaments. I'm not fishing for You're not.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
A points guy. You want to go out there and
win and get the points that you can.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, and I like points and I like checks, trust me.
But I just know if I go out there fishing
for thirtieth place, I'm going to finish sixtieth. So I'd
rather go fishing for first place than finish twentyeth.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You brought up some really interesting when you were talking
about how many fish you catch on a tournament day.
You're not a twenty five to thirty five fish guy.
Is that why you chose to stay with bass instead
of going the MLF route to get to the BPT
Tour or what is it about bass Master that holds you.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
That's a big part of it. Yeah, Like I know,
for the way I fish, my style, it's not conducive
towards success. If I just I grew up fishing where
I'm trying to target the bigger fish. I'm trying to
do things a little differently, and you know, I don't
care about catching forty fish. I want five big ones.
I don't care if it's five eight, you know, ten
bites a day. But generally, when you're going after those
fish and that's your style, you're not going to be
(06:15):
out there catching fifty fish in a day. So as
a part of it, and then I think the biggest
part though, is at least how I feel if you're
going to make a career in fishing the side that's
easiest to do it on his bass, there's just more promotion,
you know, it's easier to get sponsors, more legacy stuff
like that. So I like being over here.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
How is it watching them? Danielle'll let you jump in,
but how is it watching the two? As somebody who
fishes competitively, do you like watching mlfvents on on streaming
or on TV? Or would you rather watch bass where
guys are trying to get big fish.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
None of that actually affect how I view it. I like,
so when I watched tournaments a little different if I
if you had to ask me, you know, if I
wasn't fishing competitively, or maybe when I was younger, it
would be more about catching fish, which is where I
think MLF has a big appeal, Like if you don't
like fishing and use her on MLF, it's like every
time they switch an angler, they catch them and catch them.
(07:10):
Whereas I am out the point where I just want
to learn. I don't even need to see a guy
catch fish, so I want to hear the angler's talking
and you know their process, why they're thinking about moving.
I think BASS does a little better job with that,
not as good as they used to. Honestly, they're starting
to get into a highlight show too. But I think
they let the anglers kind of, like you know, speak
what they're going through, and I think it's a little
(07:31):
easier for me to learn watching the BASS side.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
It is interesting just to see how the two kind
of handle content and getting it out to people.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Go ahead, Danielle, Yeah, Garret, where are you in points
right now? After the three events?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I think I'm in the thirties somewhere and who.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Do you know what they take? I just for the people,
I don't know, We're fine.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, yeah, But I was kind of hoping to go
to Leech this final tournament without having to catch a
fish and just kind of I have some fun, but
there'll be a little extra pressure. But this game is
always pressure. So it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
What happened to your time while you were on the Elites, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
It was. It was just a combination of a lot
of things. Like I started when I got on the Elites,
so I fished three years. I started in twenty nineteen,
kind of started off really well, you know, I think
I missed my first check and then maybe I got
five or six in a row or five or six
in the top half of the field, the second place
in their century. But like it was just kind of
rolling and I had a really good year that your
(08:32):
force is like, man, this is just kind of get
in here and have my way and you know, do
this forever. And then I ended that first year really poorly.
The final tournament was on Lake Saint Clair actually, which
is my home lake. I bombed it, tied for the
last classic spot for the next year, lost the tie breaker,
so it was a pretty heartbreaking end of the season.
(08:55):
And then the next year kind of started similarly, like
I started poor and then had three or four I think,
really good ones. And this was during the COVID year,
so it was kind of an odd year, you know,
and we had we had a huge backloaded schedule in
the fall, which I was like, you know, when I
grew up, I couldn't cure less about fall fishing because
all I wanted to do was fishy elites, and uh,
(09:16):
I was like, we'll never fish in the fall. You know,
all my focuses on spring and summertime fishing, and of
course half the season ends up being in the fall
because of COVID pretty much bomb all those events. I
might have made one check at Gunnersville. So that was
kind of a poor year. And then the third year
I had was just a disaster. I mean it was,
you know, a lot of bad decision making on my part.
Just you know, it's hard when you when you get
(09:36):
in a hole in fishing, you overcompensate. So if you
have a bad tournament, you try to do things a
little extra to make it up, and it very rarely
goes well, so it was a lot of overcompensating tons
of missfish like I had never experienced, and then some
unfortunate off the water stuff, had a couple family members die.
It was just like a really tough year. And uh.
(09:56):
And it was also the year that they changed the
field size from one hundred and ninety and I was
kind of caught in there. I was like the second
guy cut. I think where if they would have stayed
at one hundred out of ben in and they felt
for whatever reason they needed to go down to ninety,
And just kind of got caught in that. And that
was that. You know, just as fast as it comes
and goes.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I don't know what's happening with the elites, but I
know in certain cases, a lot of tournaments are going
to start shrinking their fields. We've already seen it with MLF.
MLF went from one number and they dropped it down.
They may continue to make more cuts, but that actually
benefits the organization for the marketing side, which a lot
(10:34):
of people don't think about. You know, it's easier to
market fifty guys than is one hundred and typically if
you find the guys who are in the back of
the pack, are they really sought after? Those the guys
that everybody's looking at. You talked about Lake Saint Clair
and how is your home body of water and you
bombed on it. What kind of pressure do you have
as an angler when you compete on your own homeowner?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Probably more than you should, you know, I mean, you
start thinking about things that you know, we don't think about, like, hey,
who's going to be at the weigh in and I
want to let this guy down? How cool would it
be if this person was here when I won or
did well? You know, so you just you have a
lot of variables that don't affect the tournament at all,
that shouldn't be in your head. And uh, you know
when every ounce of effort that's not towards trying to
(11:17):
figure out how to catch these fish is an ounce
of effort that somebody's getting up on you. So generally,
you know, you see these guys struggle on their home legs,
and it's you know, that trend starting to break a
little bit, like you're seeing some homeleke guys do well.
But it's not that they're not good fishermen. Obviously, they
don't know the lake. It's just, you know, they're not
going through their normal process of what they would be
doing at any other tournament.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
So it sounds like that's more self imposed than it
is anything else, Like you're only putting that own pressure
on yourself.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, and some of it is. There is a factor
that you know, when you get out there, it's hard
not to be like, man, I frushed him on this spot,
you know last year, I gotta go, And I remember
in October, my buddy, you know, he had twenty five
pounds over here.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
So boy, history and the ass wh.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, well yeah, sometimes it helps. But generally though, you know,
you see what like just happened last week with Kyle Welter,
right like when those tournaments happened like that. The best tournaments,
and you know, usually the winning tournaments are guys are
just out there. They're fishing the conditions the moment they're
there's no history involved. They're just getting up in the morning,
they're reading what they're seeing and they're reacting to it.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
That was such a wild tournament the Passca Tank River
because it's kind of an unknown body of water for
a lot of guys. We had Dustin Connell on podcasts
not too long ago, and he was talking about the
information rule, which we'll get into a little bit with you,
especially on the open side. But he was talking about
how we know we're going to go to sam Rayburn,
(12:42):
We're gonna go to Gunnersville, We're gonna go to Saint Clair,
We're gonna go to all these big lakes. So if
you get information ten years ago or you get information
ten days ago, the information doesn't really change that much.
You're gonna find areas and go find fish. But when
you start looking at a place like the Pasca Tank River.
I don't know if you guys noticed this, but you
(13:02):
look down there were a lot more non limits caught
in that tournament than I think any tournament BASS has
had in the last couple of years. Yeah, why, like,
what what is it about a new body of water?
Is it because guys maybe weren't getting the information that
they had gotten before, and now all of a sudden
(13:22):
they're having to really figure out how to find fish.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, you know, that could be part of it. I think,
you know, I think that river in general, you know,
maybe not the case that I know that. So I've
talked to a lot of guys. I talked to a
lot of guys actually that had kind of poor tournaments
in that tournament, and they were crushed them in practice,
So it sounds like, you know, they had a bunch
of big wins, they had a heavy cold front. Some
(13:47):
of that definitely factors into it. But yeah, you notice,
you know, I think the best example is like the
Saint Lawrence River, So I know the fishery has changed some,
but look at when the Elite Series first went there.
I think twenty thirteen ish maybe or eleven twelve, there's
somewhere in there when Palinok won. So that was a
really new one for most guys except for like the
really the guys that had been Fiching in the eighties
(14:09):
and nineties. That was a new new place. And uh yeah,
you go look at the weights there, and then look
at the weights that now that everyone's been there five, six,
seven times, look at the weights now. You know, back
then twenty pounds is a great bag. Now twenty pounds
is a make top fifty.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You think that's forward facing.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, I was about to say that's.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
That's it's probably that, but it's more just that, you know,
the more you come back to these places, the more
you learn there are huge bodies of water. I mean
the Passket Tank what they say it was two million acres,
so uh, it's gonna take you or a lot of
guys a couple, you know, more than two and a
half days that break down that much water.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So got the locals are pissed too. Have you seen
the message boards about Pasket Tank River?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
They a huge crowd there though. They're like, there are
a ton of people that are like waiting.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Thanks a lot, bass Master for letting everybody know how
good of a secret gym this is. Now everybody's going
to pound this lake for the next couple of years.
And that's true. Like if you see a lake that
outperformed other places and it's not too far ar mean,
why wouldn't you want to throw your boat in the
water and go check it out?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yeah, and I get that's just a greedy way to
look at you know, we have the same problem up here.
Everyone in the spring gets mad because there's the guys
from Ohio, Indiana, Canada, you know, all these states come
up to fish Saint Clair and all the locals get mad.
And I'm like, well, then, you know, go tell the
guy that runs a hotel in the gas station that
you don't want these guys here, right, tell them that
you want to take away from their livelihood. So you know,
these fisheries are awesome and we all love to have
(15:25):
them to ourselves. But it's bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I mean, dude, I'm sitting here wearing a Masters shirt.
I got to spend a couple of days in Augusta
and went to Sunday when Rory won it. And the
amount of people in Augusta that are like, We're so
thankful that the Masters are here because when the Master's
Tournament comes in, they know that's a solid week of tourism,
maybe even a week and a half for some people.
You got to be happy with that kind of stuff.
(15:49):
And I don't think as fishermen we should be telling
anybody don't come to my city because most of these
lake towns they need the money.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
They need it. Yeah, like Saint Clair Shorts doesn't need it,
but it's still nice. But yeah, you go to Kentucky Lake.
You know a lot of these lakes just I mean
a lot of these lakes are built in rural areas, right,
So yeah, as an angler, trust me, I'd rather go
in the water and have a whole lake to myself
and every spot to myself and never a fish has
never seen a lure. It's a lot of fun, but
it's just I mean, it's bigger than that, you know,
(16:20):
you got to think of it and more than just
your own greed on the water.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You're trying to get back to the elites, and you
spend a couple of years up there. What have you
learned in the time from being a full fledged pro
as an elite compared to now?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
So I've learned, Uh, you know, sometimes you just gotta
Sometimes you just gotta do the best that you can do.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
There you feel like you were pushing too much when
you were an elite.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, Like, uh, you know, there's a lot of times
where you come out you practice and you're like, you know,
in your head, there's this way like, hey, there's this
termin is gonna get one doing this. You know, you
go to Toledo and hey, it's gonna get one on
my dog's walk, it's gonna get one on a rail
trap in the grass. And then you go out there
(17:08):
and you try to find that and you get frustrated
when you don't find it. Whereas and that's fine, Like,
you know, very few guys will find the winning pattern.
But instead of going out there in the tournament and
continuously trying to, you know, find this ghost out there
that you can't figure out, sometimes it's better just to
go and just hey, you know what, this is what
I found, this is what I figured out. I'm just
going to go do the best that I can do
(17:29):
with this. You know. Like a really good example we
had last year was a leech lake where we're going.
I knew the tern was gonna get one on small mouth.
I mean that was no secret. I knew they were
way better than the large mouth, and I'm just gonna
figure it out. I caught some and it wasn't great
for me, and I went out in the tournament and
I just couldn't get anything going. And instead of sitting
out there for eight hours and coming in with one
or two fish like many guys did, I just went
(17:51):
caught the large mouth because I could catch them a
lot easier, and I still had a really good event,
you know. So like that's kind of a maturity thing,
whereas two or three years ago, I think that I
just keep pushing the small mouth, pushing the small mouth
until I fail, you know, and just instead of getting
twenty fifth place, you get dead last and you know,
completely ruin your season.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So it sounds like you're talking about somebody should be
out there fishing their strengths.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, fish or strengths for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I mean how do you do How hard is that
to do it on a lake that doesn't have small mouth?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Then well, I'm just saying that was an example.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, but I'm asking like, if you go to a
lake that doesn't have small mouth and you're known as
a small mouth guy, how hard of a transition was
that for you to get to largemouth or spots or whatever.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, So my situation is a little different. So I
actually started as a large mouth guy because I've always
wanted to fish elites. So when I was young, I
actually broke down every top ten for like the last
ten years on the Elite series. So I had like
a calculation of, you know, this percent of time that
flipping makes a top ten drop shotting. So I kind
of knew going into this when I was young. Yeah,
(18:55):
I uh, my little background is large mouth.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
So not to not to sound like rude or anything
like that, but are you kind of a nerd when
it comes to fishing? Then I would say, yeah, like
you get like you dial into every little nuance and
try to figure it out.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah for sure. Yeah, I mean you got to kind
of like, you know, take it the next step. And
obviously life scope and the way fishing has changed is
kind of blown a lot of that apart. But you know,
I could tell you, you know, in twenty ten or
in that, in that group, but there was you know,
you could almost make a top ten on doing anything,
but if it was a slight fishing or alleged tournament,
ninety five percent of the top tens either came slight
(19:34):
fishing or ledge fishing. So like there was certain little
categories that you had to be good at to survive.
So I focus on that hard coming up. So for me,
I in Michigan, you think a big small mouth and
all this, but ninety five percent of the water around
here is actually large mouth fishing a lot of inland lakes,
little rivers, reservoirs. So I have a really good base
in large mouth, you know, probably more than small moth.
(19:56):
I feel like I'm catching up with a small mouth.
But yeah, you gotta I mean you're gonn to do this, like, yeah,
you gotta fish your strengths. You gotta fish, you know,
you got to fish away that you feel like, you
know you can win at or you feel comfortable doing.
But that doesn't mean only be good at one thing.
I mean, you've got to be incredibly versatile to be
out here. But when you get on the water, like
it's it's hard to explain. There's little things that just click.
You know, you put your boat and you're like, man,
(20:18):
this looks like something I can do well. Chatterbating, you know,
And if you get those feelings and you feel comfortable
with it, you know, go try to do it, and
you know, try to push it a little harder. And
if you could figure that stuff out, that's how you
have or that's how you have those good finishes.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Are you a Frankensteiner somebody who takes baits but then
messes with them to change them up a little bit?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Not really, No, I used to be, but I've learned
location is king the you know the baits are they
make very minimal difference at the end of the game.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
That's interesting, hm, Daniel, Like you, who are you? You're
traveling with Chris right now? Tell us a little bit
about that. Who's doing all the cooking and the uh
on the road. I know you're getting a little bit
into cooking. Last time we spoke.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, no, we have a.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Pretty good system. I've traveled. This will be my second
full year traveling with Chris Hallibuck, maybe even like two
and a half years, and we got a pretty good
little team. But yeah, I do all the cooking. I'm
a big fan of that. Just uh, it's just so
much easier for us on the road. You feel better,
you know, eating eating good things, and you save a
bunch of time, bunch of money. But I do all
the cooking. He does all the cleaning, so I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
What grade do you give Chris Hallibuck?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
And his cleaning actually pretty good. I'd probably get him
like a seven or eighties, like super organized, much more
than me. So he likes it a little cleaner than
I even would deal with.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Would you say he's would you say he's like type
a OCD type where he's got things very specific how
he wants it, or I.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Think so, Like I've seen him full laundry and it's
pretty intense. He's got all his shirts like rolled up
in little rolls and stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
How do you do your clothes? Then you just throw
it in a bang.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I just kind of get them in a square and
stuff them in there.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
It is so funny. When you start traveling with people,
you start to really notice how different their tendencies are.
Like the guys that I traveled the Toyota series with
when we went down South, one of them finally got
on a c PAP because he saw how much it
helped me. But that dude's sort of like a freight train.
And most nights we would wake up because somebody in
(22:28):
the room would be chucking a shoe over at them
to hit him, to try to get them to stop snoring. Yeah,
I'm not running with this SNAr No, Like it's terrible.
That's why you want to do that, all right. So
this year on the Opens, you're feeling really good. What
tournament do you feel like you have to put your
foot on the gas and really pick up a couple spots.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Well, once we get to the EQS, it'll be all in,
the guess. So the biggest deal with these first four
tournaments is you got to make the top fifty and
then then the top fIF get into the three tournament
series called the EQS, and we'll qualify from the Elite
Series out of there, the top.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Ten out of that, you like this set up.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
I don't love the setup now. I'd rather have the
nine tournaments like before. I'd rather have, you know, the
more chances. I feel like, sure, I feel like you
look at the last three rookie classes. I think that
speaks for itself on what the nine tournaments brings into
the Elite Series. I think before that, when you had
three tournament series is a lot of guys got in
that were good, and a lot of guys got in
that you know, maybe got lucky and one had one
(23:28):
on their home like and you know survived one. So
I like the more tournaments. But now that first one
on Champlain will be, uh, it'll be really critical. It'll
be our biggest feel most likely. So the bigger the field,
the higher you gotta get. So if there's one hundred
and forty guys on Champlain and you get tenth place,
it goes along a lot longer or a lot further
(23:50):
than if you get tenth place on Okachobe when we
might be down to seventy eighty guys.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
You feel like your personality changes when or will change
when you know that you're in the eqs compared to
right now, which kind of gets you just geared up
for it. Now you're just as.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Intense I change. Yeah, I don't care if it's a
Tuesday night tournament or a Bass Open or the Classic.
I have the same approach towards it.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Daniel, you fished in the back of Garrett's boat. What
type of competitor is he? In your mind?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Like?
Speaker 1 (24:25):
How is he at the front of the boat?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
So, I actually Garrett is probably one of the most
dialed fishermen I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
What do you mean dialed for?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
And Garrett, to be honest, you probably are one of
the most. You pay attention to every little detail and
you just seem to know what's always going on, which
is really impressive. And I kind of want to know
who got you into this fishing mindset. Does anybody else
in your family fish? We never really talked about that.
Did you just learn this all by yourself? Did you
just tell us a little bit more about that?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
So I grew up. My dad is really big and
it's salmon lake trout trolling on Lake here on like
he would be, you know, I mean, arguably like one
of the best ever on the Great lakes. So he's
won a lot of tournaments. So I've I've always and
I've grew and I grew up doing that, and just
as a young kid, I was too too high strung
(25:16):
to sit there and trol. So we would go out
trolling and then we'd come in and as like I
just wanted to catch fish. I go bluegill fish and
bass fishing whatever I could catch. And once I started
catching bass, I was like, man, this is uh, this
is what I want to do, you know, the way
they hit the lures and jump and all that. But
so I've always been exposed to fishing. We come from
a super competitive family. I've had a lot of support
(25:39):
from my parents and kind of grew up playing fairly
high level hockey, so we've always had you know, I've
just always kind of mixed uh, you know, competitiveness with
a passion I have towards bass fishing. I think that's,
you know, kind of worked for me.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Where's the competitive nature is that? You being a younger brother,
older brother, no siblings, no.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
No siblings, Just so who would you compete against?
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Would you compete against your father?
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Anybody? I mean, I don't care if it's chest, I mean,
I don't care if it's a phone game, Like I
just like, uh, I just like winning.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
You know, does that come from your dad then? Like
if you're an only child, I have a brother, Yeah,
my brother and I we have sibling rivalries left and right.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, and I would say that's uh my mom is
really competitive too, but yeah, probably my dad.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
How is your how's your mom competitive?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
She's just like genius so so she I like that,
just like a trivia nerd.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
So like when you were little, you guys would play
board games. What was the most intense your mom ever
got during a game?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
You would never know it. You would never know. She's
like super calm, very shy, quiet, so but she'd always win,
you know, like you just he just has like a
very sneaky intelligence. But uh now, the biggest thing was
probably hockey. I mean we grew up playing hockey, playing
a lot of big games and you know, wanting to win.
And I think coming into fishing it makes it worse
because you know, I grew up playing sixty five seventy
(27:07):
games a year when I'd lose five of them. You
play for state championships stuff like that all the time,
and then you come into fishing, and you know, the
best ever wins eight percent of the tournament. So you
come in here and you know it's hard to win
these tournaments. It's just like it's so frustrating. You just
want to do anything you can to try to get one.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
People rarely talk about that. They rarely talk about how
you're considered an elite, you're considered one of the best
of all time.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Winning percent.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
But that's the point, Like, you know, I saw stats
the other day. Tiger Woods has won eighty two PGA
Tour events. It's one of the most, maybe the most.
KVD is known as the greatest, and you look at
his wins and you're like, dang, out of that many tournaments,
that many years too. Yeah, So does that mess with
you a little bit? Like we all know guys that
(27:57):
go out there and they're like, they don't win, They're
to sell the boat, sell their rods, sell their gear,
and then the next Saturday they're back out on the
water trying to win.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, mess with me a lot, And not as bad
as it used to, because I've kind of learned like, hey,
this is the reality. Like, you know, a lot of
good guys won't even win, right They won't even win
a national tournament a lot of good anglers, so it's
changed some. But yeah, it's uh, when you're so used
to winning it a lot of things and then you
come here, it's a it's very frustrating.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So this is actually how Garrett and I met. So
I drew Garrett. Uh was it day one or it
was day one, right, Garrett? Yeah? Day one? I drew great.
Day one. We went out and I had like, well,
it must have been like a five and a half
small mouth like jump off right next to the boat,
and it was just I mean, it would have been
a peb.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It was a legit PB, especially for auth I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
During a tournament too.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And then uh, and it was not an easy day
for you.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
No, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
It wasn't. I think I only had and yeah, and
then and then Garrett brought me to another spot because
he had already had his five. This is how nice
and stand up of a guy, Garrett is I only
had one. No, I had two fish, and I had
lost that five and a half pounder, and he was like, oh, dude,
well we'll stop at this one spot so you can
make this one cast on this one area and he
(29:15):
was like, all right, he lined me up with the
spot and everything like that, and instead of him making
the cast during a tournament, there could have been a
six pounder there. You know what I mean, He's like,
toss over there. I freaking launched my freaking tube over there,
hooked up, and it freaking pulled off right next to
the boat. But still, dude, like, how nice of a
guy freaking let me throw onto a spot, take his
(29:35):
time out of his day and run all the way
over there for me to catch for garrel?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Why did you decide to give him that opportunity?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Well, one, it was on the way to another spot.
But no, he was a good dude. And uh, you know,
I know you had two fish, and you know I
had a spot where I was pretty confident, you know,
hooked one pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
That's when you backboted him. When he got over there,
you were like, all right, well I gave you a shot,
you screwed it up.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
So that was what I But no, I wanted to one.
I'm not the guy that's out there like screw the
co anglers. I don't want him to catch my fish.
Like I'm not saying I'll hurt my tournament. Time, but
I love when everyone's catching fish. So and he was
having a He wasn't having a bad day. He was
(30:21):
just having like an unfortunate day. So I was like, man,
I know, and I knew he was fishing all of them,
and I knew he had goals of you know, trying
to win the Ang of the Year and get into
the top ten and all that. So I was like, man,
this third fish would go a long ways, and I
knew that where I was going after that, that it
was going to be really hard for him to catch one.
So I was like, you know what, ten minutes on
the spot, I'm gonna have two and a half hours
(30:42):
to fish after this, you know, not a big deal.
So try to get him that one. And it didn't
work out. But that's how fishing is sometimes.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
In a couple of the Toyota series that I've had,
like I think as a co angler, it's always fun
when you can beat the boater, like the guys just
take pride in that. There were a lot lot of
guys that I fished with where I don't know anything
about them right, Like I could look up their stats,
but I'm still like, I don't know who this guy
is and I fished with this one guy in Santee
Cooper and he didn't have a fish all day, and
(31:11):
I had two solid fish, and I think both of
them were three and a half four pounds. And for
the last hour and a half of the tournament, he goes,
let's just go and try to catch you one more
because if you get that third fish, you're going to
be in a good spot with a check. And I'm
pretty much dead in the water. And it was a
two day deal. That's rare. So he took me to
(31:31):
this spot where he said he was whacking them, and
I threw this little speedworm out there and all of
a sudden, I hook up and I got another three pounder.
We get that in the boat. I'm sitting pretty The
next day, I was supposed to fish with a guy
that was a guide. He was second in the tournament.
He talked to me on the phone. He's like, I'll
tell you exactly what I'm doing, exactly where I'm going,
(31:54):
and we are going to straight whack them. They called
the tournament for weather. I never got to fish. And
then the next day, what happened with the weather. It
was beautiful, There wasn't a cloud in the sky. There
was no wind.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I was so pissed. I called the guy to go,
I know we're not fishing in the tournament. Do you
want to go fish today? He's like, I'm or I
am a way back home. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
When Garrett saw that five and a half realistically, because
he didn't even really know me, He's.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Like, dude, you just stole my fish.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
No, I remember I called that. We ran out to
that area and I was like, man, I don't know
if we're gonna catch anything here, but uh, if we do,
it's gonna it's gonna be good. And I think we
had uh five five pound bites there. I had two,
I lost two. He had one, probably the biggest one.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And uh, how do you know that though? As somebody
who looks for fish, how do you know that that
area is gonna produce fish of that quality?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
I went out there. Uh well, I found that area
in practice. This is I'm saying Claire my home, like,
never never fish there, never even fish closest area. And
I went out there in practice and I think I
uh I caught three or four, but it was like
I pulled up I caught a four twelve before fourteen,
a five to four in like a three and a half,
and I knew it was a pretty special area. It
(33:10):
actually the spot completely fizzled out during the tournament, but
it was when you see that kind of quality out there,
you just know that they're all big ones for the
most part. So I knew. I knew it was a
winning area. Just never held up.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
But are you the type of guy that sets the
hook but the day before the tournament, like you don't.
You'll you'll bust the barbs off and you're just trying
to lift them just to see what kind of weight
you got.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
It depends like out there, with there being so many fish,
I like to catch a few and then if I
want to go through and see how good it really is,
like I'll, you know, throw a bait without a hook
and stuff like that. But I'd say I'm probably more
on the less conservative side of hooking fish, Like I
I stick a few fish, for sure. I don't think that.
(33:53):
I think anglers we think we're better than we are
and we think, oh man, if I go catch this
one fish, it's I'm done. I'll ever catch other one here.
But there's usually a lot more there than you think Now,
if you're going to go fish like under docks and laydowns,
that's definitely you know, as the term gets closer, I'm
probably shaking off those fish.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
But have you gone back to that spot caret.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
You have to. I went there yes day two, never
saw fish.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
No, I mean, have you gone back to that spot
since the tournament since when we.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Fished thirty No?
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I haven't. No, I haven't. In the middle of I can.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Tell you, Garrett that if if your buddy Daniel goes
out to Gunnersville, you could ask me that size water.
If they said, where's Daniel right now, I go, I
know exactly where, and I will point right to a map,
because he and I went to this spot where we
straight whacked him. Yeah, whacked them. Yeah, it was fun
like that was the day where we pulled up just
(34:46):
on a hunch and we started casting and all of
a sudden we found this one little pot of hydrilla
and it was it was holding absolute tanks. And then
I had a tournament the next weekend with the ABT
and I said to him, I go, I have got
to go back to that spot. And our second cast
we caught a six point sixty six and once we
(35:08):
did that. I looked at my buddy and I was like,
we're not leaving, and he's like, well, I don't know,
and I said, we are not leaving. I know what
lives here. And we ended up getting I think eighteen
pounds off of that spot. Yeah, it was. It was insane.
Since we've talked about a fish that obviously Daniel remembers
and you remember is a big one. What's the one
(35:29):
fish that got away that haunts you?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Ooh, there's a lot of those.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
My most recent one is that six pounder on Neally.
That's that's the one that hurts me the most.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, you would, you would almost won.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Probably, Uh, I don't know, so I can't. I'll do two.
I got sucking in a Toyota series on Lake of
the Ozar because I came in with four fish one
day and I lost it three and a half, which
would have filled my limits. I'd have won that term
that's up there, but I did lose it.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
So that was That was an eighty thousand dollars fish whatever.
Forty fifty isn't that crazy when you look at when
you look at fish that you lose and you're like
that one would have cost me fifty.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Yeah, but there was one on the James River. Actually
the same year I got fourth on the James River,
and in practice I call it the six pounder. Way
up this creek, almost in no water, and I remember
my frog, I almost like bank shot. I hit the bank,
it bounced in the water. The minute it bounced in,
this fish sucked it in. Six pounder, absolute giant. And
(36:31):
this would have been like Tuesday or Wednesday, and now
I'm on Saturday, I'm on the final day of the term.
I was like, I gotta go back to that spot
by catch that fish. I'm gonna win. I started their
first thing in the morning, went all the way up
this creek, same cast, bounced it off the shore, frog
bounced in the water, exact same style of bite. Everything set,
the hook broke, fifty pound braid. Oh god, six pounder.
(36:53):
First thing in the morning. I lost by three pounds maybe,
which I had like a one pounder, so that that
would have done it. That'd have been the open.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
One buddy of mine is Joseph Webster. He's fishing in
the MLF Invitationals today and last year on the MPFL.
He I think this is their last tournament of the
year he hooked a fish and it came off and
he lost by two ounces, and he goes, that was
(37:23):
an eighty thousand dollars fish. Eighty grand Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
That's what a lot of people don't realize, Like how
tight the game is. That's happening from first to second
or first to fifth place. I mean, it's just the
same as thirtieth to one hundred and tenth place. You know,
that's what that one fish does. You know, you go
out there and you see a guy, Oh man, this
guy finish one hundred and twenty if he sucks, if
he lost a three pounder, he'd have been seventieth place.
(37:48):
You know, like it is so tight anymore. That that's
how everyone you know, that's how the tournaments are now.
It's just I mean, I just unbelievable how tight this
game has gotten.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Look at look at them asters. Rory won four point
two million. The guy who finished fiftieth and made the
cut got forty eight and a half.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Forty eight and a half. So one caddy for Rory
makes four hundred and twenty thousand dollars, he gets ten percent,
and then the guy that finished fiftieth, he pays his
caddy four eight hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
He first four million to two million, four million to.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Two million, and then Scheffler was fourth and he got
one hundred. He got one million, and then from there
everybody drops even down. I mean, that's what people don't realize.
Like everybody thinks, Oh, you're just going out there to
fish a tournament. You're gonna go out and try to win. Yeah,
because the difference of one hundred grand and twenty grand
for second place, there's a lot of room there. And
(38:46):
you start going back and counting the mistakes that you made,
and you sit there and you go, what was I
going to do? Sometimes you don't even make the mistake.
The fish just got the hook wrong, or you know,
with skin hooked and just barely cat. I mean the
one I had at Nealy, I will I will have
that burned in my mind for a long time until
(39:06):
I go back to Neely this weekend and get that
fish again, which I probably won't, but I'll look, I'll try.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Don't go to that dark place, Spencer
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, seriously, yes, place, bad place to be, all right, Garrett,
appreciate you, dude, all right, see you
The pursuit of trying to become a professional fisherman is
maybe one of the hardest things an angler can do
in their lifetime. Whether it's becoming a bass Master Elite
or part of the BPT Tour with Major League Fishing,
the road to get there is filled with a lot
of challenges. It's even harder when you had a taste
(00:20):
of it. You were at the highest level and then
you were kicked off. Garrett Paquette joins us he's currently
going through the bass Master Opens to requalify to get
back up to the bass Master Elites. He's a phenomenal dude,
an incredible fisherman, and he has so much insight into
(00:41):
fishing and what it takes. We're happy to have him
on lines and times. I'm Spencer, this is my buddy, Daniel.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Care. How's your season going so far?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
It's okay. It's been a little up and down. We
fish three tournaments so far and the weather has been
absolutely insane for all of them. If you guys have
been watching the news at all. But we started in Texas.
I had a really good event. I finished second on
Sam Rayburn and then our second event was on Kentucky Lake.
I think I was like forty second, forty third somewhere
(01:11):
in there. Got one of the last checks, which was nice,
and then we just finished up in Arkansas Lake Norfolk,
where I bombed. To put it lightly, I finished one
hundred and forty third there.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
It was just you know, I could sit here and
make a ton of excuses, but generally have a great
practice ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
I mean, look, let's be real. We've all talked about weather,
and I think most of us that have done any
sort of tournament fishing, it is really hard to get
the ideal conditions for three days of practice and then
roll into a four day tournament. So did weather play
a factor or did you just misread the.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Water on both So coming in, you know, we we
have three days of practice to come these lakes and
scout it. In my three days, I did not have
a great practice. I caught a bunch of fish, but
I never felt like I was on you know, tournament
winning size or even top ten size. I kind of knew,
which was fine. The first two tournaments were the exact
same for me, So I know coming into the event, hey,
(02:06):
I'm gonna have to I'm gonna have to make it
happen during the tournament, which a lot of guys are
in the same boat. And I went out there day
one of the tournament, and I guess the night before
we had a bunch of rain and I was fishing
kind of far up these creeks. So I get to
my first area, the water is a lot dirtier than
it was in practice. There's some floating debris, you know,
kind of some stuff like that, which messed with my head.
(02:28):
But surprisingly the fish didn't really change a whole lot.
I actually went their Day one, caught a bunch of fish.
I'd probably call it twenty five keepers, which for me
is a lot in a tournament day. Usually I'm like,
you know, five to ten keepers on average. So I
catch a bunch of fish I had. I had a
little section there where I think I took like five
casts and lost three fish over two pounds, which on
(02:49):
this lake was pretty Uh that's a pretty good size fish.
Like my best five weighed under ten pounds, so those
three two pounders would have went a long way. And yeah,
I finished the day and one hundred and forty fifth
or sixth or third wherever I was there. We had
a bunch more rain during that tournament day in the
in the night, you know, or that night, and the
(03:13):
second to the point where the second day got canceled.
So our second day of tournament fishing got canceled. So
I'm kind of stuck here. And it was going to
be a two day tournament. It rained so hard the
second day and stormed so bad that they canceled the
third day and one day canceled the third day, it's
just a one day tournament. So here I am. I
had one day of fishing, and then I'm stuck with,
(03:35):
you know, that kind of finish. So it is what
it is, you know, That's why you don't That's why
I got to catch them every day. But I was
definitely excited because you know, I'm fairly experienced now, you know.
I mean, I'm only thirty years old, but I've been
traveling for ten years, and I was really looking forward
to getting out there on day two because I knew
how much the water was changing, and not that I'm
ultra familiar with those conditions, but I've you know, I've
(03:57):
seen a lot more than some of these guys, and
I kind of fell that was gonna be a good opportunity,
not to have a good tournament, but you know, maybe
gain forty fifty places and you know, walk out of
there feeling a little better by myself.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
God, I had a tournament like that on Sante Cooper.
They canceled the final day, but I was so pumped
to get out back on the water because I was
smashing them. I was all over them. And then they
were like, we're canceling. And it sucks because it pauses
you exactly where you are in the standings.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah, and you could be thinking, hey, I'm on some fish,
I can really make up some big ground, and then
you don't have that opportunity to go out. How bad
does that mess with you going into the next tournament?
If you have a situation like that where you get
halted in the middle of a good.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Run, you know, honestly, the way fishing is gone, you
just kind of come to expect it. So you got
to kind of go into these tournaments like the next
one are going to is Leech Lake actually where me
and Daniel fish a little bit last year, but it's
a big lake. It's notoriously windy and rough, so I
already know coming into that event, and the same with
these first three events. I know, coming in that weather,
(04:56):
it's going to be a factor. Cancelations are possible, so
there's no hold.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So do you plan to have a one day shootout
every day if you're lucky enough to fish multiple days,
or you just kind of like, I'll just see what
happens and I'll try to play it safe by getting limits.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Ye. Now, you really can't play it safe honestly anymore.
You have to, or at least I don't. I'm fishing
to win these tournaments. I'm not fishing for You're not.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
A points guy. You want to go out there and
win and get the points that you can.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
Yeah, and I like points and I like checks, trust me.
But I just know if I go out there fishing
for thirtieth place, I'm going to finish sixtieth. So I'd
rather go fishing for first place than finish twentyeth.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
You brought up some really interesting when you were talking
about how many fish you catch on a tournament day.
You're not a twenty five to thirty five fish guy.
Is that why you chose to stay with bass instead
of going the MLF route to get to the BPT
Tour or what is it about bass Master that holds you.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
That's a big part of it. Yeah, Like I know,
for the way I fish, my style, it's not conducive
towards success. If I just I grew up fishing where
I'm trying to target the bigger fish. I'm trying to
do things a little differently, and you know, I don't
care about catching forty fish. I want five big ones.
I don't care if it's five eight, you know, ten
bites a day. But generally, when you're going after those
fish and that's your style, you're not going to be
(06:15):
out there catching fifty fish in a day. So as
a part of it, and then I think the biggest
part though, is at least how I feel if you're
going to make a career in fishing the side that's
easiest to do it on his bass, there's just more promotion,
you know, it's easier to get sponsors, more legacy stuff
like that. So I like being over here.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
How is it watching them? Danielle'll let you jump in,
but how is it watching the two? As somebody who
fishes competitively, do you like watching mlfvents on on streaming
or on TV? Or would you rather watch bass where
guys are trying to get big fish.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
None of that actually affect how I view it. I like,
so when I watched tournaments a little different if I
if you had to ask me, you know, if I
wasn't fishing competitively, or maybe when I was younger, it
would be more about catching fish, which is where I
think MLF has a big appeal, Like if you don't
like fishing and use her on MLF, it's like every
time they switch an angler, they catch them and catch them.
(07:10):
Whereas I am out the point where I just want
to learn. I don't even need to see a guy
catch fish, so I want to hear the angler's talking
and you know their process, why they're thinking about moving.
I think BASS does a little better job with that,
not as good as they used to. Honestly, they're starting
to get into a highlight show too. But I think
they let the anglers kind of, like you know, speak
what they're going through, and I think it's a little
(07:31):
easier for me to learn watching the BASS side.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
It is interesting just to see how the two kind
of handle content and getting it out to people.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Go ahead, Danielle, Yeah, Garret, where are you in points
right now? After the three events?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I think I'm in the thirties somewhere and who.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Do you know what they take? I just for the people,
I don't know, We're fine.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, yeah, But I was kind of hoping to go
to Leech this final tournament without having to catch a
fish and just kind of I have some fun, but
there'll be a little extra pressure. But this game is
always pressure. So it is what it is.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
What happened to your time while you were on the Elites, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
It was. It was just a combination of a lot
of things. Like I started when I got on the Elites,
so I fished three years. I started in twenty nineteen,
kind of started off really well, you know, I think
I missed my first check and then maybe I got
five or six in a row or five or six
in the top half of the field, the second place
in their century. But like it was just kind of
rolling and I had a really good year that your
(08:32):
force is like, man, this is just kind of get
in here and have my way and you know, do
this forever. And then I ended that first year really poorly.
The final tournament was on Lake Saint Clair actually, which
is my home lake. I bombed it, tied for the
last classic spot for the next year, lost the tie breaker,
so it was a pretty heartbreaking end of the season.
(08:55):
And then the next year kind of started similarly, like
I started poor and then had three or four I think,
really good ones. And this was during the COVID year,
so it was kind of an odd year, you know,
and we had we had a huge backloaded schedule in
the fall, which I was like, you know, when I
grew up, I couldn't cure less about fall fishing because
all I wanted to do was fishy elites, and uh,
(09:16):
I was like, we'll never fish in the fall. You know,
all my focuses on spring and summertime fishing, and of
course half the season ends up being in the fall
because of COVID pretty much bomb all those events. I
might have made one check at Gunnersville. So that was
kind of a poor year. And then the third year
I had was just a disaster. I mean it was,
you know, a lot of bad decision making on my part.
Just you know, it's hard when you when you get
(09:36):
in a hole in fishing, you overcompensate. So if you
have a bad tournament, you try to do things a
little extra to make it up, and it very rarely
goes well, so it was a lot of overcompensating tons
of missfish like I had never experienced, and then some
unfortunate off the water stuff, had a couple family members die.
It was just like a really tough year. And uh.
(09:56):
And it was also the year that they changed the
field size from one hundred and ninety and I was
kind of caught in there. I was like the second
guy cut. I think where if they would have stayed
at one hundred out of ben in and they felt
for whatever reason they needed to go down to ninety,
And just kind of got caught in that. And that
was that. You know, just as fast as it comes
and goes.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I don't know what's happening with the elites, but I
know in certain cases, a lot of tournaments are going
to start shrinking their fields. We've already seen it with MLF.
MLF went from one number and they dropped it down.
They may continue to make more cuts, but that actually
benefits the organization for the marketing side, which a lot
(10:34):
of people don't think about. You know, it's easier to
market fifty guys than is one hundred and typically if
you find the guys who are in the back of
the pack, are they really sought after? Those the guys
that everybody's looking at. You talked about Lake Saint Clair
and how is your home body of water and you
bombed on it. What kind of pressure do you have
as an angler when you compete on your own homeowner?
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Probably more than you should, you know, I mean, you
start thinking about things that you know, we don't think about, like, hey,
who's going to be at the weigh in and I
want to let this guy down? How cool would it
be if this person was here when I won or
did well? You know, so you just you have a
lot of variables that don't affect the tournament at all,
that shouldn't be in your head. And uh, you know
when every ounce of effort that's not towards trying to
(11:17):
figure out how to catch these fish is an ounce
of effort that somebody's getting up on you. So generally,
you know, you see these guys struggle on their home legs,
and it's you know, that trend starting to break a
little bit, like you're seeing some homeleke guys do well.
But it's not that they're not good fishermen. Obviously, they
don't know the lake. It's just, you know, they're not
going through their normal process of what they would be
doing at any other tournament.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
So it sounds like that's more self imposed than it
is anything else, Like you're only putting that own pressure
on yourself.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, and some of it is. There is a factor
that you know, when you get out there, it's hard
not to be like, man, I frushed him on this spot,
you know last year, I gotta go, And I remember
in October, my buddy, you know, he had twenty five
pounds over here.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
So boy, history and the ass wh.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Yeah, well yeah, sometimes it helps. But generally though, you know,
you see what like just happened last week with Kyle Welter,
right like when those tournaments happened like that. The best tournaments,
and you know, usually the winning tournaments are guys are
just out there. They're fishing the conditions the moment they're
there's no history involved. They're just getting up in the morning,
they're reading what they're seeing and they're reacting to it.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
That was such a wild tournament the Passca Tank River
because it's kind of an unknown body of water for
a lot of guys. We had Dustin Connell on podcasts
not too long ago, and he was talking about the
information rule, which we'll get into a little bit with you,
especially on the open side. But he was talking about
how we know we're going to go to sam Rayburn,
(12:42):
We're gonna go to Gunnersville, We're gonna go to Saint Clair,
We're gonna go to all these big lakes. So if
you get information ten years ago or you get information
ten days ago, the information doesn't really change that much.
You're gonna find areas and go find fish. But when
you start looking at a place like the Pasca Tank River.
I don't know if you guys noticed this, but you
(13:02):
look down there were a lot more non limits caught
in that tournament than I think any tournament BASS has
had in the last couple of years. Yeah, why, like,
what what is it about a new body of water?
Is it because guys maybe weren't getting the information that
they had gotten before, and now all of a sudden
(13:22):
they're having to really figure out how to find fish.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
Yeah, you know, that could be part of it. I think,
you know, I think that river in general, you know,
maybe not the case that I know that. So I've
talked to a lot of guys. I talked to a
lot of guys actually that had kind of poor tournaments
in that tournament, and they were crushed them in practice,
So it sounds like, you know, they had a bunch
of big wins, they had a heavy cold front. Some
(13:47):
of that definitely factors into it. But yeah, you notice,
you know, I think the best example is like the
Saint Lawrence River, So I know the fishery has changed some,
but look at when the Elite Series first went there.
I think twenty thirteen ish maybe or eleven twelve, there's
somewhere in there when Palinok won. So that was a
really new one for most guys except for like the
really the guys that had been Fiching in the eighties
(14:09):
and nineties. That was a new new place. And uh yeah,
you go look at the weights there, and then look
at the weights that now that everyone's been there five, six,
seven times, look at the weights now. You know, back
then twenty pounds is a great bag. Now twenty pounds
is a make top fifty.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
You think that's forward facing.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Yeah, I was about to say that's.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
That's it's probably that, but it's more just that, you know,
the more you come back to these places, the more
you learn there are huge bodies of water. I mean
the Passket Tank what they say it was two million acres,
so uh, it's gonna take you or a lot of
guys a couple, you know, more than two and a
half days that break down that much water.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
So got the locals are pissed too. Have you seen
the message boards about Pasket Tank River?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
They a huge crowd there though. They're like, there are
a ton of people that are like waiting.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Thanks a lot, bass Master for letting everybody know how
good of a secret gym this is. Now everybody's going
to pound this lake for the next couple of years.
And that's true. Like if you see a lake that
outperformed other places and it's not too far ar mean,
why wouldn't you want to throw your boat in the
water and go check it out?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yeah, and I get that's just a greedy way to
look at you know, we have the same problem up here.
Everyone in the spring gets mad because there's the guys
from Ohio, Indiana, Canada, you know, all these states come
up to fish Saint Clair and all the locals get mad.
And I'm like, well, then, you know, go tell the
guy that runs a hotel in the gas station that
you don't want these guys here, right, tell them that
you want to take away from their livelihood. So you know,
these fisheries are awesome and we all love to have
(15:25):
them to ourselves. But it's bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
I mean, dude, I'm sitting here wearing a Masters shirt.
I got to spend a couple of days in Augusta
and went to Sunday when Rory won it. And the
amount of people in Augusta that are like, We're so
thankful that the Masters are here because when the Master's
Tournament comes in, they know that's a solid week of tourism,
maybe even a week and a half for some people.
You got to be happy with that kind of stuff.
(15:49):
And I don't think as fishermen we should be telling
anybody don't come to my city because most of these
lake towns they need the money.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
They need it. Yeah, like Saint Clair Shorts doesn't need it,
but it's still nice. But yeah, you go to Kentucky Lake.
You know a lot of these lakes just I mean
a lot of these lakes are built in rural areas, right,
So yeah, as an angler, trust me, I'd rather go
in the water and have a whole lake to myself
and every spot to myself and never a fish has
never seen a lure. It's a lot of fun, but
it's just I mean, it's bigger than that, you know,
(16:20):
you got to think of it and more than just
your own greed on the water.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
You're trying to get back to the elites, and you
spend a couple of years up there. What have you
learned in the time from being a full fledged pro
as an elite compared to now?
Speaker 3 (16:35):
So I've learned, Uh, you know, sometimes you just gotta
Sometimes you just gotta do the best that you can do.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
There you feel like you were pushing too much when
you were an elite.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah, Like, uh, you know, there's a lot of times
where you come out you practice and you're like, you know,
in your head, there's this way like, hey, there's this
termin is gonna get one doing this. You know, you
go to Toledo and hey, it's gonna get one on
my dog's walk, it's gonna get one on a rail
trap in the grass. And then you go out there
(17:08):
and you try to find that and you get frustrated
when you don't find it. Whereas and that's fine, Like,
you know, very few guys will find the winning pattern.
But instead of going out there in the tournament and
continuously trying to, you know, find this ghost out there
that you can't figure out, sometimes it's better just to
go and just hey, you know what, this is what
I found, this is what I figured out. I'm just
going to go do the best that I can do
(17:29):
with this. You know. Like a really good example we
had last year was a leech lake where we're going.
I knew the tern was gonna get one on small mouth.
I mean that was no secret. I knew they were
way better than the large mouth, and I'm just gonna
figure it out. I caught some and it wasn't great
for me, and I went out in the tournament and
I just couldn't get anything going. And instead of sitting
out there for eight hours and coming in with one
or two fish like many guys did, I just went
(17:51):
caught the large mouth because I could catch them a
lot easier, and I still had a really good event,
you know. So like that's kind of a maturity thing,
whereas two or three years ago, I think that I
just keep pushing the small mouth, pushing the small mouth
until I fail, you know, and just instead of getting
twenty fifth place, you get dead last and you know,
completely ruin your season.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
So it sounds like you're talking about somebody should be
out there fishing their strengths.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Yeah, fish or strengths for sure.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I mean how do you do How hard is that
to do it on a lake that doesn't have small mouth?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Then well, I'm just saying that was an example.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, but I'm asking like, if you go to a
lake that doesn't have small mouth and you're known as
a small mouth guy, how hard of a transition was
that for you to get to largemouth or spots or whatever.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
Yeah, So my situation is a little different. So I
actually started as a large mouth guy because I've always
wanted to fish elites. So when I was young, I
actually broke down every top ten for like the last
ten years on the Elite series. So I had like
a calculation of, you know, this percent of time that
flipping makes a top ten drop shotting. So I kind
of knew going into this when I was young. Yeah,
(18:55):
I uh, my little background is large mouth.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
So not to not to sound like rude or anything
like that, but are you kind of a nerd when
it comes to fishing? Then I would say, yeah, like
you get like you dial into every little nuance and
try to figure it out.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah for sure. Yeah, I mean you got to kind
of like, you know, take it the next step. And
obviously life scope and the way fishing has changed is
kind of blown a lot of that apart. But you know,
I could tell you, you know, in twenty ten or
in that, in that group, but there was you know,
you could almost make a top ten on doing anything,
but if it was a slight fishing or alleged tournament,
ninety five percent of the top tens either came slight
(19:34):
fishing or ledge fishing. So like there was certain little
categories that you had to be good at to survive.
So I focus on that hard coming up. So for me,
I in Michigan, you think a big small mouth and
all this, but ninety five percent of the water around
here is actually large mouth fishing a lot of inland lakes,
little rivers, reservoirs. So I have a really good base
in large mouth, you know, probably more than small moth.
(19:56):
I feel like I'm catching up with a small mouth.
But yeah, you gotta I mean you're gonn to do this, like, yeah,
you gotta fish your strengths. You gotta fish, you know,
you got to fish away that you feel like, you
know you can win at or you feel comfortable doing.
But that doesn't mean only be good at one thing.
I mean, you've got to be incredibly versatile to be
out here. But when you get on the water, like
it's it's hard to explain. There's little things that just click.
You know, you put your boat and you're like, man,
(20:18):
this looks like something I can do well. Chatterbating, you know,
And if you get those feelings and you feel comfortable
with it, you know, go try to do it, and
you know, try to push it a little harder. And
if you could figure that stuff out, that's how you
have or that's how you have those good finishes.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Are you a Frankensteiner somebody who takes baits but then
messes with them to change them up a little bit?
Speaker 3 (20:39):
Not really, No, I used to be, but I've learned
location is king the you know the baits are they
make very minimal difference at the end of the game.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
That's interesting, hm, Daniel, Like you, who are you? You're
traveling with Chris right now? Tell us a little bit
about that. Who's doing all the cooking and the uh
on the road. I know you're getting a little bit
into cooking. Last time we spoke.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah, no, we have a.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Pretty good system. I've traveled. This will be my second
full year traveling with Chris Hallibuck, maybe even like two
and a half years, and we got a pretty good
little team. But yeah, I do all the cooking. I'm
a big fan of that. Just uh, it's just so
much easier for us on the road. You feel better,
you know, eating eating good things, and you save a
bunch of time, bunch of money. But I do all
the cooking. He does all the cleaning, so I'll take it.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
What grade do you give Chris Hallibuck?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
And his cleaning actually pretty good. I'd probably get him
like a seven or eighties, like super organized, much more
than me. So he likes it a little cleaner than
I even would deal with.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Would you say he's would you say he's like type
a OCD type where he's got things very specific how
he wants it, or I.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Think so, Like I've seen him full laundry and it's
pretty intense. He's got all his shirts like rolled up
in little rolls and stuff.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
How do you do your clothes? Then you just throw
it in a bang.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I just kind of get them in a square and
stuff them in there.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
It is so funny. When you start traveling with people,
you start to really notice how different their tendencies are.
Like the guys that I traveled the Toyota series with
when we went down South, one of them finally got
on a c PAP because he saw how much it
helped me. But that dude's sort of like a freight train.
And most nights we would wake up because somebody in
(22:28):
the room would be chucking a shoe over at them
to hit him, to try to get them to stop snoring. Yeah,
I'm not running with this SNAr No, Like it's terrible.
That's why you want to do that, all right. So
this year on the Opens, you're feeling really good. What
tournament do you feel like you have to put your
foot on the gas and really pick up a couple spots.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Well, once we get to the EQS, it'll be all in,
the guess. So the biggest deal with these first four
tournaments is you got to make the top fifty and
then then the top fIF get into the three tournament
series called the EQS, and we'll qualify from the Elite
Series out of there, the top.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
Ten out of that, you like this set up.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
I don't love the setup now. I'd rather have the
nine tournaments like before. I'd rather have, you know, the
more chances. I feel like, sure, I feel like you
look at the last three rookie classes. I think that
speaks for itself on what the nine tournaments brings into
the Elite Series. I think before that, when you had
three tournament series is a lot of guys got in
that were good, and a lot of guys got in
that you know, maybe got lucky and one had one
(23:28):
on their home like and you know survived one. So
I like the more tournaments. But now that first one
on Champlain will be, uh, it'll be really critical. It'll
be our biggest feel most likely. So the bigger the field,
the higher you gotta get. So if there's one hundred
and forty guys on Champlain and you get tenth place,
it goes along a lot longer or a lot further
(23:50):
than if you get tenth place on Okachobe when we
might be down to seventy eighty guys.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
You feel like your personality changes when or will change
when you know that you're in the eqs compared to
right now, which kind of gets you just geared up
for it. Now you're just as.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Intense I change. Yeah, I don't care if it's a
Tuesday night tournament or a Bass Open or the Classic.
I have the same approach towards it.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Daniel, you fished in the back of Garrett's boat. What
type of competitor is he? In your mind?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Like?
Speaker 1 (24:25):
How is he at the front of the boat?
Speaker 2 (24:27):
So, I actually Garrett is probably one of the most
dialed fishermen I've ever met.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
What do you mean dialed for?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
And Garrett, to be honest, you probably are one of
the most. You pay attention to every little detail and
you just seem to know what's always going on, which
is really impressive. And I kind of want to know
who got you into this fishing mindset. Does anybody else
in your family fish? We never really talked about that.
Did you just learn this all by yourself? Did you
just tell us a little bit more about that?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:56):
So I grew up. My dad is really big and
it's salmon lake trout trolling on Lake here on like
he would be, you know, I mean, arguably like one
of the best ever on the Great lakes. So he's
won a lot of tournaments. So I've I've always and
I've grew and I grew up doing that, and just
as a young kid, I was too too high strung
(25:16):
to sit there and trol. So we would go out
trolling and then we'd come in and as like I
just wanted to catch fish. I go bluegill fish and
bass fishing whatever I could catch. And once I started
catching bass, I was like, man, this is uh, this
is what I want to do, you know, the way
they hit the lures and jump and all that. But
so I've always been exposed to fishing. We come from
a super competitive family. I've had a lot of support
(25:39):
from my parents and kind of grew up playing fairly
high level hockey, so we've always had you know, I've
just always kind of mixed uh, you know, competitiveness with
a passion I have towards bass fishing. I think that's,
you know, kind of worked for me.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Where's the competitive nature is that? You being a younger brother,
older brother, no siblings, no.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
No siblings, Just so who would you compete against?
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Would you compete against your father?
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Anybody? I mean, I don't care if it's chest, I mean,
I don't care if it's a phone game, Like I
just like, uh, I just like winning.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
You know, does that come from your dad then? Like
if you're an only child, I have a brother, Yeah,
my brother and I we have sibling rivalries left and right.
Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, and I would say that's uh my mom is
really competitive too, but yeah, probably my dad.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
How is your how's your mom competitive?
Speaker 3 (26:30):
She's just like genius so so she I like that,
just like a trivia nerd.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
So like when you were little, you guys would play
board games. What was the most intense your mom ever
got during a game?
Speaker 3 (26:44):
You would never know it. You would never know. She's
like super calm, very shy, quiet, so but she'd always win,
you know, like you just he just has like a
very sneaky intelligence. But uh now, the biggest thing was
probably hockey. I mean we grew up playing hockey, playing
a lot of big games and you know, wanting to win.
And I think coming into fishing it makes it worse
because you know, I grew up playing sixty five seventy
(27:07):
games a year when I'd lose five of them. You
play for state championships stuff like that all the time,
and then you come into fishing, and you know, the
best ever wins eight percent of the tournament. So you
come in here and you know it's hard to win
these tournaments. It's just like it's so frustrating. You just
want to do anything you can to try to get one.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
People rarely talk about that. They rarely talk about how
you're considered an elite, you're considered one of the best
of all time.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Winning percent.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
But that's the point, Like, you know, I saw stats
the other day. Tiger Woods has won eighty two PGA
Tour events. It's one of the most, maybe the most.
KVD is known as the greatest, and you look at
his wins and you're like, dang, out of that many tournaments,
that many years too. Yeah, So does that mess with
you a little bit? Like we all know guys that
(27:57):
go out there and they're like, they don't win, They're
to sell the boat, sell their rods, sell their gear,
and then the next Saturday they're back out on the
water trying to win.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Yeah, mess with me a lot, And not as bad
as it used to, because I've kind of learned like, hey,
this is the reality. Like, you know, a lot of
good guys won't even win, right They won't even win
a national tournament a lot of good anglers, so it's
changed some. But yeah, it's uh, when you're so used
to winning it a lot of things and then you
come here, it's a it's very frustrating.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So this is actually how Garrett and I met. So
I drew Garrett. Uh was it day one or it
was day one, right, Garrett? Yeah? Day one? I drew great.
Day one. We went out and I had like, well,
it must have been like a five and a half
small mouth like jump off right next to the boat,
and it was just I mean, it would have been
a peb.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
It was a legit PB, especially for auth I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
During a tournament too.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
And then uh, and it was not an easy day
for you.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
No, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
It wasn't. I think I only had and yeah, and
then and then Garrett brought me to another spot because
he had already had his five. This is how nice
and stand up of a guy, Garrett is I only
had one. No, I had two fish, and I had
lost that five and a half pounder, and he was like, oh, dude,
well we'll stop at this one spot so you can
make this one cast on this one area and he
(29:15):
was like, all right, he lined me up with the
spot and everything like that, and instead of him making
the cast during a tournament, there could have been a
six pounder there. You know what I mean, He's like,
toss over there. I freaking launched my freaking tube over there,
hooked up, and it freaking pulled off right next to
the boat. But still, dude, like, how nice of a
guy freaking let me throw onto a spot, take his
(29:35):
time out of his day and run all the way
over there for me to catch for garrel?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Why did you decide to give him that opportunity?
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Well, one, it was on the way to another spot.
But no, he was a good dude. And uh, you know,
I know you had two fish, and you know I
had a spot where I was pretty confident, you know,
hooked one pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
That's when you backboted him. When he got over there,
you were like, all right, well I gave you a shot,
you screwed it up.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
So that was what I But no, I wanted to one.
I'm not the guy that's out there like screw the
co anglers. I don't want him to catch my fish.
Like I'm not saying I'll hurt my tournament. Time, but
I love when everyone's catching fish. So and he was
having a He wasn't having a bad day. He was
(30:21):
just having like an unfortunate day. So I was like, man,
I know, and I knew he was fishing all of them,
and I knew he had goals of you know, trying
to win the Ang of the Year and get into
the top ten and all that. So I was like, man,
this third fish would go a long ways, and I
knew that where I was going after that, that it
was going to be really hard for him to catch one.
So I was like, you know what, ten minutes on
the spot, I'm gonna have two and a half hours
(30:42):
to fish after this, you know, not a big deal.
So try to get him that one. And it didn't
work out. But that's how fishing is sometimes.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
In a couple of the Toyota series that I've had,
like I think as a co angler, it's always fun
when you can beat the boater, like the guys just
take pride in that. There were a lot lot of
guys that I fished with where I don't know anything
about them right, Like I could look up their stats,
but I'm still like, I don't know who this guy
is and I fished with this one guy in Santee
Cooper and he didn't have a fish all day, and
(31:11):
I had two solid fish, and I think both of
them were three and a half four pounds. And for
the last hour and a half of the tournament, he goes,
let's just go and try to catch you one more
because if you get that third fish, you're going to
be in a good spot with a check. And I'm
pretty much dead in the water. And it was a
two day deal. That's rare. So he took me to
(31:31):
this spot where he said he was whacking them, and
I threw this little speedworm out there and all of
a sudden, I hook up and I got another three pounder.
We get that in the boat. I'm sitting pretty The
next day, I was supposed to fish with a guy
that was a guide. He was second in the tournament.
He talked to me on the phone. He's like, I'll
tell you exactly what I'm doing, exactly where I'm going,
(31:54):
and we are going to straight whack them. They called
the tournament for weather. I never got to fish. And
then the next day, what happened with the weather. It
was beautiful, There wasn't a cloud in the sky. There
was no wind.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I was so pissed. I called the guy to go,
I know we're not fishing in the tournament. Do you
want to go fish today? He's like, I'm or I
am a way back home. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
When Garrett saw that five and a half realistically, because
he didn't even really know me, He's.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Like, dude, you just stole my fish.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
No, I remember I called that. We ran out to
that area and I was like, man, I don't know
if we're gonna catch anything here, but uh, if we do,
it's gonna it's gonna be good. And I think we
had uh five five pound bites there. I had two,
I lost two. He had one, probably the biggest one.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And uh, how do you know that though? As somebody
who looks for fish, how do you know that that
area is gonna produce fish of that quality?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (32:48):
I went out there. Uh well, I found that area
in practice. This is I'm saying Claire my home, like,
never never fish there, never even fish closest area. And
I went out there in practice and I think I
uh I caught three or four, but it was like
I pulled up I caught a four twelve before fourteen,
a five to four in like a three and a half,
and I knew it was a pretty special area. It
(33:10):
actually the spot completely fizzled out during the tournament, but
it was when you see that kind of quality out there,
you just know that they're all big ones for the
most part. So I knew. I knew it was a
winning area. Just never held up.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
But are you the type of guy that sets the
hook but the day before the tournament, like you don't.
You'll you'll bust the barbs off and you're just trying
to lift them just to see what kind of weight
you got.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
It depends like out there, with there being so many fish,
I like to catch a few and then if I
want to go through and see how good it really is,
like I'll, you know, throw a bait without a hook
and stuff like that. But I'd say I'm probably more
on the less conservative side of hooking fish, Like I
I stick a few fish, for sure. I don't think that.
(33:53):
I think anglers we think we're better than we are
and we think, oh man, if I go catch this
one fish, it's I'm done. I'll ever catch other one here.
But there's usually a lot more there than you think Now,
if you're going to go fish like under docks and laydowns,
that's definitely you know, as the term gets closer, I'm
probably shaking off those fish.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
But have you gone back to that spot caret.
Speaker 3 (34:14):
You have to. I went there yes day two, never
saw fish.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
No, I mean, have you gone back to that spot
since the tournament since when we.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Fished thirty No?
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I haven't. No, I haven't. In the middle of I can.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Tell you, Garrett that if if your buddy Daniel goes
out to Gunnersville, you could ask me that size water.
If they said, where's Daniel right now, I go, I
know exactly where, and I will point right to a map,
because he and I went to this spot where we
straight whacked him. Yeah, whacked them. Yeah, it was fun
like that was the day where we pulled up just
(34:46):
on a hunch and we started casting and all of
a sudden we found this one little pot of hydrilla
and it was it was holding absolute tanks. And then
I had a tournament the next weekend with the ABT
and I said to him, I go, I have got
to go back to that spot. And our second cast
we caught a six point sixty six and once we
(35:08):
did that. I looked at my buddy and I was like,
we're not leaving, and he's like, well, I don't know,
and I said, we are not leaving. I know what
lives here. And we ended up getting I think eighteen
pounds off of that spot. Yeah, it was. It was insane.
Since we've talked about a fish that obviously Daniel remembers
and you remember is a big one. What's the one
(35:29):
fish that got away that haunts you?
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Ooh, there's a lot of those.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
My most recent one is that six pounder on Neally.
That's that's the one that hurts me the most.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, you would, you would almost won.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Probably, Uh, I don't know, so I can't. I'll do two.
I got sucking in a Toyota series on Lake of
the Ozar because I came in with four fish one
day and I lost it three and a half, which
would have filled my limits. I'd have won that term
that's up there, but I did lose it.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
So that was That was an eighty thousand dollars fish whatever.
Forty fifty isn't that crazy when you look at when
you look at fish that you lose and you're like
that one would have cost me fifty.
Speaker 3 (36:09):
Yeah, but there was one on the James River. Actually
the same year I got fourth on the James River,
and in practice I call it the six pounder. Way
up this creek, almost in no water, and I remember
my frog, I almost like bank shot. I hit the bank,
it bounced in the water. The minute it bounced in,
this fish sucked it in. Six pounder, absolute giant. And
(36:31):
this would have been like Tuesday or Wednesday, and now
I'm on Saturday, I'm on the final day of the term.
I was like, I gotta go back to that spot
by catch that fish. I'm gonna win. I started their
first thing in the morning, went all the way up
this creek, same cast, bounced it off the shore, frog
bounced in the water, exact same style of bite. Everything set,
the hook broke, fifty pound braid. Oh god, six pounder.
(36:53):
First thing in the morning. I lost by three pounds maybe,
which I had like a one pounder, so that that
would have done it. That'd have been the open.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
One buddy of mine is Joseph Webster. He's fishing in
the MLF Invitationals today and last year on the MPFL.
He I think this is their last tournament of the
year he hooked a fish and it came off and
he lost by two ounces, and he goes, that was
(37:23):
an eighty thousand dollars fish. Eighty grand Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (37:28):
That's what a lot of people don't realize, Like how
tight the game is. That's happening from first to second
or first to fifth place. I mean, it's just the
same as thirtieth to one hundred and tenth place. You know,
that's what that one fish does. You know, you go
out there and you see a guy, Oh man, this
guy finish one hundred and twenty if he sucks, if
he lost a three pounder, he'd have been seventieth place.
(37:48):
You know, like it is so tight anymore. That that's
how everyone you know, that's how the tournaments are now.
It's just I mean, I just unbelievable how tight this
game has gotten.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Look at look at them asters. Rory won four point
two million. The guy who finished fiftieth and made the
cut got forty eight and a half.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Forty eight and a half. So one caddy for Rory
makes four hundred and twenty thousand dollars, he gets ten percent,
and then the guy that finished fiftieth, he pays his
caddy four eight hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
He first four million to two million, four million to.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Two million, and then Scheffler was fourth and he got
one hundred. He got one million, and then from there
everybody drops even down. I mean, that's what people don't realize.
Like everybody thinks, Oh, you're just going out there to
fish a tournament. You're gonna go out and try to win. Yeah,
because the difference of one hundred grand and twenty grand
for second place, there's a lot of room there. And
(38:46):
you start going back and counting the mistakes that you made,
and you sit there and you go, what was I
going to do? Sometimes you don't even make the mistake.
The fish just got the hook wrong, or you know,
with skin hooked and just barely cat. I mean the
one I had at Nealy, I will I will have
that burned in my mind for a long time until
(39:06):
I go back to Neely this weekend and get that
fish again, which I probably won't, but I'll look, I'll try.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Don't go to that dark place, Spencer
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, seriously, yes, place, bad place to be, all right, Garrett,
appreciate you, dude, all right, see you
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