Brandon Palaniuk, Bill Lowen and Jake's Take on MERCER-202

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Buckle up friends because we gota mega show for you here.
This week we kick things off with 13 time Bass Master Classic
Qualifier, two time Progressive Bass Master Angler of the Year,
and the most recent Bass Master Elite Series Champion, The
Prodigy Brandon Polinic. But that's not all.
We are joined by 11 time Bass Master Classic Qualifier, two
time Elite Series Champion, and the very first Elite Series

(00:22):
Champion of $2025.00, Bill Lowen.
But the hits keep coming. We actually have more than that
to the very first Jake Sake of 2025 and we are joined by Jake
Latondras, Bassmaster Videographer, and we break down
the 1st 2 events. All of them join me this week.

(00:52):
I'm Bob Cobb for the Bassmaster.Welcome to Mercer.
Welcome one. Welcome all friends, family,
freeloaders, fishing freaks, andof course you my humpers.
Happy hump day to all of you andwelcome into the awkwardly
honest fishing podcast that goesby my last name, which is
Mercer. This is the 202nd edition of the

(01:12):
Mercer podcast and I hope wherever you're watching or
listening to this from that lifeis treating you well.
We have a lot to celebrate here this week and this is a mega
show. You can tell the season is back.
I just got home from Florida to incredible events, St.
John's River and then Okeechobee, FL.
Well, guess what? We have both champions join us

(01:33):
this week. Brandon Polnik from his historic
victory, Dollar Bill Lowen, the first victory of 2025 and his
second Elite Series victory. And then we're going to be
joined by Jake Latondres with the first Jake's take of 2025.
So that's right, mega shows are back in your life.
This is a long one. Break it into bits however you
want to absorb it. It is full of a lot of goodness

(01:54):
because guess what? A lot of goodness happened these
last few weeks. And I want to touch on that
specifically because we saw someincredible things.
I mean, Bill Lowen's old school victory with a jig exactly how
you would expect Bill Lowen to win.
And then the final day where it was so tight and so close and

(02:14):
you're different guys who you know, was separated by Oz Bill
Lowen wins. That's all goodness.
Brandon Polnik and three other dudes who I coined the Get Along
gang fished 1 area for four daysof Okeechobee.
Weighed in historically large bags.
Brendan actually shared lures with them.
They all got along. There was no fighting.

(02:35):
Lot of goodness. But here's the crazy thing.
The fishing world and the world in general is so obsessed with
controversy and just headlines that nobody's talking about that
goodness. They were talking about DQS,
Couple of DQS obviously Matt Heron disqualified from the

(02:57):
Saint Johns River and Scott Martin disqualified from Lake
Okeechobee. And before I get into this, I
got to say 2 dudes that I both love, 2 dudes that I love having
on the Elite series, 2 dudes that I love having on this
podcast. I mean, Matt Heron was on just a
few weeks ago. Scott, Matt Martin was one of
the first guests that I had on when this podcast launched.
I always look forward to conversations with them.
This is nothing against them, but it is crazy to me how there

(03:23):
is so much goodness happening and everybody is focused on a
little bit of darkness, which is2 DQ's and they're blaming the
rule rather than the rule violation.
Let me tell you about the rule. The no information rule that so
many people on the Internet wantto point fingers at.
That is the same rule that's been around for over a decade.

(03:44):
That rule was sculpted with bassand angler input because the
anglers do not want information affecting the outcome of the
game. And that can happen.
And nobody knows what was going on in either situation except
for them. But the plain truth of it is

(04:04):
Matt Heron's situation. He failed 4 polygraphs he opened
up after the 4th 1 and talked about two different
conversations he had with two different individuals and then
he passed the 5th polygraph after he opened himself up.
That is breaking the rule. But it was intentional or not.
That is breaking the rule. Scott Martin.

(04:25):
Which has been a bigger pushbackbecause people think it was just
as simple as a quick conversation with a local on the
way past. There was more to it.
If you don't believe that, why did Scott Martin self report
himself? Because he knew he broke the
rule. I mean, he mentioned on the
halftime show, he said I should have cut that conversation off

(04:47):
sooner and it wouldn't be in this situation.
But he didn't. So he's paying for it.
Bass is paying for it. Because if you think for a
second that Bass didn't want Scott Martin competing in that
event, you're out of your mind. Just think about it.
I mean, he's a generational talent.

(05:09):
His dad made that lake famous. His he's incredibly marketable,
has an insane amount of fans around him, has great hair, nice
teeth, is good on camera. He's everything that you want in
that tournament. But he broke a rule and it's not
the rules fault. Other anglers have competed for

(05:33):
years with that rule and it hasn't been a problem.
So don't point fingers at the rules.
Say Bass, what are you doing? You're you're making this
ridiculous. So a guy can't talk?
No, he can't. But the the rules there for a
reason. And the rule is to protect the
anglers. And in this situation it hurt 2

(05:54):
great people. And nobody will ever know
whether any of it was intentional or not.
Only they will know, but stop blaming the rule, because the
rule is not the problem. I wish them both nothing but
great success. Unfortunately, Matt Herron has
decided to step away from the Bassmaster Elite series.

(06:16):
I've asked Matt, I've talked to Matt since it all went down.
I've asked Matt to come on this podcast.
I hope he does one day. I'd love to hear his side of the
story. Scott Martin, I hate that you
had to sit out. I mean, I could not imagine how
painful that was to sit out on alake that you know so well.

(06:37):
But rather than all of us focus on that.
There is so much good to be focused on.
So much greatness happened theselast few weeks.
And that my friends is what I choose to focus on.
Not the click get negativity that is so rampant in
everything. It's not just fishing.
I mean, fishing is what's near and dear to my heart.

(06:59):
But I mean it's everything. Every storm has a name.
Everything is 100 year worst it's ever been.
Like that's that's the world that is news today.
But let's just focus on a littlegoodness.
And I mean, I'd love to hear your opinion in the comments and
I'm sure I will, but that's the truth.
That is the truth. What happened in both
situations, There's more to it. Bass is not just out there

(07:23):
trying to get rid of people. Trust me, especially those
people. It's just insane to even think
that. So let's focus on the goodness.
But before we get into that goodness, let me tell you about
a little goodness that I was involved with.
I did it, I did it. I talked about it in last week's
show. I was a little nervous, but I

(07:44):
swam with sharks. I mean, I am so scared of
sharks. I always have been scared of
sharks for whatever reason. I'm just like, yeah, I don't
trust them. I but for whatever reason in
Canada decided like I, it's a good idea for me to go to
Florida and I'm going to swim with sharks.
But as that got closer, I did get a little bit more nervous.
And then as the first day got cancelled because of weather, I

(08:07):
was like, well, maybe this is the powers that be telling me
just just go back to the event. You just you don't need to be
swimming with apex predators. You just need to just go yell
stuff while people hold up big bass.
But I stayed and I did it and something that I was so scared
of it. There is something inherently

(08:27):
good of facing your fears. And I faced them.
I looked at a freaking bull shark a foot and a half, two
feet away just just staring at me.
And it was freaking exhilarating, I'll be honest.
Like there was all different levels of emotion involved, but
it was exhilarating. It was now something that

(08:48):
started as one of my biggest fears, just maybe one of my
biggest obsessions. Now, I will definitely do it
again. But yeah, that, that's good.
And you know what else is good? The fact that we have both
champions on this show, the factthat we have Jake's take back in
your life. So we're going to fire through

(09:08):
this. As I said, it's going to be a
long one. Chop it up into bits, enjoy it.
I mean, it's it's all it's all goodness.
So we're going to kick things off with Brandon Polonic out of
his historic victory. Then we're going to back it up
with Dollar Bill low and with his second Elite Series victory.
And then we're going to finish it all off real nice with Jake

(09:30):
Latondras with the very first Jake's take of 2025.
I have talked enough. Let's jump into the meat of this
show and kick it off with the prodigy himself.
Brandon Polk, Brandon Polnick, another one of them freaking
blue trophies. How's that?
Feels pretty Dang good. Yeah, this one was very

(09:56):
unexpected, which I think is part of the reason it was so
cool. Truly unexpected or like, I
mean, you told me in the weekendthat you would have been happy
with the 50th place finish. So like when along this process
were you like, wait a second, maybe 50 isn't the number I'm
shooting at? I think after day 2 is when.

(10:21):
It's £58. Yeah, yeah, 'cause even, you
know, like my practice was terrible.
We talked about that. I I don't know that I caught a
limit any day in practice. And when I found that spot, I
made two casts on it. I caught A2 pounder and a six

(10:41):
pounder. And I had also caught, I think
one or two more on the RIP rap right there.
So in my mind, I knew there was a population of fish in that
area. You know, like there were some
off the bank, there were some onthe bank.
It gave me options of different things to do.
But I had no clue how special that spot was actually going to

(11:05):
be. And I think after day one, it
showed itself a little bit because none of us knew how we
were going to stack up against the rest of the field.
You know, we had a pretty good idea that De Palma was going to
be top three, most likely. We knew Will was going to be up

(11:27):
there, probably in the top 10 somewhere.
And I thought, you know, I mightbe hovering around maybe the top
ten should be at least top 20. We just didn't know what the
rest of the lake was like. We knew we all had a terrible
practice because we all talked about it on day one, but we had
no idea that we were going to befirst, second, third and 10th.

(11:49):
Yeah. And that, I think, opened up a
lot of our eyes of House One, how special that spot was.
But also the rest of the lake was as tough as we thought it
was. And and for once, all the elite
guys weren't just sandbagging about how tough Okeechobee was
fishing. They were actually honest.

(12:11):
Yeah, we're actually honest for once.
And, and then, you know, but even at that point, I was
looking at it going, OK, Greg's in the cut, Will's in the cut.
I catch one more 4 pounder, I'm easily in the cut.
Doobie catches a couple, he's inthe cut.

(12:33):
Like, so we can all make the top50 off of this.
And after my practice, the top 50 was a win.
And I felt like anything past that was going to be a bonus.
And so my first fish came fairlyearly on day 2 and it was like a
four and a half pounder. And that calmed my nerves
because I had low expectations, right?

(12:54):
I wasn't looking at it at that point going, OK, I need to catch
34 lbs to have a shot to win. That just materialized
throughout the day. And I mean really in a span of
an hour. And that was when I thought, and
I knew what everyone else had to.
So that kind of helped. And when I say everyone else, I

(13:17):
mean like, I knew what Will Tim and Greg had, you know?
And so I knew that since those guys were right there with me
for 2nd, 3rd and 10th, I knew that I had a big jump on them
that day. And it just depended on what
everyone else did. And that was kind of when the

(13:38):
wheel started turning. Like, OK, let's take this day by
day. Pretty sure we're going to make
a top ten at least at this point, even after two days.
So let's see what we can actually turn this into.
And day three really for me justbecame making the most of of

(14:00):
that day. I like tried to gain as much
ground and give myself the best shot on day four as I could.
Do not always fish that way I feel like.
I mean I've never asked this butyour whole not paying attention
to the points and stuff like is that is it not day by day
always? It it is, but that one just felt

(14:27):
like it had a different mindset to it a little bit where I felt,
I don't know, I, I think I told you that, you know, it was like
kind of high hopes, low expectations, like I was, I
continued to hope for another big bite and things, but
generally there's not that much unknown for me.

(14:50):
You know, when I'm fishing a tournament, I feel like I have a
good grasp on like what my potential is of what I can
catch, you know, and like what abig fish is going to be.
I had no clue on that spot. I didn't know if they were going
to show up the next day. I didn't know if when I set the
hook it was going to be 2 lbs. Odds were it was going to be

(15:13):
over 4, but was it going to be 10/11/12?
But you didn't know on that spot.
And that's that unknown. Kind of like, I don't know.
It almost eased the pressure because you didn't know you've.
I didn't feel like I had any control over that part of it.
I just had control of the fact that I'm going to put my boat

(15:35):
here in this area and I'm going to do circles in this little 100
yard stretch and I, I may have 23 lbs.
I may have 34 lbs. I don't know.
On Day 2, De Palma left and and did something awesome, went out
in the lake and got basically 20lbs.

(15:57):
What? Did you ever contemplate leaving
or did you know that? Not not really.
And it part of that was because on day one I saw that morning
bite that midday lol. And then that afternoon bite

(16:19):
start to happen. And, and so day two, I was, I
knew I was inside the top 50. So it was kind of a like, let's
just wait and see what happens. And as those guys left, we'll
just put less pressure on that spot for the afternoon.
And I feel like that's why part of the reason why a lot of those

(16:41):
big ones, you know, started to show up.
There was just less boat presence on there for them to
get there. Plus the wind direction had
changed. So I was able to change my angle
and not have to worry about casting over someone else's line
or anything like that. And I don't think Greg got

(17:02):
enough credit for what he did onthat day.
You ruined it on him. I mean the credit was coming and
then you went. Here's £34.10.
Oz Because for him to go do that, like just say hey, I'm
going to bail on what I caught almost 30 on the day before he
caught A5 pounder there in the morning.

(17:23):
And then just say, hey, I'm justgoing to go make the most of
this and to go put almost 20 lbson the scales.
Like we were all mind blowing, really.
Those of us that. Stayed there 'cause I didn't
feel like I had anything even close that I felt like I could
go do that, you know? And like the next closest place

(17:44):
I felt like I could get a bite was 30 miles away.
So for me to run 30 miles there and 30 miles back just didn't
seem like it was worth the time.Yeah, when you put that £34.10
oz, like was that a situation where you started to feel a wow,
this could be a special day, or was it just like, holy crap,

(18:08):
this has been a special day? Like it had it already happened
by that point when you actually started to absorb what was
happening. Yeah, as as each fish catch
happened, it became more real and unreal at the same time.
I. Was like I had. 3 fish forever

(18:30):
and it was like a four and a half pounder that I caught in
the morning of 1/20 and like 2 1/2 pounder and then I caught a
3 1/2 pounder on a crankbait on that prototype.
And then my fifth one was the 1st 9 pounder.

(18:51):
So I got all net +9 1/4 lbs of it and that put me at 21.
So I was like that fish alone was unreal, right?
Because it was like OK, now I just backed up a 23 1/2 with
another 21 LB bag. I'm going to be in good shape,
you know, I may not be leading. I'm going to be in good shape.

(19:15):
And then my next bite was another 9 pounder and I almost
got all 9 lbs of that 'cause it called out at 1:20, you know, so
I got essentially 8 lbs of that and I had 29 lbs.
I'm like OK, now we like I'm Greg hasn't came back so maybe

(19:36):
he found something magical, but we just had an unreal day.
I just got back-to-back 9 pounders and then 15 minutes
later I catch another one that'salmost 8 and calls out a 2 1/2
pounder and I'm like OK, now I have 34 lbs and the boys are
like you're in timeout, you're done.

(19:59):
And that's when you started handing out lures like candy.
Yeah, yeah. And they're like, what are you
catching it on? So yeah, I started handing them
out and like Tim ended up being able to make the cut off of
that. And yeah, it was, it was crazy.
It was, it was way harder to stop casting than it was to hand

(20:21):
the Bates out. Like handing the Bates out.
I was like, whatever, like you guys have at it.
But the fact that I still had a 3 1/2 and a four and a half
pounder and I felt like, I don'tknow, you just get in that zone
where I felt like I could catch 6 pounders at will after
catching a nine A9 and almost an8.

(20:41):
I'm not going to lie. I looked at it like this might
be the best chance I ever have at breaking Rojas's record.
100%. Right now, like I looked at I'm
like like I got to be a man of my word and I'll be done.
But it is really hard not to keep fishing right now because
if I catch another six pounder, which seemed like they were a

(21:02):
dime a dozen that day, I'm like,that's almost another 3 LB
upgrade. Now I'm at 37 and I catch
another six pounder. Now I'm like 39, like I'm
getting close to 40. It was, yeah.
It was hard. It felt like watching it go
down, it felt like it could, youknow what I mean?

(21:24):
Like, I mean, it just was one ofthose days where that too
started and it it did feel, you know what I mean?
Like you just felt like, wow, that like, where is the limit?
So you said you would be good toyour word.
Did you tell those guys like I'mgoing to lay off, let me get a
quick 30-4 and then I'll layoff?Not, not really.

(21:45):
I mean, the whole situation withthose guys just materialized as
the event happened. And day one, I mean, we never
really said, hey, this is what we're going to do.
You know, we kind of all just joke that when we get, you know,

(22:05):
around that 2022 plus mark, we're going to be done and we
because we don't want to beat onthis and we can all have a
really good event. Like we had talked about that
like, hey, there's four of us. At that time.
We all, we didn't have a limit, but we all had a six pounder in
our boat and, and I think Will was the first one to get rid of

(22:28):
like, you know, his, the thing was kind of you get rid of your
last two pounder and then you'redone.
And so if you don't have any more 2 pounders in your boat,
you're done. And he ended on, you know, 27
that first day Greg got rid of his last two pounder with like
A7 or something and had 30 and then and I got rid of my last

(22:53):
two pounder and had 23 somethingright.
And so then it was just Tim thatfirst day.
And so day 2, it kind of just followed suit with the same
thing, right? And it just happened to be that
mine was a 99 and A7 and my last2 1/2 pounder out-of-the-box was
with A7 and three quarter pounder.

(23:15):
You know, now I would have done the same thing if I would have
got rid of that 2 1/2 pounder with A4 pounder, you know, and
been around 30. Like I would have done the same
thing just because I felt like that's that was what we
established and I had to stick to that.
Yeah. Did you think through the whole

(23:36):
given baits to competitors like was that something like I should
help them out or was it just like pretty organic where they
were like what are you doing? Yeah, I mean, they, they asked
and I told them and, and it kindof goes back to the same thing
of, you know, when we were stopping at our weights day one,

(23:56):
we were all talking about what we're catching them on, you
know, I know we, we got on the joking about like Will was
throwing his shaky head. So then it kind of became an
inside joke, 'cause, you know, Will gets the hot hand, he
starts catching him. He's like got to be throwing the
Will Davis shaky head and then we're giving him a hard time

(24:20):
about it, you know, but every then like Tim would catch one,
he'd be like, Oh yeah, I caught it, Dragon worm.
I'd catch 1 and say, hey, I caught it on a crankbait and so
I felt like day 2 I still had todo that same thing.
I think we all kind of had the understanding that as it got

(24:40):
closer to the end, there would probably be it would get more
competitive, but not to the point where we were going to
screw each other over. Yeah.
You know, and I and those guys were in a situation like Will
was good. He was inside the cut, but I was
willing to share with him and Tim still needed to catch some

(25:02):
to get inside the cut. I was like, I'm here and I it's
probably different when you, when you have 34, you're kind of
just like. Who cares?
Here you go, it's for everybody.My maybe it would have been I
had different feelings if I onlyhad, you know, 2122 felt like
those guys were going to catch me.

(25:22):
But when I caught 30. Four, I'm like, no.
One's even going to catch me, What are they going to do?
Go catch 2 nines and an 8? Like maybe, maybe, but I don't
know. The whole week was just a weird
feeling like where I just I didn't ever worried about any of
that stuff and I don't know if it's just because been around

(25:45):
for a while now or what, but I just never worried about it.
Do you do you think it, I mean, there's no tell him, but it
feels like nobody knew the real potential of that spot.
Like I feel like on day one, it was for dudes who, you know,
were just hey, let's all make top 50s out of this.
And it went well. It went, you know, like it

(26:06):
seemed like it was for people who I mean, I talked to De Palma
before day one take off. He said my previous was
horrible. So I'm probably going to catch
30 lbs today was literally and he gave me freaking pretty
close. But it does feel like it was
very organic, like where you were like, hey, we're all just
going to try and milk this to a decent finish because this one

(26:29):
has sucked for all four of us. But if you guys had of known
people might have, you know, youmight have seen a little bit
more aggression just simply because I mean, if you knew that
that was the winning spot and 34lbs ten is going to come from
it, people may not have been as welcoming as what I'm trying to
say. Yeah, you might have been more
guarded, right, you know, or if you had other stuff.

(26:54):
But I, I mean, really, I think for the majority of us, we felt
like that was kind of all we had.
And I think we mutually knew that that's how the other guys
felt and is. So then it just kind of became
a, this is all we got. Let's make the most of it and

(27:14):
and just see how far we can takeit.
And that unknown part was like, we don't know, like we can we
and we talked about it day one when we should all be able to
make top 50s out of this. And we were all like, that would
be awesome. Sweet, you know, and then I was
like, you know, we can all will have pretty good events, not

(27:38):
realizing that three of us wouldmake a top ten off of that and
all of us make the top 50. So it was a a pretty, pretty
wild. I've just never been in that
situation where you like one spot has that much potential.
Why do you think it did? I think just the state of

(28:00):
Okeechobee as a whole, I don't. I think you could have been
competitive on that spot no matter what era of Okeechobee
we're talking about. But you're shot to win in mid

(28:21):
2000s, you know, 2910, eleven, 1213, like that time frame of
Okeechobee. I feel like 25 to 30 LB bags or
a dime a dozen. And there were just so many in
the lake. But with the as difficult as the
lake was fishing, I think it just made that spot better,

(28:48):
right? Like I don't think that spot
would be as special. Wouldn't stand out as much if.
They were, yeah. It wouldn't stand out as much.
But just the fact that the rest of Okeechobee was as tough as it
was, you know, main Lake Okeechobee, which is
historically where it goes down it.
I think that's just the thing, right?
And those fish are looking, I'm like torn on this part of like,

(29:12):
I don't know if there's more fish using those areas or
there's just more fishermen in those areas exposing them
because of the lack of, you know, vegetation and hard lines
and things out in the main lake.And I I don't know which one of
those it actually is. Yeah.

(29:33):
Does this win, I mean, at a time, and me and you have talked
about it a bunch throughout the weekend, at a time when
literally it feels like everything is darkness.
Like every story, everything that gets any kind of exposure,
it feels like it just has to have some level of controversy

(29:53):
or darkness around it. This win for you was at a time
where there's nothing but darkness around surrounding
things. Does this one mean more to you?
Because I mean, what happened was really freaking special.

(30:14):
Yeah, I think they're all special.
Talked about that before where Ifeel like every win almost comes
when it's supposed to and it hasits own story and its own, you
know, circumstances that make itspecial.
Like, you know, this was the first time that my kids got to

(30:37):
be on stage when they're actually old enough to
understand what in the world's going on, you know, because Cora
was four months old or somethingwhen I went AOI.
And like, they just haven't beenon stage since, like haven't won
anything since then. And I don't bring my kids on
stage unless I win something. Like we, me and Tiff just

(30:59):
decided we're going to reserve that for those special moments
so that they understand the magnitude of that.
And you know, Cora being almost three now, she gets that right.
Like she sees all the people outthere and that to me, that was
really cool. I think another special part of

(31:24):
it was that on day two, try to say this without choking up.
On Day 2 of practice, Tiff called me in tears and said that
a really good friend of ours hadpassed away unexpectedly and

(31:44):
it's the family that we stay with in Waddington.
Which is where like. Some of our greatest memories
come from right, They're amazingpeople and have became really
good friends of ours, almost like family.
And yeah, the the dad of that family passed away unexpectedly

(32:06):
and that was hard. And I don't know, it was weird.
It was like he was there and he was such a happy, positive
person that I was like, I had nochoice other than to be that he
was there. And it was.

(32:31):
Yeah. I think that that made it super
special for me because it could have been, I don't know, It's
like a way to honor how special of a person he was without
really even meaning to do it. Did you?
Did you? Do you think you felt him while

(32:53):
competing? Yeah, several times.
And I haven't, I haven't had feelings like that a lot, but I
definitely did for sure. Can you explain what that felt
like? Calming a lot of times, a lot of

(33:17):
it was when I was running up theriver, you know, those like
early mornings, especially when I was especially like day, day
234, there really wasn't anybodyin front of me and it was kind
of just me and the river and it was glass calm and the sun's

(33:39):
coming up and it's got just a little bit of chill in the in
the air and like I'm just driving, right.
I'm just running almost 70 milesan hour and I'm, I don't know,
it was, it was like calming. It was weird.
You know, I just kind of look upat the sky and you see the the
little bit of clouds in the sky and the sun coming up and it's

(34:00):
just like, it's all going to be OK, you know, and that.
And then I just go there and it's like, just stay calm and
go, go through the paces and everything's going to work out
the way it's supposed to. Avco not only makes incredible
outdoor clothing, but they care about anglers.

(34:21):
With their 10% pledge, Avco and the Shed family donate at least
10% of the company's profits to conservation and making fishing
better. Now back to the show.
Well, sorry to hear about that, but I think that's a pretty cool
honor, you know, I mean, it's what did, what did Core say

(34:47):
afterwards? After it won, yeah.
Where's my friends? Oh, she was worried about when
she was out up there on stage looking.
Around, I mean, she thought. The trophy was pretty cool, but
yeah, she wanted to know where her friends were, right?

(35:08):
Meaning like where Carl's daughter was.
And yeah, Atkins kids and that. But yeah, where are my friends?
Got to love the honesty of a toddler.
That kind of explains tournamentfishing, though.
I mean, you always think, I mean, it's kind of like you win

(35:29):
and you're like, it's the, you know, in your case with Kyle, I
mean, it's the five of you walking across the field with a
trophy at the end of it. You know what I mean?
In life, I remember years ago when I won my first like what I
considered a big tournament at home, But I remember it was so
ironic because I mean you, I remember thinking like when if I

(35:53):
win this event, like you think your life is going to be so you
know what I mean? Like you just think it's going
to be so different and then you win and it's super cool and
everything and you're up on the stage.
And then I remember I got in thevehicle and I put the trophy in
the passenger seat and I'm driving in van Halen's song came
on and it was like standing on top of the world for a little

(36:16):
while. And I'm like, that explains
tournament fishing. Like you're up there and you're
like, but by the time you're done your freaking interviews,
like what, what, what the stage has been taken down.
It's just goes back to a regularpark, you know?
But it only moments before it was something so crazy and
special. Do you find it frustrating that

(36:43):
everything that happened around the four of you guys in that
area sharing lures, getting along?
Like, wow, there could have beenso many moments.
Like, you know what I mean? After day one, I feel like the
Palmer could have put up a stinkand been like, listen, I had
2912 yesterday, give me space. That didn't happen after day 2.

(37:04):
You could have big brothered them all and been listen, I just
weighed in the biggest bag ever from here.
I'm a bet compared to all of those guys, you're you are a big
time veteran compared to all those guys.
You could have big brothered them and been like, come on,
move. But like it was truly everything
good that happened. But if you turn on social media,

(37:27):
all that anyone wants to talk about is how Scott Martin DQ
Like, do you find that frustrating or have you even
absorbed that? Not frustrating personally,
because it really has no effect on me.
Yeah, it's I get frustrated withhumanity in that sense of why?

(37:55):
Why? Like, why can't you just take a
moment and accept it for what itis and enjoy that moment?
Like why do you got to drag other stuff into it?
You know, like I used my Mega Live 2 to like scan around and

(38:18):
look and see how the fish were positioning and when they were
showing up when they weren't there, when to like adjust my
baits. And I caught some off of it,
like with a glide and jerk bait.But it wasn't like I targeted
every single fish with it. And you know, I was like, I'm
going to catch that one and makea cast and catch it.

(38:42):
But that's what so many people wanted to comment and turn it
into and like, oh, it's just another forward facing sonar
win. And I'm like, you guys are the
same people that were saying crankbaits would never catch
another bass last week. And now I'm catching him on a
crankbait and all you guys want to talk about it's still
negative. Or, you know, you catch.

(39:03):
I think Bass put a YouTube videoout of like the 3410 and then
someone's got to get on there and comment and be like, well,
Scott would have caught 40 of. Course he would have, yeah.
How do you? Know how do you know he screwed
up and he doesn't have the chance to catch 40 so who cares?

(39:24):
Yeah. Move on.
Yeah, so I was just the, it doesn't affect me, but it it
bothers me just in the sense of like, why do you why do you have
to be that way? It's not good for anybody.
It's not good for the person typing it out.
It's not good for other people commenting on it.

(39:47):
I'm like, why you gotta do that?The world's an angry place, man.
That's I mean, and if if what I kept saying when I was watching,
when you were using forward faceand sonar, when I'm watching it,
I'm like, this is a prime example of everybody that goes
on the Internet and says how stupid this is and how simple it

(40:10):
is. Like you just see a fish.
I mean, you just go around, thenyou just throw at it and it
bites. Dude.
You were surrounded by fish at times.
Like I mean that screen was justlittered with.
And ain't catching crap. Like, I mean, it's a tool that
definitely, but I mean, I think it's got the there's going to be

(40:32):
a lot of upset people that have never used it that go on the
Internet and just think it's like, because it's come on in my
boat, I'll show you just how ineffective you can pee with it
at times. It'll drive you crazy.
I mean, yeah, they're just, they're going to be upset about
something. Yeah, right.
I mean, it doesn't matter. That's they spend too much time

(40:53):
in front of a screen, creates a bunch of anxiety in their life
and then they're upset about something and they turn little
things into big things that don't need to be and just got to
let it go. It's not that big of a deal.
They spend too much time in front of a screen, so they
choose to bitch about people looking at a screen.

(41:13):
The irony. Oh, it is so sweet.
The irony. You mentioned crank baits.
Between you and John Garrett, dude, we've had back-to-back
Florida vents with 30 plus # bags all caught on crank baits.
Like that's got to feel good. I mean, because the world said

(41:36):
that crank baits are dead. They, you know, they built a
gravestone for crank baits. They do still catch bass.
Turns out. Break it to you people and
they'll catch bass when a lot ofother baits won't.
And you know, just because of the reactionary aspect of it,
you know you can get them. You can get big fish and

(41:57):
especially big ones, right, because they're smart, a little
bit more weary, but they will react to a crankbait sometimes
when they just won't react to anything else and have it.
I always say like, however I'm catching like, oh, that's got to
be my favorite way to catch them.
I. Think a lot of us are.

(42:18):
That way do you get like that? You're like, oh, this is like
this. Is 100.
Percent catch them and then. You'll be doing something else
the next day and you're like, oh, this is like the best.
I literally did that on day 2. I caught one punch in this one
little mat and I was like, oh, that felt so good.
That's that's my favorite way tocatch them.
And then I catch those nine pounders cranking and like this

(42:40):
is this is the best. This is my favorite way to catch
a bass. But if you'd lost one of.
Those nines, you would have beenlike, see, that's why I hate
crankbaits. That's just that's.
Yeah, and but there there is something special to it.
Yeah. And just when you're especially
when you're fishing 1 fast and anine pounder just stops you dead

(43:02):
in your tracks and it especiallyon a glass rod, you you get that
absorption in those giant head shakes.
You just instantly know that it is on another level.
Yeah, you know. And then they like, they like to
come up and Waller around. And I don't love that Kyle loves

(43:24):
it for footage. Makes it look.
Makes it look great on live. Oh, that shot of it wallowing
like the out of boat shot of that giant and you're leaning.
I mean dude, that is one of the most iconic shots.
Like that's right up there with the Combs.
You know that one from? From 4:00.
Or I mean Falcon. Falcon, where it's, you know,

(43:46):
Wes Miller shot, it's right overhis shoulder and you just see
the mouth like it was right up there with that.
It was incredible. Yeah, it was, it was amazing.
I there was one on day three, I threw that big M out there and I
mean, you can, that thing weighs2 oz.
So you can launch at a country mile and I'm start burning it

(44:10):
down and burning it down and it dies.
It dies and it hits the bottom and I feel it like hit a couple
times and it just stops and I lean into it.
I'm like Oh my gosh. And that and the rod just keeps
bending and bending and bending as I lean back and I and then I
just feel like go and I'm just holding on all 155 lbs of me and

(44:34):
I'm like starting to stutter step over the trolling motor.
Not happy, not happy. Feet dance like I did when I
caught the last glide bait, but like literally holding on,
trying not to go off the front of the boat and then it just
comes off. I I have not stopped thinking
about that like. Was that a bass?
Or did I just run into the top of a gar or a giant catfish or

(44:59):
something and I'm like, I kind of want to know.
I don't want to know, but I kindof want to know.
Was it a 15? Like how big was it 'cause at
least the 9 pounders, like they were strong, but I can turn them
a little bit. Yeah, I can at least move them a
little. That thing was like.
Wow, wow. How come there's always a little

(45:23):
little, I mean, I always say I have a great life.
I mean, but there's always like a little caveat of bullshit
connected to it. You know what I mean?
Like there's always just a weirdlike this close.
But your life is very similar where you, dude, you have a
blessed life, but with every bitof success, there's always like
a little bit of misery, whether it's a culling infraction,

(45:45):
whether it's a trip to the ER ora hook in your lip.
I mean, there's always that moment.
It feels like. It's never like if you ever had
a victory where it was just like, wow, that was so clean.
Well, not Bull Shoals, not not Saint Lawrence River.

(46:15):
I guess the only two would be Rayburn and Champlain would be
it because I I screwed up at Saint Lawrence which is.
That's the funniest part. I called 1 and got DQ D the

(46:37):
tournament before and then forgot to call one and got a 2
LB penalty next one. And if I would have just not
called and forgot the tournamentbefore, I still would have had a
4 LB lead. So it's like more irony.
But yeah. And then even Santee, when I
wanted Santee, I screwed up, made a cast with six fish, but I

(46:58):
caught a double there and like that was just a train wreck.
The yeah. So really no hooks or calling
infractions would be Rayburn andChamplain, which oddly both of
those are kind of won in the last minutes.

(47:18):
Of. Those events, yeah, I don't
know. It's, I think it's just proof
that no, nobody's life or situation is perfect, right?
That it all comes with ups and downs and you just have to be
willing to fight through those the down time so that you can

(47:40):
see the tops. Yeah.
Were you ever panicked? Did you get a hook in your face?
You. 100% my lips are all jackedup right now.
Yeah. I didn't know how bad it was
going to be. Like I I felt my lip, but I knew
the hook wasn't attached to my lips.
I didn't really know what happened there until further

(48:02):
examination, but I knew the hookwas stuck in my cheek and so it
right like the bass is right here and I'm trying to hold it
so it doesn't shake because the other treble stuck in my face
right here. And I had my son Gator up at the
time. So it's also in the treble
hooks. Something in how you know and

(48:24):
like I can't let the fish shake and I can't.
I'm like trying to look down andsee what.
It should be like how it's hooked to.
You know, try to figure out how to do surgery and unhook this
thing and came up with the idea that it, you know, Bessing was I
I was able to get the hook out of my cheek.
Thankfully it didn't go past theBarb because that would have
been a nightmare. And then I was able to take my

(48:49):
sun Gator off with the hooks andeverything in it, then unhook
the fish and, and then cut the hooks out of my sun Gator.
But that was yeah, it that was one of those situations.
I'm like, I don't care what happens as long as this bass is
in the boat and what I'm thinking about it, I'm like, I'm
going to scoop him. He's going to come in the boat,

(49:09):
he may flop around, whatever I didn't expect it to be, I'm
going to scoop him and he's going to start flopping in the
air straight to my face. With.
Treble hooks in my face that wasnot in my program.
He added some drama. Yeah.
Bass appreciates it. And here's the I mean, not to

(49:33):
bend about this crazy stuff, but.
Let it RIP. I got to look and see what where
it's at now. So I catch that 3410 right on
day 2 and it Kyle builds a beautiful awesome edit 78,000
views. Then we put out a 22nd clip of

(49:57):
catching a single 5 1/2 pounder with a hook in my face and it's
got 1.1 million. You see, you see that hard?
I mean, there's. About 34 lbs.
Just put a hook in your face. Yeah, I mean, it's the truth.
It's what it is messed up. It's it's the world is

(50:19):
celebrating the the weirdness. Yeah.
I mean, it's just, it is so bizarre the way the world is
now. And so, I mean, is it a business
move to just keep jamming hooks in your different appendages?
No, no, it's. Not worth it.
It's not worth it. It really doesn't.

(50:42):
Feel that good? How did you did on Sunday?
I mean if you can struggle with what do you have an 18 LB lead
or 19 LB. What was it, 18 or 19 lbs it?
Was like 18 and change I think, yeah.
So let's just call it. But if you can struggle with an
18 LB lead, you kind of did. Did you ever Like, was there a

(51:06):
part of you that I feel like it's human nature to be like,
yeah, maybe I shouldn't have given those guys those baits and
they caught those few extra fishor maybe.
I never, I never thought twice about sharing that water or
giving the baits to those guys. The thoughts that crept into my

(51:27):
head was I shouldn't have lost that one, you know, like wish I
wouldn't have lost that one on day one or wish I wouldn't have
lost that one on day three. You know, it's just things that
happen. But when it's your time, none of
those end up mattering. Obviously, you know, but like
we're not, I didn't know that I didn't need to catch a bass on

(51:48):
day 4. So when I lost that 5 pounder at
the boat, like I, I felt like that was crumbling, right?
Because I knew that fish had thepotential to lock it up or or
you know really make a big push because even at 4 lbs you know,

(52:11):
I was like OK guys got to catch 22 ish 23.
Not easy, but definitely doable.Yeah.
And really, it was. Greg has to catch that, you
know, not just everybody. Because it fell off quick after.
Like yeah, he was 18 lbs, but I think third was.

(52:32):
Yeah, then it was like 25 or 2627 something like that.
So it like every one of those one to two pounders was like,
OK, that's like, it just made ita little bit harder, right?
I was like, it felt like when I caught a A2 pounder, they had to
catch a four. And then, you know, when I got

(52:53):
to nine, 9 1/2 lbs started doingthe math.
OK, like they got to have a pretty good day.
They got to have like the third biggest bag of this entire
event. But man, the conditions have
been setting up for Okeechobee to go off and for it to happen
and I caught that that last one that was almost 6 on a glide.

(53:18):
I just, for me, that was more ofthe winning moment than the
trophy hoist was. Yeah, I.
Was like that. Like I knew that that made it
almost impossible to beat me. Do you in that situation, I
mean, you knew that, but did youhave any nerves coming into

(53:38):
Wayne or were you just like, hey, this is a victory lap?
I had two different sets of nerves.
I had one one set of nerves thatsaid I didn't know if it was
real or like if I was going to win or not.

(53:59):
And then the other nerves was I was almost late.
What? Yeah.
I, I mean joked with people on my car can show up late.
I made it with 30 seconds and I'm not talking at 2:59 and 30
seconds. I'm talking with the that you

(54:20):
know you're still in until it turns 3 O one.
Yeah, it was 30030 seconds when I shut down and checked in.
Why? Because it is, I physically and
mentally cannot quit. Like I just, I don't know, it's

(54:43):
I, I can't just like cruise off into the sunset, be like, hey,
we won. Let's just take a joyride back.
I'm like, I don't know, I just felt like I needed to keep
casting like one more cast. And then I got to look at my we
need to go. And then I started zooming out
on my lake master chart and I'm like, start doing the math and

(55:05):
I'm like, OK, straight line. Like I look at my camera, this
is going to be seconds. I mean like literally seconds.
And so the whole time I'm just puckered up running and I don't
know how. Like.
My boat every single day ran faster in the morning than it

(55:26):
did in the afternoon, which it should.
It's cooler air. You don't have your live wheels
full, you know, like it's supposed to run faster in the
morning. My boat ran faster on the way
back on day four than it did theentire event.
Wow. No idea why.

(55:47):
And so I'm ripping back and I'm doing the math in my head and
I've got it. I've got my cursor up there and
it's telling me how far the distance is to the check in and
right and it's saying like 6 miles and my thing saying 5
minutes and I'm like, OK, I haveto get this.

(56:10):
This needs to get below 5 miles before it switches and says I
have 4 minutes left so that I know that I'm going to be within
that, you know, three O 1 bufferand it and it my boat was
running fast enough. I'm like, I'm almost doing 70
going back that like I kept chopping it off a little bit

(56:34):
more and a little bit more and alittle bit more.
I'm like once I got within like a mile or two.
Of that. Those nerves kind of went away.
I'm like, OK, we're going to be all right.
We're going to make it. It's still going to be really
close. We're going to make it.
And then when I shut down, right, I was like, OK, you're
good. They give me the thumbs up.

(56:55):
Those nerves were all gone. And then the.
Other part of the nerves of I don't know if I have enough or
not to win whatever been around long enough to know you can
sense the the crowd like nobody's good at hiding, hiding
and I didn't I never looked at bass track I I had no clue and I

(57:22):
didn't look, but you can tell right the whole crowd's like.
Yeah. They're like giving you thumbs.
Up. They're like great job.
No one's going to tell you that when you just got beat by
someone catching a, you know, 40LB bag or something.
So I had a pretty good idea thatI was going to win and that kind
of ease those nerves. Yeah, yeah.

(57:43):
And then you didn't even need tocatch a bass.
So all those nerves, I mean, I kind of wish you were late.
I mean, the five minute late penalty might have actually
somebody would have loaded the hot seat.
Oh my gosh, could you imagine iflike something they still.
Wouldn't have loaded the hot seat because.
Could you imagine? Yeah.
Could you imagine if something would have happened where I was
like I I was 15 minutes late, and that's in our rules.

(58:05):
If you're 15 minutes late, your entire day's disqualified.
Could you imagine if that would have happened?
I would have been sweating. You still would have won though.
I know. But that was.
Created some drama. I don't want that to ever happen
in my life. So I'll make that quick.
I don't ever want to be in that.Situation.

(58:26):
That sounds like something that would typically happen to me
though. Yeah, and that video would get
100 million plays. Yeah, yeah.
Whoops. So what's next for you?
Oh well, I got a lot of irons inthe fire right now.
Imagine. Yeah, to be honest, I feel like

(58:48):
the water is like. Right here my head's like barely
above water. Our camper found out how to a
roof issue, dug into that a little bit more throughout the
week and figured out it was going to need a roof replacement
on our RV, which is, you know, pretty much our living quarters

(59:13):
on the road, which has six months of elk and mountain goat
meat and all that delicious stuff.
And I take it, I drive up to Tampa yesterday, take it to the
dealership and they start askingquestions and I'm answering

(59:33):
their questions and they start asking more questions.
And then it turns out it needs like who knows how much work to
like re Weld the frames and blahblah blah.
I don't know. They start throwing out all
sorts of terms. It probably talks like sounds
like us talking about bass fishing lures to most people.

(59:55):
And I'm like. I come to the realization that
I'm not leaving Florida with my camper.
I'm going to have to go to the classic without the camper.
So now I have to figure out how to get a hotel room.
A week, you know, two weeks out from the classic and then I'm
supposed to go do a Yamaha vent in Del Rio and I was going to

(01:00:16):
have my camper there for that. So then I got to figure out, you
know, there's like, what am I going to do with all the meat
and blah, blah. So it's been a logistical
nightmare. I'm at my sister's house
currently in Fort Lauderdale, and we got all the meat in the
freezer, and I guess we're goingto just come back down and get

(01:00:39):
our camper after. But here's another example of
how I don't know, things just happened for a reason, right?
We've talked about this before. So throughout the tournament
week, whatever Yamaha was askingme, they've got a photo shoot

(01:01:01):
that they wanted to do the firstweek of April before our North
Carolina event. So I'm trying to figure out
like, you know, where is it? Whatever.
Because I'm going to have to drive 2 vehicles from Texas,
from Del Rio all the way back. And then I go it's back down
here to Okeechobee in Clewiston.So I'm looking at it thinking,

(01:01:23):
man, this is going to be a lot of driving with my kids and
blah, blah, blah. You know, like figuring it out
and, and now I'm like, it actually works out perfect
because my camper is going to behere.
I have to come back to come back.
Anyways. I'm just going to drive over,
pick up the meat in the freezer,go back, pick up my camper and
keep going north to North Carolina.
Like how does that happen? Well, thank God it does.

(01:01:48):
I I guess I don't know. So yeah, that's what I'm up to.
That was a long winded answer. It's a train wreck.
Thanks for letting me vent aboutthat.
It's fine, it's fine. It's not.
Nothing's perfect. Who needs a roof on their camper
anyways? No, no, it's not a big deal.
Convertible camper's fine kids will love it.
Sleep under the stars. Yeah.

(01:02:10):
Harold, just be, you know, flying in the wind.
It'll be great. You're going to be busy at the
classic and be a different classic for you.
Yeah, yeah. That's my next order of
operation. Today is going through all my
emails and getting my classic schedule booked for all my my

(01:02:31):
days in the Expo. Yeah, let's.
Come see me. We're going to be there, people.
I'm sure people will be coming to see you.
I mean, it is. I mean, if you got to make a
classic, you may as if you got to miss a classic, you may as
well win the tournament right before it to just ease the
burden just a little bit. It does definitely helps.

(01:02:52):
Yeah. Definitely helps.
Well, I'm going to miss you on stage, but I'm sure I'll see you
in the Expo. I'm.
I'm sure I'll be used in some form or fashion where our paths
will cross. Oh yeah, I'm sure that the the
busiest people at the classic are the people that don't make
the classic. I mean, because you at least

(01:03:12):
when you're fishing, you have that like, hey, he's fishing,
give him a break now. It's like might be a while
before he isn't fishing one of these.
Let's burn him out. Yep, Yep, my obligations start
on Monday. For the classic.
So. Well, I'll see you there.
I'll see you there AOY this year.

(01:03:34):
I mean, you got 105th the year you won AOI in Okeechobee
before, didn't you? What's?
That, yeah, I mean, you'd think it would make it really easy
now, right? Should be.
Yeah, the only problem with thatis my next worst finish was I
think 28th and I finished like 41st or some 42nd at St.
John's. So I mean, yeah, it seems like

(01:03:58):
it should be just piece of cake.Yeah.
It's not. There's a lot of there's a lot
of bass to catch between now andthen, but I promise you, I am
very glad to not be digging myself out of a hole.
Yeah, you're definitely not. You're definitely not.
Turns out you're going to spend more time in Florida than you
ever imagined. Yeah, whether you're collecting

(01:04:20):
a camper, trying to get your meat back from your sister,
because I mean, hey, they're going to have a BBQ as soon as
you leave. I'm certain of it.
Yeah, it's OK. Let me keep it here.
It's run. It works.
It works well, dude. I know you're busy, but I
appreciate you breaking it all. Did we miss anything?

(01:04:43):
I don't think we missed anything, did we?
No, I don't think so. All right.
We already went over our time limit as expected.
Way over. Yeah, we're 10.
We said we're going to do it in 45 minutes and 40.
We didn't. We don't.
We never do, but a good conversation should never be cut
short and and ours freaking never are.

(01:05:05):
Like if people think we do long podcasts together, you should
see when we just like talk. It's dude, I'm honest.
I said this to Tiff on the weekend.
There's times where I go to callyou and I'm like, yeah, that's
just not enough time. I got AI got a conference call
in 45 minutes like it's it's I just have to call you for

(01:05:26):
something quick to be like, yeah, whatever BKK you know, we
work together there and I might be like, hey, are you doing this
with BKK hooks or whatever I'm calling you about?
But I know that we're going to start talking about something
and it's. It's going to turn into an hour
plus. We settle a lot of problems in
the world. At least we think we do.

(01:05:47):
Yeah, but thanks, dude. Congrats and we'll talk some
more. All right.
I appreciate it. See you look.
Some awkward ending. Bill Owen, A2 time Bassmaster
Elite series champion. Sounds good.

(01:06:11):
Sounds good, feels good. Does it?
Yeah, absolutely. What is the feeling like after
you win one? You know, I think I've been
asked that a bunch this week. No, but really, I mean like, not
just the. You, I, I don't know how to
answer that because it's a feeling that you can't describe.
You know, there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go

(01:06:33):
into winning an event, not just an elite, but any, basically any
kind of event. And they're all special.
And typically when it happens, you don't know what's going to
happen. So it's just it's really hard to
describe. Yeah.
It's just like I said, you can'tput any words and you can't
describe it. Yeah, sorry, I'm fighting with a

(01:06:55):
chord here. Look, I got.
It you look, you look so unprepared, you know.
I am, I'm very unprepared. Story of my life.
You past your bedtime or what? A little a little past my
bedtime. It's only like 6 in Canada isn't
it? Yeah, I mean, we're, yeah, it's
like 3 in the afternoon. No, it's 8:00.

(01:07:15):
It's not that late. No, I'm just like a mess because
I got a lot going on. Bill, I've been away for a
while. Yes, we.
All you're perpetually away though.
Like, do you feel this way when you're home?
When you're home, do you feel less prepared?
Yeah, when I'm at home I feel like I'm doing something wrong
because I'm not on the road somewhere.

(01:07:36):
Maybe that's what you're seeing in front of your very eyes.
It's dealing with that. One of the things you've talked
about a lot and been pretty openwith was preparing for this
season before the season even started.
What did you really do? I mean, honestly, I did exactly

(01:07:57):
what I've been telling you I've been doing.
You know, I got my new Mega Live2 and got that at the Lanier
Media event when we released it and kept that and then pretty
much fished with we're facing center.
I mean, I felt like every time Iput the boat in the water,
that's what I had to do. And then basically had to get

(01:08:20):
rid of the boat for the season to get the new one.
And I spent most, like I said, every time the boat went in the
water, that's what I did. Because it was either we're
going to do that and learn it and maybe keep getting our butts
kicked or we're just going to buckle down and fish the way we
knew how to fish, right? Like I told you before, I told

(01:08:42):
Jennifer back, you know, around Christmas or whenever that was
that, hey, look, we're just going to do forward facing sonar
if we have to or when we have to, when we know we have to.
If not, we're going to do what I've done my whole career.
And you know, the schedule set up this year where we could
basically fish our style really well in Florida.

(01:09:03):
But you know, even looking at the top ten, it was still
predominantly dominated by for facing sonar.
Yeah, you know what I mean. So it's for the last couple
years I've been kind of struggling with the demons of do
we do for facing sonar or do we fish our style.
And you know, if I'm out there for doing for facing sonar, I'm

(01:09:24):
not getting a bite. The demons are telling me maybe
I should go flip a lay down or flip a dock or something like
that. So it's been the last couple
years for me have been a real struggle just because of the
changes and trying to keep up with them, you know, And then,
you know, you just keep hearing all these old, the old timers
just got to get with the times and figure out the electronics,

(01:09:45):
you know. I mean, so it's been a yeah,
it's been a real struggle, man. I mean, honestly, I was starting
to question my ability to still compete.
Really like honestly good questioning that.
Yeah, I mean really like it was just like I had all the life
sucked out of me. And I know that sounds crazy,

(01:10:06):
but like I said, I was coming off of my worst year ever, 85th
place and angler of the year points.
And that's like uncharacteristicof me, you know.
I mean, I've you nicknamed me Dollar Bill because I've always
been so consistent on cash and checks, man.
And, and when that's not happening and things aren't
working out, I mean, it, it eatson you bad.

(01:10:27):
And I've always said the more you try to fight it when things
are going wrong, the worst it gets.
And I kind of think that's what happened last year for me, just
kept fighting it and fighting itand it just kept good and darker
and darker. How much of that fight was
coming directly from experiencesyou were having and results you

(01:10:47):
were seeing and how much of it was coming from.
There was a real darkness aroundthat.
Like, but, you know, I mean, I find myself getting sucked into
it at times where if you just spend too much time on the
Internet and away from what we're lucky enough to be part
of, you really do feel like this.
It's different than it really is.

(01:11:08):
Like, so how much of that was just real life experience and
how much of it was just that feeling of the industry being
overtaken by something? I think it was both for me, it
was real life experiences from what I was seeing on the water.
You know, I mean, you take on average per event, I mean we're
looking at 2 to 5 lbs heavier weights than we've seen, you

(01:11:32):
know, in previous events since this technology has come to
scene. So I'm probably still catching
the same amount of weight I was catching, but now it's not any
good anymore. You got to step it up and from
seeing that and just, I guess what really got to me was how

(01:11:53):
dominant it was regardless of where we went in the country.
Didn't matter if we were fishing100 foot deep or we were fishing
2 foot deep, it was dominating. And we, I was seeing things
being done that basically took me 30 years to figure out how to
trick one to bite on a Cypress tree.
Well, now we can see him and throw our stuff right at him.
And you know, I mean, it was just like there were so many

(01:12:16):
situations going on like that where I'm like everything I've
learned up to this point doesn'tmean squat anymore.
And like I said, man, it just puts you in a dark place really
quick because you invested so much of your lifetime and
basically your career fishing ina certain way that now we're
having to figure out how to do it all over again.

(01:12:36):
And it was, I don't know if it'sweird, I couldn't explain it.
But like I told you at the dock at Saint Johns River leaving out
on that final day, I was calm, Iwasn't nervous.
I had a game plan, you know thatI said we're just going to go
fish the way we fish and we're going to have fun.
And that's what we did and it's worked the last two events and

(01:12:59):
hopefully we can continue that rolling for the rest of the
season. You really were calm.
I mean, in a lot of times I hearpeople say that I've got a calm,
I'm, I'm happy, I'm fishing well, but it really, I mean,
I've seen a lot of different sides of you at this point and
I, I felt like I believed 100%. Did you have that calm?

(01:13:22):
Like did that come from come from success?
Or do you feel like, and I don'teven know if I want to use the
word fixed, but were the issues that you were having, did you go
into the season fixed, meaning that if this result wasn't what
it was, would you feel the same right now?
I, I guess I get kind of dependson how I would have finished,

(01:13:43):
you know what I mean? All I knew is that when I put
the boat in the water the first day of practice, we weren't
going to listen to the demons. We weren't going to be in a dark
place worrying about electronics.
We weren't going to worry about the drama.
You know, I mean, I just, I feltlike I had a very good piece of
competitive equipment with, you know, the Mega Live 2.

(01:14:05):
I felt like I was in a good place with that.
And then just doing my own thing.
I felt in a better place. And I think what really set me
in tune to do my deal was the first day of that event when I
went in there and caught them flipping a jig.
And, you know, traditionally youdon't catch them on a jig in

(01:14:27):
Florida. I mean, yeah, we've seen them
jig fishing go down on Okeechobee and things like that.
But we're just going down the bank flipping wood, catching
them on a jig. And, you know, I caught a 20 LB
limit really early the first dayin like an hour.
And that light bulb went off of my head of I think you found
something really special and this could potentially have the

(01:14:48):
makings to be able to win out ofthis Creek if everything went
right. Yeah.
How ironic is it that you spent the whole offseason staring at a
screen, perfecting that, and then the very first of that, you
fish, you win, and I don't know,did you even turn them on?
Yeah, so it's kind of funny, I did have my Mega Live 2 on and

(01:15:09):
everybody's like, well, are you using it to look at fish or
whatever? But what I was actually using it
for is that Creek had a lip in it that went from basically two
or three foot, depending on whatthe tide was, to sometimes 30
foot deep. The boat may be sitting in 30
foot of water, but that lip had isolated pieces of wood and
stumps and things like that on it.
What I was wanting to do was keep the boat off that lip and I

(01:15:34):
was using my forward facing sonar to do that, to keep me off
the lip and also to show me where that deeper water swung up
closer to the bank. So that's exactly what I was
using, the forward facing Sonar 4.
I probably could have used 360 with that, but I could pan
around a lot more with the Mega Live and be able to keep the
boat positioned exactly where I wanted it.

(01:15:56):
I think that's the part of it that nobody talks about.
Like we people get so obsessed with the sea and the fish and
obviously that's been successful, but as a tool to
just make sure you're on the right edge perpetually, like
there's no guessing with it. It is a big player.
Why do you think it? It feels like from the outside

(01:16:17):
it snuck up on people more than any other technology.
Like when side imaging came along, there were people that
were early adapters, but it pretty much the whole field, I
feel like got into it around thesame time, but this definitely
felt like people were like, yeah.
And then all of a sudden they were like, whoa, what just

(01:16:38):
happened? I mean, I don't think it just
snuck up on the anglers. I think it snuck up on the the
whole industry. Yeah, no, from yeah, I mean
tackle manufacturers to everything.
It was like, Oh yeah, it's just another piece of equipment.
There's some guys catching them on it.
You know, it won't work shallow.And we've seen it dominate
everywhere we've gone in every water depth.

(01:16:59):
And I do honestly agree with youthat it snuck up on all of us.
You know what I mean? I don't think we put enough
emphasis on trying to learn it quick enough.
And the guys that embraced it and took off with it, you see
how well they're doing with it now.
So I guess like they said, us old timers got to figure out how

(01:17:20):
to do it. But I think there was like
different shifts in that thing. Like I think there was guys, I
think I think initially, I honestly think that part of the
problem with it was, I mean, theoriginal Panoptix wasn't what it
is today. They had a bunch of commercials
where they had Jason Christie and Bill Dense dressed as
bikers. And I feel like that almost like

(01:17:42):
dummified it a bit. And then when people that did
realize the power of it, their anglers, so they just shut up
and didn't say a word to anybody.
But then the 2nd shift was, and it felt like, OK, it's kind of
sorting its way. But then the 2nd shift was then
this whole new group anglers came.
Like I look at Christie's classic when I've used this

(01:18:02):
example a lot as kind of the last foot on the dock foot in
the bulk classic in the way thatlike Christie used it.
But then he went and fished docks in the afternoon.
He just sprinkled it in. It was just an ingredient.
Then it feels like in the last few years we had a group of
anglers show up, not just here, but on every tour and the opens

(01:18:23):
that were like, guess what? I don't care about anything.
I'm just going to chase blobs all afternoon and it's going to
it's going to dominate. And that has simply.
So I think from the outside, that's what it feels like to me
was the hardest thing for vets to kind of handle because you
guys have their advantage or your advantage when it comes to

(01:18:47):
throwing a jig. Is that you when that when
you're in the situation, you weren't in Florida.
I mean, honestly, you, you didn't want anyone to pull in
there, but you also didn't really care if anyone pulled in
there because you have faith, ultimate faith in your
abilities. Absolutely.
Those guys have that exact same thing, but it's on that
technology and they you can't erase that jig feeling, That

(01:19:12):
feeling last year Toledo Bend where guys were like it's
warming up. I got to move shallow.
Like it's so hard to erase that.Yeah, for sure.
But you know, Dave, it's with the technology that we have
gives you the ability, if you'regoing to dedicate your career to

(01:19:34):
that, gives you the ability to throw at a bass 100% of the
time. You know, I mean, there may be
days where I fish all day day like the dark, and I don't even
throw my bait around the bass, you know what I mean?
So that definitely changes the game, you know what I mean?
Look, I understand. Yeah, You still got to catch
them. You still got to figure out how
to make them bite. But boy, when you throw your

(01:19:55):
bait out of fish every single cast, your odds go way the heck
up for sure. I mean, we can't argue about
that. That's for.
Sure. No, you won't get an argument.
I mean that Welcher said that after he won Angler of the Year.
He's like, hey, one thing percentage wise, I know that's
figured out. You're a better angler when
you're always casting at a bass and that's exact.

(01:20:17):
Do you think it changes in time?Do you think the fish adapt or
do you think it's it's up to theleagues and the tour and the
anglers to change it? You know, I don't know if we'll
see the fish adapt. I mean, you hear guys talk
about, well, I notice I'm skip panning it on them and they're

(01:20:38):
swimming away and but all we're going to do with it is figure
out a different area of the laketo catch them in.
You know, I mean, I mean, look at I mean, who would have ever
thought that we would be using Ford facing sonar to catch fry
garters? I mean, would you have ever
thought that? Because I would never have
thought that, you know, So everyyear we see something different,

(01:21:00):
some code that gets cracked thatI ain't so sure Mother Nature
wanted us to crack. You know, you feel that way and
you're gut we do. Yeah.
You know, I'm kind of, you know,I'm a big waterfowl hunter,
Turkey hunter, Deer Hunter. When it comes to that stuff.
I'm almost, I always say I'm like a purist of that stuff, you
know what I mean? And I've made references to

(01:21:22):
forward facing sonar to me is like hunting ducks in the
waterfowl resting area because that's their sanctuary where
they are safe. Kind of like the bass that have
been swimming around in the middle of the lake for all these
years. That was their sanctuary, you
know, I mean, that's where they were saved.
That's where they didn't get bothered.
And we're now figuring out how to crack the code of the

(01:21:46):
sanctuary to me. So just some things that I've
always thought about and I always, always look at the big
picture of everything, Dave, when I'm kind of making an
opinion on something, just not like, am I?
Where how's Bill Lowen going to benefit from it?
I look how it's going to affect the whole field or you know what
I mean? I'm always looking at the big

(01:22:06):
picture. Yeah.
Do you use trail cams when you deer hunt?
Nope. You do not.
I do not, Jennifer, You do, because they like to see the
deer, but I never put a trail camera up anywhere that I deer
hunt. Wow, I like that about you.
I like that you're, I mean, you can't be all in with one and not

(01:22:27):
with the other, right? Yeah, well, I'm just, I'm going
regardless, so I don't need a camera to tell me when to go in
there and always going to be coming through at 11:30, you
know, So I know I don't use trail cameras and guys think I'm
crazy for that, but hey, it is what it is.
Yeah, no, it's, I think they just pissed people off.

(01:22:48):
I don't hunt, but I know all my camera guys do hunt.
And like, it's never fails that we're on a shoot and their phone
goes off and they're like, it's there right now, but you would
have never been there right now.You hunt in the morning and the
evening. I don't care that it came
through at 1:00 in the afternoon.
You weren't going to be there, but Speaking of demons and

(01:23:12):
avoiding demons, you dealt with some demons.
I mean, you were freaking tested.
It seems like there's no win without somebody being tested.
This past weekend, Polonic, whenit looks like he's skating to a
victory. He was tested, but you were
tested a little extra hard. What?
What went through your mind alsoas Sunday went on?

(01:23:35):
Well, you know, obviously the first thing that I'm thinking
about is John Garrett catching a31 LB bag.
And if he does that again and I really stubbed my toe, we don't
get to win. I mean, you start thinking about
all these things that could potentially happen or you know
what I mean? So it's, I mean, obviously we

(01:24:02):
know everything's got to go right to pull off a win, but
when you you're in Florida, you just know that any swing of the
rod could be a be A10 pounder, you know what I mean?
So you know, I was very fortunate that week to like just
for instance, the four pounder that gets wrapped up in the tree
that that fish comes off every single time.

(01:24:25):
And this time it didn't, you know what I mean?
So everything's got to go right.I always said I'd rather be
lucky than good any day, you know what I mean?
So. So yeah.
Hey, man. Yeah.
What do you do though, in that situation?
Like when you, you mentally do you have tricks, things like do

(01:24:47):
you, because I'm, I'm trying to put myself in your head and, and
I do when I'm doing coverage andI'm watching you and trust me,
you, your whole family, everybody supports you is trying
to will a bass to just eat his damn jig, right?
But when you're in that situation, are you right there?
Are you just like focused on every cast?

(01:25:08):
Are you trying not to look at the clock, trying not to think
or like, how are you controllingthose emotions?
Because somebody like me would be laying on the front deck in
the fetal position, sucking my thumb about 20 minutes into it.
I do that a lot. I just don't do it while the
camera's on, you know? It's very I.
Hate to I hate to always keep bringing up the Ohio River where

(01:25:32):
I grew up. Yeah, so the fishing on the Ohio
River is horrible. It sucks, right?
But what the Ohio River did for me was taught me how to keep my
head on straight when things aren't going right.
You know, I knew every day when I put that boat in the water, I
was going fishing for five bitesand then five bites may weigh 6
lbs, they may weigh 8 lbs, right.

(01:25:55):
So I grew up fishing the grind every single day.
I mean, heck, when the bites on big time and they're really
biting 10 lbs is a big bag. So when things are going tough
or maybe when there are grinder events like it seems when I when
I excel, because I think a lot of guys already are beat before

(01:26:16):
we even make our first cast, right?
Because, you know, conditions are bad, the fish aren't biting,
you know, blah, blah. But for me, that's just another
day. So if the Ohio River did
anything for me and my for my career was taught me to never
get down, never give up. And the other thing that I've
always kind of been proud of myself about is not having a

(01:26:39):
mental breakdown when things start to go bad.
You know, I mean, because I learned a long time ago my dad
was a big help with that, that my dad always one of his
favorite quotes was what don't kill you makes you stronger,
right? And I kind of always have always
kept that in the back of my headthat if you have a mental
breakdown and start falling to pieces, it sure the heck's not

(01:27:02):
going to help you. You know what I mean?
It's not going to change the situation for you to throw a fit
and stomp on the front deck. So I just never get, and no
matter how bad it is or how manyI've lost or how far I'm behind,
I just never let myself get defeated.
If you want to put it in those words.
You know, with all that being said, Dave, in my whole career,

(01:27:25):
I've never been in a situation to win where I was going out
with a big giant lead. You know, typically for me, if
I'm have an opportunity to win, somebody's always had a big lead
ahead of me or you know, I mean,I've always had to claw all the
way from the back to get up to the top.
You know, I don't remember if I had a lead at Pickwick or not,

(01:27:46):
but it just always seemed like when I was in the situation to
win, somebody always had a big giant lead to me.
So that was all new for me. You know, I didn't never been in
that situation before and I think that may have also helped
with me being as calm as I was as well.
But you don't have any like mental practices that you go

(01:28:08):
through, like to center yourselfor anything.
Like it's just like what is going through your mind during
that time is what I'm trying to figure out.
Like, well, here's what's going through my mind is that my
wife's mean and crazy. And.
Together, she's going to get thebelt out when I get back to the
camper. You know she's.

(01:28:29):
Standing over here looking at meare.
You still going to get the belt out right now, Jennifer?
It would be wonderful for the podcast.
Go right ahead and wolf them. Yeah, that would not be good.
You know, Dave, honestly, I really don't have some kind of
deal that I go through. I mean, you've been around me
long enough to know I'm pretty much the same Bill Lowen, if I

(01:28:50):
catch him or if I don't, you know, I mean, and that's just
kind of how I've always been in life and just, yeah, I don't
have AI. Don't have a deal, man.
What is your focus level like when you're competing?
Like are you you've been around me enough to know that I'm an
idiot. Like dude, what I'm talking to
you. I'm still focused on the bird

(01:29:12):
that's on the tree over there and a squirrel that ran past.
But which is why I could never ever make it on the elite
series. I'd be I would you think Trey
McKinney gets penalties? I would never be on time for
nothing, but I when you're out there, are you 100% focused on

(01:29:33):
on the next cast on fishing or does your mind drift off at
times? No, it, it, it I'm 100% focused
on what's at hand and what's in front of me and I'm a, I'm like
always aware of my surrounding and what's going on and what I
mean by that. If a shad flicks over here or a

(01:29:54):
brim runs over here, or a crocodile slides in the water,
or maybe some wood ducks jump out of the Bush, like I see all
that, You know what I mean? It's like I always try to stay
really in tune because if you miss something like that, you
know what I mean? You see a shad flick or a
bluegill run, that's an opportunity that of a fish that
you could potentially catch. So I'm typically always focused

(01:30:16):
100% of the time, scanning, looking, paying attention.
And I think, you know, me havingkind of that hunting background
that I do with waterfowl and whitetails and things like that,
it's kind of you just get a, it's a second, second nature,
you know what I mean? To just be able to focus in and
really key in on what's going onin the environment you're in

(01:30:37):
every single day. Yeah.
That's a huge part of the forward facing thing that I
mean, Cox said it to me and it means it's it's it honestly
means a lot. Like he says the number one
reason he doesn't use it at all is because he thinks that
anytime he spends in that he checks out of this.
And he's like, I see so much that happens on the water that

(01:30:59):
he says, I see it all the time where people don't see certain
things. You know what I mean?
Because they're looking down andthey don't see those little
signs that you guys are so in tune.
And those signs, I mean, it could be a fish surfacing, it
can be whatever. But those signs are that's the
part that I, I totally disagree with technology just because I'm

(01:31:20):
like, that's the, that's the magic to me.
Like the fact that Rick Klung could tell me there was a fish
on that point when everybody else would say, no, there's no
fish in that point or there's fish, right?
I mean, that's the the real magic if you ask me.
Well, I feel like every single day you put the boat in water,
there's key little things. You see that will clue you in on

(01:31:42):
what you need to do for that day, whether it's the direction
of the wind or like I said, the shed flicking on the rocks or
the maybe the bluegill that are on the bed, you know, waking
around that if you're buried into a screen, you don't see
that, you know what I mean? And to me, when I'm on the
water, I part of just being out there is seeing some of the

(01:32:05):
coolest sunrises and sunsets andheard a deer or turkeys gobbling
in the woods. And I'll be honest with you,
when I'm focused on Ford facing sonar and I got my head down
staring at a screen, I'll look up and I don't even know where
the heck I'm at. You know what I mean?
And I don't like that feeling. You know, it's, I don't know,

(01:32:27):
part to part to of the enjoymentof this is seeing what Mother
Nature has to offer. And I don't ever want to miss
that any day, any afternoon, anytime on the water.
Yeah. You know, something like just
the touch on that, just a littlebit like Wes Logan called me

(01:32:48):
yesterday, right? And he's like, dude, I just saw
the coolest thing I've ever seen.
And I'm like, what'd you see, dude?
And he's like, I just watched 2 wood ducks come out of a tree, a
little tiny hole in the tree, a hen and a Drake wood that come
out of the hole in the tree. And he's like, that's the
coolest thing I've ever seen. And that's the kind of stuff I'm
talking about, stuff like that you just see on the water that

(01:33:09):
you're going to remember for therest of your life.
And to me, that's what it's all about.
Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree with that.
Part of it it, I mean, the best analogy for Ford facing sonar
and fishing is just like talkingto someone when they're texting.
I mean, I'm still if I was sitting here and we're talking
and I'm just, I'm still part of the.

(01:33:30):
Conversation. You know you did that to me
online the other morning when? No.
I said I'm finishing posting something and I will be 100%
focused on you. That was the exact opposite.
I was like. I have to do the same.
But yeah, what the I got the first time, You got nothing to
say. No, I'm just I'm a whole, you're

(01:33:52):
a champion. I have to treat you with respect
that that week an amazing. First of all, before we get on
that, that you said that there'ssigns that point you in a
certain direction. Was there a sign?
Like what? Were there a few signs that told

(01:34:12):
you, hey, this is what I need tobe doing?
Was there a piece of nature thatpointed you in the right
direction? Or was it just a multitude of
things? So I have a lot of history going
north of Palatka and you know, I've, I've, there's not an event
that we go there that I don't gonorth and at least check it or
give it it's opportunity. Especially back in the day when

(01:34:34):
the river was full of hill grass, it was a lot of fun that
way. But now since the hill grass
gone, it's mostly hard to cover like what we've seen that I was
fishing. But I think the biggest key or
whatever we talked about that you pick up from Mother Nature
or whatever, was the fact that we had cold fronts that were
coming in. And my first initial thought was

(01:34:56):
that if I could find them, fish in them deeper creeks, that I
felt like those fish would be less affected by the cold front.
Because look, let's face it, if you fish in Florida, you know
what a cold front does to a Florida strain bass, They hate
it. They don't like it, they act
weird, but I just felt like in my heart, from my experience
that if I could find some deepercreeks, they wouldn't be

(01:35:19):
affected as much. And I had three creeks that were
deeper that I had really good bites in.
Well, the two, obviously, we sawthe last day, I went to them
right out of the gate and the water temperature had dropped
into the 50s and those two creeks.
So I knew immediately that thosecreeks weren't going to go or
come into play. So I went back to my primary and
the water was still 6061 to start the morning out.

(01:35:43):
So touching on that, you know, details or Mother Nature or
whatever, that was my first clueof the week to try to figure out
where I could find some fish that would be less effective.
And I didn't want to go down to the springs and get involved in
that merry go round again, you know, because it seems like for
me they bite good in the springsand practice.
Well, when it's game time, they never do.

(01:36:04):
So that was my game plan. You know, the first day I did
the spring thing and all that, and the second day I went north
and found what I found. But that was my plan is to try
to find some deeper locations. Today's high tech fishing world
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(01:36:26):
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When did you know? Say you were on a pattern that
could win. So I did not honestly have a
clue because I believe when I went into Deep Creek in
practice, you know, I had 6 or 8bites in there and the biggest

(01:36:49):
fish I caught was wasn't even A4pounder, was a heavy 3 pounder.
But what I did notice in there is there was a lot of brim and a
lot of bluegill up extremely shallow.
And I'm not the smartest guy in the world day.
But when the brim are up shallow, then you know the big
bass aren't far behind them. So then I ran to some of them
other deeper creeks and still the same thing.

(01:37:09):
I'm getting some bites, but I'm not seeing anything really big.
And then the last day I practice, I roll into one of
them creeks that are really shallow that I, I didn't think,
I didn't think that that would be a player, those shallow
creeks. But I rolled in there and like
the first bite I gets like A5 pounder and then I get three or

(01:37:31):
four other bites really quick and that shallow Creek.
So I'm thinking, well, now, maybe I screwed up and didn't
pay enough attention to the, to the shallower creeks as well,
right? But with that being said, I had
no idea that I was on the caliber of fish that I was on
until that very first morning. Literally catch, like I said, a
20 LB bag in the first hour. Then I caught one more good one,

(01:37:52):
swimming a jig that day to give me 21 1/2 or whatever I had.
And when I left out of there that day, I thought to myself, I
might have found something really, really special.
And then on the second day, whenI catch 24 1/2 or whatever it
was, then I really knew. And then I think it might have
been the second day was when Jason Christie rolled in there
on me. Yeah.

(01:38:13):
And he's like, man, is this where you've been fishing?
And I said, yeah, it's where I've been fishing.
And he's like, dude, I've just caught like 12 and I've been in
here for 30 minutes or an hour or whatever it was.
And he's like, I'm getting out of here.
You got an opportunity to win inhere and I'm going to let you
have it. And I said, man, I really
appreciate that. And he rolled out and left.
Had he not would have been outcome could have been really

(01:38:34):
different. You know, I mean, because I
think there was a good population of fish in there.
I don't know how if there was a good population of big fish in
there. So if you're in there splitting
it up with somebody and you know, very rarely do you have a
body of water all to yourself. We had another angler in there,
but he was going all the way to the headwaters of the Creek and
working his way out. So he really never got on

(01:38:55):
anything that I was fishing. But yeah, Dave, with that being
said, it just kind of the conditions set up perfectly I
think for for what I was doing for sure.
What Christy did is that becoming more rare.
You going to make me answer that?

(01:39:17):
No, you don't. I mean, dude, if you don't ever
want to answer anything, you just have to say, yeah, you
know, I don't feel like answering that.
I don't want to. I don't want to say that it is
getting rare because we still see it happen quite a lot, but I
think it's just, I mean, let's face it, man, guys get

(01:39:38):
desperate, right? And they're going to do whatever
they got to do to catch 1, you know what I mean?
And if that means how we say these guys will steal candy from
your kids if they think they cancatch 1, you know what I mean?
So they it's a very competitive thing, but I still think we got
a lot of guys that would do exactly what Christie would do,

(01:40:00):
you know what I mean? And you kind of know who.
You can help out and who you can't, You know what I mean?
Because you know who will repay the favor to you, you know what
I mean? So I don't want to say it's a
rare occasion. Let me, I'll say it like this.
It's a situational occasion. How's that?
Situations are situational, right?

(01:40:22):
I think it's more important. That's why I think when
something like that happens, I mean, I know personally, I try
to talk about it as much as possible on live.
You know, even when things like this past weekend, those four
guys work in one area, Paul, Nick sharing lures with them and
stuff. We talked about that to nauseam
because dude, that's the stuff that doesn't get talked about.

(01:40:44):
And to me, that's, if you want that to continue happening, I
mean, the only way to make that continue happen is for people to
see it and to see that it is theright thing.
And it's it's OK because due to those four dudes got into a
fight this past weekend, 10 times the amount of people would
be making videos about that. Like, I mean, I have literally

(01:41:06):
seen, I can't even say I've seena handful of videos outside of
coverage videos like people covering the event, but I
haven't seen any video, very fewvideos talking about how weird
and how not how weird, but how cool it was.
You have 4 dudes in one sport working together that are, you
know, didn't plan it together. They just ended up there

(01:41:28):
together. They had every reason to, you
know, Pollock could have big brothered them after day 2 and
been like, hey, I just weighed in 34 lbs.
He's a vet compared to all of those guys, and nobody's talking
about it because that's just thesad truth of the world because

(01:41:48):
people just don't talk about thegood anymore.
I mean, we have so much negativity and drama going on
that we needed two events like that to kind of shine some light
on us, you know what I mean? I agree.
It's it's sad that we even have to have that conversation.
But like you said, it's just kind of almost the world we live
in anymore. Yeah.

(01:42:10):
What did? Obviously I saw the low ones
backstage, I saw the whole crew and I saw you go off and you're
got to do your pictures and interviews and everything
afterwards. But what, what did you guys do
afterwards? Did did you celebrate?
Do you like what happens when you finally get to be with your
family in the trophy? Well, we were trying, you know,

(01:42:32):
we had to get immediately to Okeechobee.
We were trying to figure out arewe going to leave right now,
we're going to leave in the morning.
And finally I was like, you knowwhat, it won't do us any good to
drive 5 hours a night, get thereat 2:00 in the morning, be dead
tired tomorrow. So we'll just sleep in, get up
early, head over. And I think I got on the water
at 11:00 Monday for practice at Okeechobee, which worked out

(01:42:56):
great, but we really didn't celebrate.
We went and had dinner at Corky Bells, you know, which is kind
of that stop you always go to when we go to Palatka.
But you know, I think I think that my team Lowen, at least
from me, doesn't get enough credit, you know what I mean?

(01:43:16):
A win for me is amazing, but it's also a win for them, you
know what I mean? The support and things they've
given me over the 20 years is, Imean, I can't even, I'll never
be able to thank them enough, Dave, you know, and it's not
only Jennifer, it's Fisher and the Vey as well, you know, And

(01:43:38):
heck, Dave, like I said, you've watched them grow up from being
from being babies, you know whatI mean?
You know, Novaea's kind of falling into her own little
world there with the photographyand shooting for some of the
guys and things like that, you know what I mean?
So I always say it takes a team,Dave, and we got a hell of a
team here. That's for sure.

(01:43:59):
You do and and dude, I know I don't think they'll ever be able
to thank you either. You know what I mean?
Like I look at you guys as one of those model families, like
the things your kids have seen and you know, as a parent, you
always going to look at what they missed.
You know what I mean? They didn't get to go to this or
that because they were on the road with you.

(01:44:20):
But I look at you guys, I look at the Kennedys and I'm like,
look what they've shown their kids like so much of the world.
And look at how well adjusted your kids are dealing with
adults. And they're like, it's it's
pretty cool to watch from the outside, but it is weird.
I mean, it is weird to see Nevaeh, especially like, I mean,

(01:44:42):
I'm just like, you were like a little kid in a stroller getting
pushed around to dock and now she's like one of the older
kids, you know what I mean? Like it, it is wild.
I don't know how that happened, but me and you stayed the same
age. They've been on the road, you
know, ever since they were born.I think Nevaeh was on a plane
flying to the Classic when she was two weeks old, but they've

(01:45:06):
never known anything any different, Dave.
Their life has been on the road,you know, very blessed and
fortunate. They get to travel with us.
They're homeschooled. And I honestly, Dave, don't
think I could do it if they weren't with me because I would
not want to get the call from one of them saying, hey, dad,
when you coming home because I, I couldn't, I don't honestly,
you, I'd get teary eyed right now just talking about it.

(01:45:28):
But I could just, I honestly truly know I couldn't do it, you
know, and Jennifer and I both have asked him, hey, do you
like, are y'all good with this? Do you want to stay home?
Do you want to go to school? You know, I mean, do you like,
and they're like, they'll think about it for a minute and
they're like, you know what? I don't think we want to do
that. But like, you know, I mean, and
maybe they don't realize it now,but they will when they get

(01:45:51):
older, kind of like you said, the life experiences that
they're getting out here in the world.
You know, I mean, I think there's only like 3 states in
the US that Nevada has not been to as a kid, you know what I
mean? So it's, we've got to travel the
country. We've got to experience the
highs and the lows. And yeah, like I said, just to

(01:46:13):
say I'm blessed to have this opportunity is is an
understatement for sure. I don't know if you're
comfortable talking about this, but I'm and I'll I'll shoot my
shot. That week must have been a weird
week for you, especially afterwards.
You're on such a high and then one of your guys that you spend

(01:46:36):
so much time on the road with, Matt Heron, is imploding
basically and you know, is no longer on the Elite series.
How did you deal with that? It was tough, you know,
obviously it was tough. And I guess you just, you get in

(01:46:59):
shock, you know what I mean? And look, people make mistakes.
We've all made mistakes in our life.
And, and to me, it's how you recover from your mistake, you
know what I mean? It's how you accept it, face it,
however, you know what I mean? You deal with that situation.

(01:47:21):
I hate it. I mean, it was like a gut punch,
you know what I mean? But you know, like, I'm just
trying to celebrate a win and deal with that and get to Lake
Okeechobee. And it's tough.
I mean, honestly, it's tough because you know, it not only
Matt, but we're all a family outhere on the road, you know what

(01:47:44):
I mean? There's like 25 of us at camp
and it's like a big family out here.
So when we get, when one of us has a situation or one of us
gets in, you know, it's having ahard time, it kind of kind of
affects us all. But that one was really hard to
just stomach, you know what I mean?

(01:48:05):
And like I said, people make mistakes and it's just going to
be how how we all come out on the other side from it, that's
for sure. Yeah, yeah.
And I think shock is the right way to explain that one because
I, I believe a lot of the leaguein general was in shock just

(01:48:26):
because I mean, everybody has kind of pushed for more tests.
And but Matt is not the guy thatyou expected to have that happen
with. But and like you said, it
mistakes happen with everybody. And I just thought about you a
lot during it weirdly, because I'm just like, you got Bill

(01:48:48):
who's on this high and then you have the exact OP like you just
I'm sure you guys haven't reallyhad a chance to even.
I don't even know how do you deal with that?
Like, hey, Congrats. Well, the opposite.
Like it's. Yeah, I mean, it's tough and
like I said, it's hard to stomach, but it's like, you

(01:49:10):
don't know, Like I don't know what to say.
You know what I mean? Nothing I can say is going to
make it any better for him or it's just like I said, it's it's
freaking heart wrenching, you know, it, it truly is.
Like I said, it's like a family out here.
And yes, you never want to see any of your friends or anything

(01:49:31):
going through something like that, you know, and it's it's
just we got to be so careful with, you know, I mean, it's
like you're scared to talk to your dad about fishing or
anybody, you know what I mean? You know, Dave, and like, I'm so
careful to the point where like,if we're at a campground and
Fisher has access to the water, like I won't even go fish in

(01:49:53):
that area, you know what I mean?Because I don't never want
anybody to say like, well, Fisher's catching them right
behind the camper. And that's where Bill's fishing,
you know what I mean? So I don't ever even fish on the
canals or anything that butt up to the campground, because I'm I
don't ever want to be questionedfrom, you know what I mean, for
my integrity for the sport. But it's just, you know,

(01:50:15):
everywhere we go in the country,somebody wants to come up and
tell you how to catch a bass, you know, and our we immediately
have to tell them, hey, we can'ttalk about fishing.
We can't get any info. And sometimes that makes us look
like jerks or like we're being, you know, standoffish to the
fans or whatever. But if you don't do that, then
you cross a line and you could potentially get yourself in a

(01:50:37):
jam. You know, I, I had to take a
polygraph at Lake Okeechobee, which passed and everything was
fine. But so everybody's going to get
drawn, I believe with the new system we have, you know, I
don't remember what that exact number is, but I think we're
56810 people are getting examined from every event.
So it's going to be a good thing.

(01:50:59):
And then, and I do know this forsure, the whole fields on edge
right now about the information rule, that's for sure.
Yeah, but it's not new, right? Like the information rule, it's
over a decade. It's.
Been it's been going for decadesand we all fought for it because
we thought maybe people were getting info and you know, so we

(01:51:22):
fought and fought and fought andBass finally give it to us and
here we are. Yeah, that's the part I find
weird. I think some people think this
is a new, you know, all of a sudden the only thing new is
that there's more testing than there's ever been, more
stringent tests than there's ever been.
But again, that was anglers thathave pushed for that.

(01:51:44):
But it, yeah, it's a, it's a weird thing to deal with because
I, I've seen you guys in that situation where somebody, you
know, people just want to run down the end of the dock and
tell you, oh, you know, you where you need to be and you got
to cut them off. Do you think the rule is right?
Like, are you happy with that rule or would you change
anything with it? I I hate rules that are hard to

(01:52:12):
police. Yeah, I agree with that.
And I definitely think that's one of them.
And so I don't know, you know, II think we should be able to get
information. Absolutely not.
I think at our level with the information thing, should you
you go figure it out on your own.

(01:52:32):
But there's so many like you just get yourself in a jam
without even trying to get yourself in a jam.
Yeah. So how do we change that?
I don't know, Dave. I don't.
I don't even know if it can be changed.
I think that you get yourself ina situation, you say I can't get
no help and you cut this conversation off and that's,

(01:52:54):
that's it. You know what I mean?
That makes you look like a jerk,then so be it.
But for everybody that's listening, watching as a fan,
we're not trying to be jerks. We're just trying to keep
ourselves from getting in the jam, that's for sure.
Yeah, and I mean you shouldn't get information from your son
because Fisher catches like freaking 9 pounders at takeoffs.

(01:53:16):
Yeah, he's he's good for that. I mean, we saw it at camp plane
and I think he had the whole field wanting to fish right off
the dock. You know, he is, he is that one.
You know, we all got that one friend that if you take him
fishing, you're going to catch abig one, right.
Well, that's, you know, I didn't, I didn't get that trait
till last week because normally,normally I 2 1/2 LB you to

(01:53:39):
death, but he's going to, he might only get one bite all day,
but it's going to be a 5 to 8 pounder, you know, So yeah.
Did not to put any pressure on him, but do you think he'll be
doing this one day? You know, I think he has the the
love and the drive for it and hetalks about it a lot and he is

(01:54:00):
kind of he is kind of strugglingwith the Ford facing sonar thing
as well, Dave. And I know that's great today
for a 13 year old kid because he'll literally say to me that
that it's the coolest thing he'sever seen, right?
It's cool to be able to throw your bait out of fish and watch

(01:54:21):
what happens and catch that fishand things like that.
But then he'll look right at me and I know he's truly feeling it
cuz I can just see it in his eyes that he's like, dad, this
is this isn't right. This we shouldn't be able to do
this. And then I'll say, let's go skip
some docs, you know, I mean, so he's kind of struggling with the

(01:54:42):
whole thing too. And then I catch him saying that
if I'm going to try to do this in the future, I have to learn
for facing sonar. And that kind of breaks my
heart. You know, I mean, to think that
the way I learned how to fish that that might not even mean
anything to him. I mean, he knows that he sees it

(01:55:05):
with me every day. But for him to potentially have
to not learn the history of bassfishing or techniques or
seasonal patterns or crankbait colors, or why we do this when
the water is rising or falling, to think that he may never have
to worry about that again, that freaking breaks my heart.

(01:55:28):
Yeah, I think there's, I still think there's many chapters to
be written on that. Like I, I, I think we live in a
world where people think that boom, this decision, you know,
like Bass is obviously, I mean, our decision was not a decision
really, you know, we just made the screens 55 inches, which is

(01:55:50):
a big TV in most people's houses.
So it's like, I mean, we really just stopped science projects.
But I honestly feel that in time, if it becomes evident that
that's the way it's got to be without it, I, I think everybody
evolves. Like, I mean, my vote, you know,
where I was, I wanted it. I mean, I don't have a vote.

(01:56:10):
But when I said my vote, I mean,my thought was I wanted us to
have a limited period of time similar to what MLF did.
I wanted the last two hours of the day.
I didn't want to be choosing times.
I wanted at 1:00 till three. That is time where you can use
it. And, and I still think that
makes a very compelling tournament because all day I'm

(01:56:31):
watching you catch them as you're catching them.
And I'm a Bill Lowen fan. Well, now I want to see if you
know, though I've even more interest in the guys that are
using it to just see that they won't catch you if I'm you're a
fan, you know what I mean? But once again, we learned I
don't have a lot of pull with things because absolutely nobody

(01:56:54):
went for that except even Matt. Heron told me afterwards that
was a good idea, but before? But before he was too adamant.
Like it needs to go away totally.
Well, I don't, I don't know if it needed to go away totally, at
least at this point. But I think overall the general

(01:57:14):
consensus of the field was, hey,let's do half the season with
it, half the season without it, do a random draw on what events
get it and see how it works out.You know, see the guys that
dominate Ford facing seminar cancatch them fishing
traditionally, not old school traditionally or see if the

(01:57:36):
traditional guys can catch them.We're facing sonar deals.
You know what I mean? Let's let angler of the year be
decided on the best well-roundedangler.
And that would have been, to me,that would have been the best
scenario that we could have possibly played out because
everybody would have still been happy and the whole world

(01:57:57):
wouldn't have hated us, you know?
I don't think the whole world hates us, Bill.
Well, I mean, maybe the world you're hanging out with in this
week, but not the whole world. And I think that world should
love us. Well, it's just that the forward
facing sonar is just a such a touchy situation because it is.
You either get praised for your opinion or you get crucified.

(01:58:20):
And I've been on both ends of the spectrum and, you know, so
just got to be careful. Yeah, no, I I hear you.
And I think as long as your thought, where it gets muddy is
when people start making thoughts just solely based on
them. And, and that is a plight of
tournament anglers and that's a plight of human nature in

(01:58:40):
general. Like if you say to a group of
people that sell insurance, we're going to do this, I mean,
if it benefits them, they'll like it.
If it doesn't, they might not. But I think as long as you're
looking at what's right for the sport, for the future, you're
doing the right things. And, and I, I think, I think 5

(01:59:02):
years from now, it could totallylook different.
It could look, I, I just, I feellike it's going to continue to
evolve. And, and I agree with you.
Ultimately, I want the angler ofthe year.
I want to know that that person's been tested in every
way. I want to know, like, I mean,
we've all seen people go up north that had a great season

(01:59:25):
largemouth fishing. They go up north and they falter
off because they can't catch small mouths.
Well, you don't want that guy towin angler of the year vice and
vice versa. You know, I don't want a small
mouth heavy scheduled guy to putlike you want everybody tested
in every single way. And I I agree with you.
Every other event would have been fine.
Whatever, We'll we'll see what it is, but it's working out good

(01:59:49):
for you right now. Yeah, I'm not getting involved
in any more of this drama. I'm just going to go fish.
See. Good.
Yeah, so smart, Yeah. Screw that drama doesn't do
anything for the people that I mean.
Ultimately you got into this to love it and fought like you're
due. You could have been a had a much
safer, easier life in some ways if you just took a regular job,

(02:00:13):
but any time you spend. Not enjoying it is means you're
doing the wrong thing. So, and, and you know, every
morning I get up and put that boat in the water.
It doesn't feel like I'm going to work, but it is definitely
without a doubt the hardest job I've ever had.
Oh hell yeah. I don't know if you know this
day, but I installed flooring full time before I did this.

(02:00:36):
I didn't I. Installed everything but ceramic
tile. And the reason that I chose to
install flooring was, you know, my dad had done that most of his
life. And as basically with
subcontractors and things like that, what, what that did was
give me my freedom to be able totry to qualify for the elites or
whatever that may be where I didn't have a boss telling me I

(02:00:59):
had to go, go to work. You know what I mean?
Dad was my boss, and we set it up like that so I could hammer
out some jobs, pay the bills, pay entry fees, you know, doing
opens and things like that, and then come back and hammer it out
another job, you know, I mean, but yeah, like I said, it

(02:01:20):
doesn't feel like you're going to work every day.
But it is probably the hardest job I know.
It's the hardest job I've ever had.
Not so much physically, but mentally, mentally, this sport
right here will kick you right in the face.
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's not easy.
It's not easy, but you're doing something you love and I love

(02:01:41):
seeing that you love it again because you did go through a
little bit of AI mean you're notthe only one.
A bunch of people went through it, but it's awesome to see your
whole family rewarded. And what better way to tell you
you're in the right space than to kick off the season with a
win. So I hope that you keep on

(02:02:02):
kicking ass and I know you will.And I just wanted to say
Congrats and I've already kept you longer than I promised.
I know you got a busy week aheadof you.
Oh, good. It's, it's, it's fine.
It's, it's just part of the deal.
You know what I mean? Look, if I got to stay on
podcast and radio shows and answering phone calls or

(02:02:24):
whatever, I'll, I'll take it every single time because blue
trophies are very rare. Like I said, you can never take
it for granted and this stuff just comes with it, you know
what I mean? He might as well not fight it,
just embrace it and make the best out of it that you can.
Well, hopefully this wasn't thatpainful, Bill.

(02:02:45):
Oh, not at all. I just always, you make me
nervous because I don't ever know what you're going to ask or
what you're going to say. What did I ask them?
Shocked. You nothing yet.
Well, I mean, I'm trying to end it.
I mean, I'm trying to let you goto bed, Bill, try to let you eat
dinner. Yeah, I already, I already did
that. I'd make sure I did that before
I got on here with you. OK, good.

(02:03:05):
As long as your priorities are straight.
No, I wouldn't. I don't think, dude, I don't
ever have conversations where I I mean, I ain't looking for
that, you know what I mean? I just try to have a real, I
mean, I try to have the same conversation that I think I'd
have to with you if me and you read into each other and we
said, Hey, let's sit down and eat dinner.

(02:03:27):
I'd probably ask you some of thesame questions.
You know what I mean? Like the Matt Heron question
that isn't, I mean, dude, I thought about that a lot this
week. I'm like, how's that like for
Bill to be going this way and Matt to be going this like it's
it's just a real weird thing, but it's.
Absolutely. Yeah, for.

(02:03:47):
Sure, part of life, but let's dothis again sometime when you're
not in the middle of tournaments.
Absolutely. All right, all right.
Sounds good. It's been fun, Yeah, I've
enjoyed it. Appreciate you having me.
I know it's been a long time coming.
We've tried before and. We have tried.
Yeah. We've tried.
I want to, I want to do 1 where I get get into your past.

(02:04:09):
Like I want to find out, like I want to hear that story about,
you know, working with your dad and all that, sort of like, I
mean, I don't, I didn't know youwere in the flooring and stuff,
but we don't have time for that tonight.
But but I do want to let's when we're away from stuff, let's
honestly make this happen. Absolutely man, like I said,
appreciate you as always and look forward to the next time.

(02:04:31):
Always good dollar Bill Lowen, Jake Latondres.
It's happening again. We are back and I'll be honest,
I'm kind of got to try McKinney vibe happening this morning.
I feel like I got sleep in my eyes.
But hey, hopefully I pull it together during the tournament
like he does. It's early.

(02:04:53):
Yeah, I mean, I it's early here and then I realize it's much
earlier for you 5 in the morning, right?
It's 5:20 AM right now. Yeah.
So for any of our fine viewers, thank you for tuning in.
But if you ever think that, we don't care about you.
Exactly. There's a lot of stuff I
wouldn't get up the day after a three-week road trip and do, but

(02:05:17):
we're doing this. It's good, good to have you
back. Thank you.
I do have the CRUD too, so just bear with me a little.
Bit. Oh wow.
I make cough and hack and. Spit Some people love the sound
of phlegm moving through the human body.
It's authenticity, right? It was good to be back on the

(02:05:40):
road, man. I meant I, you know, as as as
much as we might enjoy the beginning of offseason, when the
offseason's over, I'm always really ready to get back on the
road and get back into the wholeBass family, the travelling
carnival. See, I'm not, I'm the opposite.

(02:06:01):
I mean, I love it when I get back, but like there's a part of
me that's like, I'm good at home.
Like I really like it at home. And and then I'm good in the
road. Like once I get on the road, I
really like it. But I don't have that where
people are like, oh, can you notwait for like, thank God it

(02:06:22):
happened now? I mean, I was about to go stir
crazy. I'm like, no, I could have just
lived at home forever. But I do love it.
Once it's back, I'm over. I'm over winter by by the end of
June, where I'm over winter, dude, I'm ready to go to Texas
or Florida or Louisiana. It.
Sucks. It really does it.

(02:06:42):
Really. Does long winters man.
I mean, those are probably longer than mine on the Front
Range of Colorado, but mine are long enough.
Yeah, this dude, we had more snow the week before I left for
Florida than we had all last year, so we've been getting it
just hammered with snow all. Year you have piles of snow

(02:07:03):
outside. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just, it's stupid. It's stupid.
Which makes me think America should rethink this whole first
aid thing, really. I mean, we love Canada, but if
we were buying another, we wouldn't be buying more of this.
I mean, we buy a tropical island.
It's a lot of travelers scraping.

(02:07:30):
So yeah, we're both back. We're hiding from the snow.
But now we're back in the snow. And which is always weird to me.
Dude, I don't know about you, but I am.
The more I travel, you think I would get used to it.
But I do feel weird after you'vebeen in Florida for two weeks,
you're like, that's going to be nice at home and then you come
home and you're like, no, I justtried it in jet skis for

(02:07:50):
snowmobiles. Everything is frozen and but it
was definitely beautiful to be in Florida.
And thankfully, Florida showed up in at Okeechobee because the
St. John's River did not feel like
freaking Florida. That's for.
Sure feel like like Illinois or something.
Yeah. That did not feel like, can we
talk? Can I mention that you went

(02:08:11):
shark diving? Did you go?
Yeah, I did. I did.
It was awesome. It was awesome.
That is a bucket list check markthat I have not checked off my
list yet. So I'm what?
I'm envious. You actually.
The day before I went, you said to me, you said so like you're
going in a cage and I'm like, no, no, I'm just, I'm, I'm
swimming with them. I'm one with the shark.

(02:08:33):
And you were like, I wouldn't dothat.
Like you told me how you'd like to go see great whites in a
cage. I want it, I want to go, I want
to go cage diving Guadalupe to see the biggest great whites in
the world. But I would do what you did in a
heartbeat. Thanks for inviting me.
You said you wouldn't. You said you.
Wouldn't not say I wouldn't do that.

(02:08:55):
I said I want to go cage diving out of here on the.
Internet I wouldn't cage dive dude that's bait lowering if you
ask me like to lure in these sharks.
We do have a chum box, and I mean literally it's you're.
It's just like shark fishing, except you're swimming in the
jump. But I don't know, I protect

(02:09:17):
yourself. At least I feel like my
nimbleness down and below can help me if salutation comes up.
But you probably don't want to move too fast, do you?
Because you don't want to be like a crankbait for a bass.
No, no, you want to just just slowly move around and, and that
that's how they move. I mean, that's how fish move
under the water. All fish generally, like, we all

(02:09:38):
think of them as darting and doing things because we've grown
up watching, you know, these underwater eats and tanks and
stuff where a fish just comes upand car smokes it.
And my thing with under the water is everything slow, like
everything. I mean, the world down there is
literally Walking Dead. You just move slowly.

(02:10:03):
You try not to make noise, you try to eat and not be.
But yeah, no, it was awesome. It was one of the coolest
things. You know, I was deathly afraid
of sharks before it. And now it's kind of like become
a new obsession for me. Like I really I'm.
It's very cool. It was very, very cool.

(02:10:25):
Not at all like the freshwater stuff.
Like I was like, man, maybe it'll replace that.
I'm just I was going to ask you,yeah.
Is it boring now that you're nowwhen you go to freshwater to to
swim with small mouth bass, you're going to be.
Bored. No, no, it it's, it's like the
opposite. Like when I'm freshwater, it's

(02:10:47):
calm, it's relaxing. Like I get lost in a world of
like, I just check out like, youknow, you don't think of
anything and you're just thinking of what's in front of
you and and you just you know, you carefree shark thing.
It's a different feeling. I mean, you are freaking

(02:11:09):
swimming with sharks and you know that that fish, it's like
literally I had a bull shark that was a foot away from me,
like just staring at me. I had a bull shark swim
underneath me, which is really weird because they come from
behind it and like I'm looking and, and it's like right there.
Like it's like where the microphone is and I go and wow,
it, it. So yeah, I know it's, it is

(02:11:30):
freaking really, really cool, but it's not at all the same.
Feels like, totally different, like fresh water.
Swimming is like being married. You know, I'm, I love my life at
home. It's very relaxing.
It's, you know, I can just absorb it and fish.
Swimming with sharks is like dating a stripper.

(02:11:50):
Very volatile. Never know when you're going to
get bit. I mean, you're going to.
Or eating alive sooner. Or later the bike's coming, you
just hope it doesn't come at you.
Sharks don't really care about your wallet though, right?
No, no, no, no. It's not like that.
It's not like, not like that. That's way cool man.

(02:12:13):
I should have thought that through, but it seems about
right. That's really cool.
I, I, I'm definitely envious, envious of that.
Now I got to go do it. All right, all right.
Well, next year in Florida, I mean, everybody wants to go.
There's going to be a whole parade of people.
A boatload of people, none of the sharks are going to show up
because there's going to be too many people in the water.

(02:12:33):
Well, and that's, I'll be honest, that's why I didn't
invite anyone because there was a high likelihood I could have
chickened out. I didn't.
I felt like if I was out there and I started to feel like a, I
don't know, I feel like I would feel a weird vibe or something
like, yeah, this probably isn't the right thing to do.

(02:12:55):
I never felt that. So it it was good.
It was awesome. It was really weird because I
couldn't go the first day. Like we had to cancel the first
day because of weather. So it's real weird to just hang
out for a day and be like, yeah,I'm going to swim with sharks.
I'm potentially extending my stay to do this.
I felt like somebody was giving me an out and I didn't take it.

(02:13:18):
But it is freaking awesome. They're awesome creatures.
I swam with a bunch of those badboys.
Tiger sharks. Bull sharks.
Bull sharks, Yeah. What's?
Excuse me? There was a couple lemons showed
up. You swam with the good ones.
Yeah, Yeah. There was sand tail sharks.

(02:13:42):
There was, you know, a lot. It's here's what's really weird
when you see them, because you're in like 100 and 8200 feet
of water, you're at like this edge.
Gets dark at. The bottom, yeah.
And when you see them coming up and you're like, there's some
that never come up, like there'ssome that you just see and
you're like. And there was people on my trip
that like you didn't know any like they.

(02:14:04):
I mean, they were just oblivious, like, hey, we're out
here with sharks and not I was felt I was very aware at all
times. So I was always watching like I
was. And that's what you learned from
the guys I went with. Like they never ever take their
eyes off. And that's the whole thing.
Like under the water sharks, everything looks at a shark.
The only thing that doesn't lookat a shark is a bigger shark.

(02:14:28):
So you're, you got to keep eye contact with them at all times.
And that's when the one like is right in front of me.
I'm just like staring at it like, and they're like, just
stare through its soul. Don't ever look away from it.
So yeah, allegedly it worked. I'm here and I loved it.
That's so cool. I follow a guy named Andy Casa
Grande who does, of course, you do Shark Week stuff and you

(02:14:52):
know, he's he, I've always thought that he did a red
commercial for Red cinema cameras one time.
And it was a sort of a really short biography about himself.
And, and this was like 10, maybe12 or 13 years ago when I saw
that, I just thought that guy, that's who I want to be.

(02:15:13):
That's what I want to do. And he's been an inspiration for
a very long time. And even when I was a kid, 567
years old, in kindergarten, first grade and 2nd grade, I
used to draw sharks jaws on the front of my notebooks.
Like Jaws. The fawns from Happy Days and
Elvis were my 3 heroes in my childhood.

(02:15:33):
So Needless to say, yeah, that'sreally cool you did that, Dave.
Well, thank you. Thank you.
It's supposed to. You're supposed to.
I mean, it seemed like a better idea when I was in Canada.
Let me face my fears. And now, but yeah, no, it was
very cool. I actually weirdly enough, like
during the event I'm like, I wouldn't you know, cuz several

(02:15:55):
times we've been in Florida, we've cancelled days and I've
just kind of sat around the hotel.
I'm like, they cancel the day. I'm, I know who I'm calling.
That's like an hour and a half drive and I'm going to do it
again so. No doubt.
Of course they didn't cancel a day.
It would never be convenient. I'm going to.
Get your I'm going to get the guy's number.
Is he, does he do shark tours? That's what he does.

(02:16:18):
Yeah, OK. Yeah, no, they're great dudes,
great dudes. And yeah, it's a very cool, very
cool thing to do. So did.
You film it. I didn't.
They did. They got some video and some
stills of it. By the time this is dropped,
I'll have already posted some ofthat.

(02:16:38):
It they said camera. They said sharks can act weird
around camera. So for your first one, you don't
want to bring in camera, but I would bring it next time because
there was a lot of stuff that they took some incredible shots,
but there was a lot of stuff that they didn't get, you know
what I mean? Because I mean, they're not just
there to film me. So like, I mean, when the shark

(02:17:00):
was a foot or two away from me, they'd, you know, I would like
to have a camera to get some of that.
But yeah, yeah, that's the future.
I'll do that in the future. Cool.
Well, let's. Let's talk about bass.
You want to? OK, Yeah.
Let's do that. St.
John's River. We kicked things off.
Talk to me. John Cruz was day one for me.

(02:17:23):
He won. Was it 2 years ago?
I was in his boat and yeah, I had John Cruz.
I had it seems like so long ago,Dave.
Yeah, it was before I even swam with sharks it.
Was John Cruz, Lee Livesey? I want to say something about
Lee and Jason Christie because Iwas with both of them in this

(02:17:46):
Florida swing, and those guys are becoming more and more
notorious on day three and getting themselves back in the
hunt for a top 10. Jason did it, you know, at
Okeechobee. But I just, I think they're
fascinating because they have this mindset when they go out,
when they bomb something, they get, I don't know that.

(02:18:07):
I mean, Lee gets pissed off himself and he just gets into
this zone. And I don't know what Jason
does, but they're both really good at making comebacks.
Do you notice that? Yeah.
Yeah. No, they are very good, Very
good. Tough to get him two days in a
row. Tough.
But no that I mean. That's great for their.

(02:18:28):
Career. Really.
It is. I mean, it is.
When you're sucking, stop sucking.
That's it. You.
You can't quit and give up and sulk.
You got to. Pick.
Yourself pull your pants up and get going and and you're never
out of it. I mean, there were some huge
comebacks in these tournaments this year.

(02:18:50):
Always in Florida, though. True enough, True enough.
Because the big bite, like it's all about the big.
Bite so if you. Catch an 8 pounder one day.
All of a sudden, you know thingschange and that that sounds
rudimentary, but that's Florida because it feels like everybody
has four fish for 9 lbs and the ones who really caught them got

(02:19:11):
a kicker. That's true.
My highlight. On the St.
John's really didn't. Even really start until I got
into Shane Lehews boat and I have never been with Shane
before. Baby shark.
Baby shark. Speaking of shark, yeah, but.
So. I I really didn't.

(02:19:31):
Even know him. But I I thoroughly.
Enjoyed myself. Great dude.
Great, great guy. Yeah, very cool.
Dude. There's a group.
Of them like he kind of. Except for some reason, he kind.
Of reminds me of Jordan Lee. They kind of have the same
personality. Do you get that?
Yeah. Like the whole like it's not

(02:19:52):
caring about. Anything really.
Like just. There's that focus.
On fishing and. You know that very.
Mellow. Yeah, I guess I could see that.
Well, he was, you know, he caught, I would say 90% of his
fish were bait. Garters.
And he was literally tracking balls of bait down with his

(02:20:14):
front facing sonar in those canals and the canals that he
had. Found he.
Really there I don't even think we, we rarely saw anyone else in
the canals that he was fishing for.
And I was with him for two days and there were literally
hundreds of these ball bait balls or not fry balls, fry
balls in in these canals and every one of them would have a

(02:20:39):
fry Garter and he was throwing, you know, jerk baits and it was
real. I've never.
I've never. Done that.
I've never, I've, I've been withpeople that have caught fry
garters many times, but never someone that was completely
focused and completely dialed into that pattern to catch his
fish. And of course they were, you

(02:21:01):
know, 3 to 4 LB males. So he had, he was still looking
for those, those that kicker fish to get him, to get him up
into the top 10. And you know, he, he, he managed
to catch a random fish every day, I believe to get him up
there. And that's how he ended up in
the top ten and the top the day he caught or the day at the top

(02:21:23):
ten, he was, I think he came outin 7th maybe on Sunday.
And he really was fishing loose.He, he didn't think he could,
you know, catch Bill Lowen, JohnGarrett was up there, Jay
Shakur, it was up there and, andShane was fishing really loose,

(02:21:45):
but, and he started to run out of bigger fry garters.
He was catching 2 1/2 pounders all of a sudden.
So we go back to this canal at like one o'clock 1:30 in the
afternoon. It was starting to get late and
he still wasn't nervous. He's just like, hey, man, this,
whatever. You know, if I upgrade, that's
what happens. And we come around this point
and he looks down at this big bed and there's a fish right in

(02:22:09):
the middle of it. He thought it was a carp.
So he goes, he looks a little bit closer.
He goes, no, no, no, no, that isa huge bass.
So he passes it comes, swings back around, pulls down and
flips for like less. Than 10 minutes.
And there's a buck in there, like a 3 1/2 LB male that's
guarding the bed. The female is like 5 feet away

(02:22:35):
from it so he flips. His.
Creature bait in there and just leaves it in the bed and this
female starts moving closer. Literally he was telling me you
could I I couldn't see it on hisfront facing sonar but but he
could it would just kept creeping forward and then it
would creep forward and every time he'd twitch it, it would
move like 2 inches closer. Finally, it got right up to the

(02:22:55):
bait and he popped it and she smacked it and it was a 7 1/2
pounder. And all of a sudden I'm looking
at when I punch his, I punch this 7 pounder or 7 1/2 pounder
into bass track. I look at the leaderboard, bass
track leaderboard, and I'm going, holy crap.
Bill Owens only got, I forget atthe time, two or three fish and,
you know, secure it and Shane Lehew are like catching up.

(02:23:19):
And I'm going, oh, my goodness, this is going to go down to the
wire. And that is exactly what
happened. It went down.
No one knew who was going to winuntil Bill Wade is fish, right?
Yeah. No, it was very close.
It was. I mean, we had several.
Ties throughout the top ten. Then when Shakur took the lead,

(02:23:40):
he had exactly what it took to take the lead.
One ounce different and we wouldadd another tie and then dollar
Bill pulled it off. I mean, I think Bill had three
ounces in the right direction. So yeah, it was one of the
toughest, tightest tournaments we've had in a long time.
A freaking incredible weigh in. Like that's what you want.

(02:24:00):
You want nobody knowing. You guys can't destroy it.
Freaking camera guys destroy a lot of things.
I was on my way back to the airport and we were what?
Cuz we had a flat out early. Sunday night and Brandon Feen
and I were watching it on his phone on the dash, and when Bill

(02:24:21):
weighed his fish, we both just went, yeah, we were obviously
rooting for him. I mean, I love Shane.
I love Jay, but Dollar Bill needed that win, did he not?
I mean, they all need to win. I mean, if you talk to Shane,
I'm sure he'll tell you he needed a bill he had.
One already, yeah. But no, it was a cool win.
I think it was a fun win. It was a cool event.

(02:24:46):
I mean, to see John Garrett weighing 31 lbs cranking was
awesome. I'm sure Bill didn't love it,
but yeah, I know it was a very, very cool event from start to
finish. I really enjoyed that.
I mean, both Florida events werereally, really cool.
And just prove to you again, like as often as people are like

(02:25:06):
this is how this is going to be 1.
Let the fish do the freaking talk.
And no doubt and I have, I have a.
Story about. John Garrett, Of course you do.
So there's a guy named Doug Alexander Who?
We met. At least I met on the dock at
the bronze fish statue at the dock at Palatka.

(02:25:29):
And it's dark. It's like the morning of day
one. He and his wife come up to me
and introduce themselves. They're talking about how much
they love your show. And they watch it religiously
every episode from start to finish.
And they're just really nice people.
And I remember only nice people watch this show.
Yeah, right. What the?

(02:25:53):
So so. A year goes by and Doug.
Well, I'd. Mentioned him on the.
Show on the Jake's Tank last year after the Palatka event and
just calling him out for being such a nice person and being a
fan of the show and all that. So prior to this show, he
contacted me and said, hey man, let's get together in Palatka,

(02:26:15):
I'll take you out to dinner. So we ended up going out to
dinner. Oh, wow.
Yeah. And on that was, I think it was.
The night of of. Day three, so he's telling me
the story. We're sitting in this.
Restaurant. He's telling me the story that
he actually grew up down near Astor where John Garrett was
fishing. He just happened to be John

(02:26:38):
Garrett's Marshall that day, on day when he caught the 31 lbs.
And the seawall that he was cranking was the seawall where
his grandfather, I believe it was his grandfather or his, his
uncle, I think it was his grandfather owned that.
That's where his grandfather used.
To take. Him fishing when he was a little

(02:26:59):
boy, literally sitting on that seawall with his feet dangling
off, fishing with his grandfather precisely on the
exact spot where John Garrett was catching all those fish.
And I'm like, what are the odds?What are the odds of that
happening that you get the Marshall, you go catch 31 lbs on
a spot and it's that guy's childhood fishing hole.

(02:27:21):
I mean, I, I just thought that was incredible.
And it's worth mentioning on theshow cause Doug's a really nice
guy. Was it nicer when he fished it
or was it still like chain link and very industrious?
I don't know. We'll have to talk to Doug and
ask him. I'm sure he's, you know.
Oh, get it out, get it out of here.

(02:27:41):
Oh my God. I'm sure he'll chime in.
And have some comments in the comments section of the show so
we'll find. Out, yeah.
Well, hey, thanks for watching Doug, and thanks for buying
Jake. Lunch or dinner, whatever it
was. Did he pay?
He did what the I know we had a huge dinner and Bryant Smith.

(02:28:03):
And. And David?
Gaston told me to. To order the onion rings.
And. And because they were, they just
could not stop talking about howGray the onion rings were in
this restaurant. So I did.
And I ended up having gas for three days.
So thanks. The gift to keep.
Yeah. Oh, good.

(02:28:23):
Get it out. Get it out.
There we go. Oh, that'll make you feel
better. So those are cool stories, and
I'm glad that this show is getting you some dinners.
That's great to hear, yeah. Congratulations to Bill Lowen.
Yeah, big. That was a huge win.
I. Remember at Pickwick, when he

(02:28:43):
won, we're talking, you know, everyone was talking about how
it took him 16 years to get finally get that blue trophy and
all of a sudden now he's got twoof them.
That's pretty cool. Yeah.
Yeah. He it was a cool victory.
For him it. Was his screen.
Cool event for the whole. Family.

(02:29:06):
It's wild, I mean. In the time.
We've worked for Bass. His daughter has gone from being
the kid that is in a stroller toa kid that's pushing around all
the little kids. It it's really cool.
It really is. But Congrats to Dollar Bill.
He's going to be on this show, so we're going to talk to him
about that. A great event, not without the

(02:29:30):
controversy, though. There's always.
Oh yeah, there always is. Now there's always drama, always
is. Matt Heron got.
Disqualified from that event. So that that's a big story.
And is that a DQ in each event so far?
Yes, we have. We have and.

(02:29:51):
And we may have more down that rabbit hole.
I mean, we can. I mean, I'd have nothing to
hide. I mean, I only have heard.
Decide. From like, I mean Matt has
another side, allegedly. Like I mean, I actually ran into
a. Mexican restaurant of all.
Places while I was at Okeechobeeand he came up and said hey,

(02:30:12):
we'll talk after and we haven't talked yet but we will.
But there's another. There's always two sides to
every story, but bottom line from what I know is he failed 4
polygraphs in a row and. Then revealed a couple.
Of stories which I don't even need to get into the details of

(02:30:37):
the stories 'cause I don't know the exact details but.
They were conversations. He had with multiple people and
then passed. So I mean, I guess that's part
of the process of, but if you failed four, I mean, I really
like Matt, but you failed 4 freaking polygraphs.
And I get it. There's going to be people that

(02:30:57):
are like, well, you know, there's a reason that they don't
use. But well, guess what?
When you sign up to compete in the Elite Series, that's what
you sign up to. Can you know what I mean?
That's part of not just the Elite Series, all tournaments.
It's just always been part of how it goes.
And if you believe in polygraphsand he failed four times and

(02:31:21):
then. He passes.
The fifth one, after opening up about some stuff that just tells
me that in his head he felt likethere was some issues more to
the story so and I've heard he'swas on.
Medication. I've heard different things,
like, I mean, these are the things you hear.

(02:31:41):
Again, I'm not passing judgementon anybody.
I don't work for the tournament department, thank God, and no
doubt and I don't. But polygraphs are there for a
reason. People have anglers have been
screaming for more polygraphs, more stringent polygraphs.
That's what I was going to mention.
May be careful what you wish forbecause we're I, I'm my.

(02:32:04):
Prediction is that these won't be.
The only ones that we see I, I think and and again, I don't
think that Matt Heron I really Idon't want to think that Matt
Heron was knowing they doing things.
I think that it's just. Really.
Easy to get caught up in that 100%.
How long is too long? When someone's talking, where do

(02:32:27):
you cut them off? I.
Mean on on the water, when someone, there's always someone,
there's either a Karen or there's an informant that comes
down to the dock and they're like, I remember one time I
think I was with Edwin Evers. I can't remember.
I think we're on and I think we're on Conroe.
We're fishing boat docks or maybe Hartwell.

(02:32:48):
And they were. He was.
He was flipping a spinner bait in the boat docks.
And someone came down and. Said, hey man, there's a lawn
chair out there and there's a six pounder that lives on it.
And he already knew about the lawn chair.
He was waiting to get to it, to fish it.
And instead of fishing it because the guy, he said, look
man, I can't take any information and I'm really

(02:33:10):
sorry, but I can't, you can't tell me this stuff.
So he literally goes around the lawn chair and left it alone and
never even fished it. But if you knew about it, you it
shouldn't be a problem. I know but he, but you know to
his. Credit and his integrity level
he. Plus I was in the boat filling
him. It takes a lot of guesswork out.

(02:33:32):
Oh, get it out. Excuse me.
There you go. Excuse me?
But to his credit. He didn't.
He didn't argue the point. He just.
Let the rule be the rule. And he went around it and kept
going, so you know where? Where?
Do you stop the? Conversation, you know, there's
so much, I mean there, there's just so many scenarios you can
be in that it's like, would you not go on social media?

(02:33:57):
You can't, you can't accidentally, you know, run into
someone and they start saying something.
Where does where does it end? I've run a Yamaha outboard for
over 30 years. It has got me home safe each and
every. Time if you enjoy this podcast,
remember Yamaha supports it and they care enough about you to
make this ad read very short. Now back to the show.

(02:34:19):
Well, and I know it's an uncomfortable situation at times
where you have to cut somebody off, but truth be told, I mean
this again, the rule was createdthe way it was because of
angular input. This is what they want, and it's
also been over a decade that that rule like this is the same
rule that KVD. Competed under the.

(02:34:41):
Same rule like Edwin Evers competed under under everybody.
So it's not like all of a suddenit's harder.
I mean the to navigate your way through the no info rule.
It hasn't been a problem for a long time, but I, I think that,
you know, you're getting more random polygraphs, you're
getting more people are thinkingabout it more and the

(02:35:05):
enforcement's tighter now, right?
Yeah, it will. And and that's what anglers
wanted, I mean. Right.
They voted it in, right? Yeah.
And the initial thought everybody was like all these.
Rookies are getting all this information.
Well, it hasn't been the rookiesthat have popped off yet.
So it it's again, I don't have aa side in it.

(02:35:29):
I'm just telling you what I knowabout it.
And we want to clean things up. We don't want like.
Stop freaking cheating I. Mean bottom line, I mean, we
want and I'm not saying I mean that's just, I mean that's a
general that's not, but it it's I mean, I love the way Seth.

(02:35:53):
Fyder thinks Seth Fyder. Is like, well, if you're trying
to find. An advantage?
Or whatever, you're a cheater, so stop it.
Stop trying to. Let's just be pure and be real.
And we've probably already said way too much because somebody, I
just don't have the energy to argue with some dude on the
Internet that thinks we're targeting Scott Martin, which is

(02:36:14):
the dumbest ever. Like not to jump into the next
event, but Lake Okeechobee just name me Bass essentially is a
promoter correct? Agreed.
Right 100% that's what we do right?
Probably the slimiest promoter in history would be Don King.
I mean not the bassest slimy but.
Even the slimiest promoter in the world, Don King, does not

(02:36:36):
want to DQ Scott Martin. Trust me.
Like the the fact that, oh, they're just picking on Scott
because they don't want him to win.
Are you out of your mind? I mean, he's OK, let's take this
really good looking guy who's great on camera and has very
nice teeth and hair. And let's let's just imagine his
dad made this entire fishery exactly what it is.

(02:36:58):
Like 90% of the reason people know about it like Okeechobee is
because of his father who is a bass fishing Hall of Famer, a
fabled character. And guess what?
The good looking guy with the teeth and the hair, He also
kicked ass a year ago in said event in the open.
And so there's all this hype about can he do it on the
elites? Let's throw him out of the

(02:37:20):
tournament. Like dude, the furthest thing
from the truth. Actually to prove that like
earlier in the week. So bass live the whole crew and
everything. We get texts going back and
forth and emails where people will say, OK, this is who we're
covering. And Scott Martin wasn't on that
list, unbeknownst to us, why he wasn't on the list because this

(02:37:40):
was all going down. And there were several of us
that, like, immediately chimed in, why is there no camera on
Scott Martin? And we were just told that'll
come out. And it did come out.
So nobody was picking on him. And it.
It wasn't. I mean, trust me, I, I'm sure we
would have loved to have Scott Martin in that tournament.

(02:38:04):
I covered him when he won the Okeechobee Open last.
Yeah, you did. Yeah.
And it was a. Freaking phenomenal.
Event. In the the entourage at the at
the at the Marina and everythingwas just insane.
And when I got the assignment sheet for cameras, not that I

(02:38:25):
don't want to go out with Jason Christie, but I was fully
expecting to get Scott Martin asmy day one assignment and he
wasn't even on the list. And I was like, what the fuck?
What the what? What the fuck?
You know, if we were alone, I. Would say that.
Oh. Yeah, you'd love to swear alone.
Socially, he's a soapy. Potty mouth.

(02:38:46):
I don't hide it. I don't hide it.
Nobody's shocked. What the oh beep you did so.
Good up to that point, I know, but.
You talked me into it. But yeah, I was.
Really surprised and I knew. Nothing about it until I got in
Jason Christie's boat and and then it just kind of came out.

(02:39:08):
I said, oh, OK, OK, OK. And I didn't ask any questions.
I just heard about what happenedthrough the Grapevine.
So I really don't know Matt Heron's story.
I really don't know Scott Martin's story other than
there's just drama around it. And I feel bad for everyone
involved because yeah, whatever,you know, it sucks.

(02:39:28):
It sucks. And I watched, I did watch the
clip of Scott Martin on the halftime show with you and Kyle,
Jesse and you know, me and Davy Height.
But that, oh, that's right. I'm sorry.
That's who it was. And I and I felt bad for
everyone. Involved in the moment.
Because it was a little, it was awkward.
Well, yeah, it's there's some unanswered questions.

(02:39:51):
I mean, let's be honest. Because Scott was like, yeah, I
don't feel like I did anything wrong.
And I wanted to say, boy, so whydid you turn yourself in?
I mean, there's there's. Clearly he felt there was an
issue there. There's a lot of rumours.

(02:40:13):
Again, I do not work for the tournament department, so none
of this comes from the tournament.
Department A. Lot of rumours that there's a
video out there of Scott having said conversation.
I mean dude, if he didn't think that he broke a rule he wouldn't
have turned himself in. Scott Martin is a competitor.
He wants to compete, I mean. He I mean, if you think.

(02:40:36):
He didn't want to fish that event.
You're nuts. I mean, he wanted to.
I had some little kid come up tome.
Actually, it was very funny. At one of the morning takeoffs,
this little dude comes up. He's got a turquoise Scott
Martin challenge hat on and he like comes up.
It's like, dude, he was like a character from Talladega Nights.
Like, you know, I'm a hopped up dive Mountain Dew or I'm going

(02:41:01):
to come at you like a spider monkey.
Like he was like that. So he comes up, he's like, hey,
who's in charge of disqualifications around here?
And I'm like, what? What?
And I said, will that be the tournament department?
He said, it's not you. And I said, no, no, it's not me.
I'm not in charge of nothing. I just moved a hole that makes

(02:41:22):
the words. And he said, he said, well, I
want to talk to him. I said, well, because I knew
where he was going. I'm like, well, what do you want
to talk about? And he goes free.
Scott Martin, like OJ Sips. And so, yeah, I can get why
people are frustrated. It.
I mean. But again, if it was just a

(02:41:45):
misstep, you know what I mean, where people like, I was just
hanging around the shop having conversations and he he got kind
of caught. No, I mean, he why would he turn
himself in if that was the case?So hey, again, in every other
sport through violations, I don't think that that makes you

(02:42:05):
a bad guy. I just think that this is a rule
and it was clearly broken in both those situations.
I'm not saying that they intentionally were out there
doing whatever. I'm just saying they broke the
rule. I mean, dude, if you step over
the line in in any other sport, you you get a penalty and they

(02:42:25):
got a penalty. And it's just weird to me that
we live in a time where said penalty becomes, you know what I
mean? Like we did it to Ben Herron
because, well. Matt Heron been talking?
You see, they wanted to silence the dude.
If we were silencing people, Matt Heron would not be in the
top of the list, you know what Imean?

(02:42:46):
And then definitely. But they don't like good
looking, supermarketable people with nice teeth and hair.
No, they hate them. I mean what?
The. Exactly what you said earlier,
it's just, it's so bizarre. But.
It is the controversy behind it all.
Everything's controversial. It is.

(02:43:07):
Everybody's. We're a 5050 world dude.
Or a 5140? Nine at best.
You're never going to make everyone happy and it's just the
way it is, but. You know both of these.
Tournaments did go down old school traditional bass fishing.
So I hope all the viewers that were watching in live on Fox and

(02:43:29):
and Roku and on dot com were happy with the tournament.
We didn't hear anything about front facing sonar very much.
Well, I mean it was a player. It was a player in all of us,
but it I mean not. With Bill, I mean, he didn't
even turn his graphs on, but it it listen forward facing sonar.

(02:43:49):
I've learned one thing. It's way less offensive when
you're not throwing them inner, you know, so if you're throwing
a crankbait and a glidebait and stuff, it's not near as
offensive to people. But I would say this, the rumors
of the death of the crankbait were very prematurely spread.

(02:44:09):
Like in the offseason. You'd be like crankbait
companies are going under. Nobody's going to go try buy
that crankbait. He was catching them on.
It's sold out everywhere. It so yeah, crankbaits, it turns
out, still work. But Lake Okeechobee.
Who were you with? I was with Jason Christie.

(02:44:30):
I do have to go back. It just seems like so.
Long ago. Oh, I was with Jason.
Christie Day. One Bo Browning and John
Garrett. I was with Bo Browning day 2 and
John Garrett day three and day four and and I had a blast.
I always, always have fun with Jason.
Christie. He didn't catch him and I'll go

(02:44:52):
back to what I said about he andLee Livesey, the comeback kids.
I think he had like 813 or 811 on day one and I thought, well,
that's probably going to be middle of the pack just because
I could keep up with bass track and it kind of was.
And then he came back and caughtlike what, 23, 24 the next day?

(02:45:15):
I don't remember, I'll be honest.
Yeah, whatever it was he jacked.Him on day two shot himself.
Back up into the at least the top 15 and wherever he landed
and you know, it was, it was remarkable.
So what happened with Jason? He was in the right area, he

(02:45:36):
knew it, but when towards the end of the day, on day one, he
only had. You know.
Or 813 in his well, so he go, he's like, man, I hate doing
this, but I'm going to go back up into the crowd where everyone
else is fishing. And so he found a spot where it
wasn't too crowded and he gets into this little hole in the

(02:46:00):
reeds and literally slowed everything down.
Like. Times 5 completely just started
picking it apart and all of a sudden he jacks a 5 1/2 and a
four. And that's what got him.
That's what got him the way he brought in on on day one or else

(02:46:21):
he would have had like 5 lbs, right?
So he goes back to that spot. I asked him what he did after
his weigh in on day 2 and he goes, dude, I went right back to
that same spot and I just literally picked every little
crack and crevice apart. And that's where he he literally
caught whatever it was 2320 four25 lbs right there in that same

(02:46:43):
little hole, no bigger than no bigger than a 1600 square foot
home and and caught all his fish.
So. That was pretty.
Cool and then down his cricket down as what slowed down as
cricket that's. What he always calls it.

(02:47:03):
Yeah, always, always cricket. Yeah, he.
Slowed it. He slowed.
It way down and then Bo. Browning I actually asked Wes.
Dude I've been friends with him just because I cover the high.
School and college circuits at the end of.
The years as well and I haven't really known him known him, but

(02:47:23):
he's he's always very polite. He's always very professional
and he came up to me at I think the Pickwick, the Pickwick
bracket challenge or something and introduced himself.
And I've always thought, you know, I covered his dad when he
was over on the elites and always thought a lot of BOW and
how he handled himself and, and how well he's done in high

(02:47:45):
school and college. So when I saw him on in the top
10 on day three, or I'm sorry, day 2, I asked Wes if he would
put me in his boat just so I could spend the day with him.
And we had an absolute blast. He was mostly throwing a chatter
bait to isolated reeds and he caught some fish.

(02:48:06):
He didn't have a great day, but I had a wonderful day with him
and we talked a lot, especially on live.
We talked a lot about, you know,the influence that his dad has
had on him, both from a fishing perspective and a professional
businessman perspective. Excuse me?
It hit home. It hit home with me because.

(02:48:28):
As a. Dad, you know, I have two
daughters and a son, and I'm trying to do the right thing as
a dad. And when I see inspired young
men like that or young ladies, Ialways want to know, what did
your parents do to make you be this good at what?
What you are Not just from a fish.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bend over.

(02:48:49):
Oh, wow. You wear leather belt, but you
know. It was, it was interesting.
It was interesting to hear his his perspective about his dad
and how much he does appreciate what Steven and his and his mom
have done for him and all the support he's he's gotten from

(02:49:09):
them. And I really hope that Steven
qualifies through the Opens because he's fishing the EQS now
and he wants to come back. And I just think it would be an
amazing situation for he and hisson to be fishing at the elite
level at the same time. I think that would be really
cool. Would be very cool, very cool.
A lot of guys trying to do that.I mean Laker Howell trying to

(02:49:29):
fish with Brandy Howell. Yes, there's a few.
It's it's it's odd for me. I keep calling Steven the soccer
dad and I mean every morning andI'm like, did you slice up the
oranges this morning? You know how you bring those to
soccer when your kids playing? But it is weird to see.
It was super cool to see Bo way in a big bag during that

(02:49:52):
Okeechobee event. And like on stage, dude, he's
literally vibrating and and I looked down in the front row and
there's Steven Browning taking avideo of him.
It's just really cool. It's very caught like 2513 or it
was like basically 26 lbs. I mean, he jacked.
Him and I, that had to feel is adad.
If you're Steven and your son's coming in and he's walking up on

(02:50:14):
the stage knowing he's got a giant bag, that has to be an
amazing feeling as a dad. So kudos to you, you guys, the
Browning family. You guys are freaking awesome.
Love y'all good people, good people, good people.
So Bo brought him for a couple days and then you.
Spent or for a day and then you spent what the.
Last two days with. John Garrett I did, and it's

(02:50:35):
always fun to hang with John because he's my Tennessee
homeboy. We grew up like. 45 minutes from
each other. He's from Union City and I grew
up in Camden, TN on Kentucky Lake so we always have him and
he's a big duck hunter. I love to duck hunt, so we
always have a blast and particularly on on the last day,

(02:50:56):
you know, he and he and John Coxhad the the one area to
themselves. For.
For three day or four days basically.
And it was like we rolled up into this little, this Cove,
this is actually a pretty good sized Cove with all these
isolated patches of Lily lilies.I was like, the first thing I

(02:51:18):
thought to myself was this is a bass fishing paradise.
I wish I had one pond, just a little small private lake that
looked just like this in Colorado for my son to fish.
Because this is what you think about when you're fishing in
Florida. That's what I think about when
you're fishing Florida flipping pads.
And, and it was, you know, he was when we first pulled up in

(02:51:42):
there, he said I may have run out of fish, you know, with John
Cox in. Here we.
Both caught all of our bags in here.
We had big bags every day and I don't know if there's any left.
So he had nothing else to offer himself.
So he just put his trolling motor down, put his head down
and started flipping. He was throwing a swim jig

(02:52:05):
around as well and but I think he caught most of his fish on
that last day on flipping those pads and I think, you know, he
pretty. Much emptied the whole place.
But he found one spot over on the I guess it would be the
north, the Northwest, the northwest side of that little

(02:52:29):
area that he had. And he went.
To and he never he hadn't fishedat the entire tournament and
literally started getting bites and that's where he caught
pretty much all of his big fish on on day four.
It was fun. I I love John Garrett.
He's a really good fisherman. He's a great guy.
He's a great guy. Progressive bass master.
Angular year leader. Me and him were talking at

(02:52:51):
Okeechobee because we have to doa show together.
We've talked about it forever because his grandmother wrote
like the nicest viewer feedback e-mail on She watches this show
all the time. His grandfather comes to the
events like he showed up at Okeechobee.
He went to every event with him in the opens and they're just
like the great people. So yeah, no.

(02:53:16):
So John Will. Be on this show.
In the next couple weeks, we're already setting it up for many
reasons, because I mean, I don'tlike to piss off grandparents
and if grandparents like the show we're going to get your kid
on, how cool is that? How cool is that?
I mean, very. So we're going.

(02:53:37):
To do that, and then to make matters even.
Better. I'm like, we're, we're already
cooking up doing a show togetherand he sees a UFO and I'm like,
Oh my God, we need to do this for sure.
So we're going to get into that with him and all sorts of
things. But he is.
Then I'll save that and let him tell tell you the story about
the UFO. He told it to me twice on.

(02:53:57):
Live and generally it was that live prodding that was when we
were on live he. Started talking about fishing.
I'm like, shut up. Just tell me about the damn UFO.
I mean the way he described, it's like, how do you not?
He's not. Lying what he saw.
Was real. He's like, how do you not

(02:54:17):
believe him? At least with what he saw.
He doesn't know what it was, butit was, it was pretty weird when
he tells a story. Yeah.
I I don't think John Garrett knows how to lie other than
about fishing lures. Like he, I mean, he'll lie to
you. There, dude.
Oh, oh, yeah. What was it?
That's what it was at at Palatka.

(02:54:38):
I talked to him after he he caught that 31 lbs.
He came off the stage. And I was just standing.
There at the bottom of the stairwell and he goes, I didn't
even, I just gave him a hug and a high 5 and he goes, dude, I
caught him on a 5 1/2 inch hair jig.
I want no way. And he goes, yeah, Can you
believe that? And then Craig Lamb comes up to
me and he goes, no, he didn't. He caught those cranking.

(02:55:00):
He lied to you for no freaking lied to me in my face.
I'm like, I didn't even ask him.What?
He was catching them all. He loves to.
He loves to lie. About Lures loves to.
I forgot to pick that bone with him.
At at Okeechobee I I love how he.
Loves like he and he doesn't hold back like he'd be like, Oh
yeah, we all lie. We all lie about our lures.

(02:55:21):
So that's the truth. Yes, that is the truth.
That is the truth. So our.
Eventual champion at Okeechobee.Obviously Brandon Polnik weighed
in. The biggest 5 fish ever waited
in Lake Okeechobee in an Elite Series event.
And then I was speaking with hisfamily the day before and

(02:55:44):
they're like, hopefully tomorrow's easy.
And I'm like, it won't be. It never is.
Not something's going to happen.It won't be.
And sure enough, it wasn't. Turns out he didn't even need to
fish the last day. So for the second year in a row,
I mean, my entire career, somebody always loaded the hot
seat. For the second year in a row, we
have somebody win a four day tournament in three days.
Polnik is your champion and two great champions from the state

(02:56:10):
of Florida. What do you what what, what else
can you say about Brandon Polonik?
And now his his daughters and Tiffany and his mom is coming to
events. And Brandon Polonik.
I've said it before and everyonesays it probably to nauseam, but
the guy is just the prodigy. Is the, the the best nickname

(02:56:35):
that he could possibly have And he's an amazing even he's a he's
a better human being than he is a fisherman and everyone knows
how great he is at bass fishing.And I, I did want to share this,
if you don't mind. I've ridden, I used to ride with
Brandon a lot and I thought, youknow, maybe I'll be be in his

(02:56:58):
boat Day 2 at Okeechobee, but hehad a different assignment.
David Pennington ended up covering him and he did a
wonderful job. And Tiffany asked me, he goes,
how come you don't ride with Brandon anymore?
And I. Said honestly.
The truth of the matter is everybody loves Brandon so much

(02:57:18):
that he's probably the most sought after angler in the
camera trailer that everybody wants to be in the boat with
him. So I just stay out of the way.
I love Brandon, I love riding with him and for so many
reasons. The last time I rode with him
was at the last Ray Roberts classic And and I'm going to

(02:57:39):
tell two stories real quick. And then I got to go because I
got to get my kids to school. But we were at, we were, you
know, we were trailering back tothe arena.
At Ray Roberts. And it was hot.
There was no. Wind it was.
June it was, it was the year COVID and it was freaking
miserably hot on the lake. And I don't think he had a great

(02:58:00):
day. But we're all me.
Kyle, Tiffany and Brandon were in the truck pulling his boat
back to the arena. And I've got a live camera on
him and we're we're in a trafficjam, literally at a bumper to
bumper standstill. And there's a white van on the
shoulder of the passing lane side that's hauling ass down the

(02:58:24):
shoulder. Brandon looks at his rearview
mirror and he goes, who is this jerk?
And he kind of pulls his truck out to stop him and.
And Brandon, yeah, that's the first time I've ever seen
Brandon act like that. And the guy stops right at
Brandon's truck and he rolls hiswindow down and he goes.
And Brandon rolled his window down.
He goes, oh, my God, you're Brandon Polnick.

(02:58:44):
You're my freaking hero. I drove all the way down this
shoulder just to come see your truck and say hi to you, man.
And so. Brandon felt bad, but my, my
other. Story My last story about him.
It it hits me pretty hard because I covered him at

(02:59:04):
Champlain when he won during theCOVID year and his his first
year back and I had gotten a FaceTime call from my.
Wife my now. Ex-wife between the Saint
Lawrence River and the Champlainevent, Facetiming me, telling me
that we were going to get divorced, we were going to file

(02:59:25):
for a divorce. When I got back from Champlain,
I was hurt. Like obviously that's not what
you want to hear when you're on the road or ever in your life.
And so I had this emotional barrier that I had to deal with
during the two, two days off between the events and then for
four days at Champlain. I was totally distraught.

(02:59:49):
I didn't tell anyone. I boxed it up, compartmentalized
it inside because I had a job todo.
I really didn't know how to act.But I was not myself, obviously.
And so Paul, and it goes out andhe's just, he's just jacking
small mouth bottle rockets, big ones.
And. I filmed him for three days at

(03:00:10):
that event and on the last day, we all know what happened.
He caught what, 24 lbs And he, it was just insane bass fishing.
And then we come back across theriver and it was like Lake
Ontario out there. We just got beat to death.
He wins the tournament. And on my way to the airport, I
texted Brandon. And hopefully I'm not going to

(03:00:30):
get too emotional about this because it's been a while now,
but I texted Brandon and I said,man, I just want you to know
that I don't know that I could have or wanted, would have
wanted to be in anyone else's boat for this event.
And somehow God blessed me to bein yours.
You won the tournament the way you were fishing and the drama

(03:00:51):
in terms of the wind and the water and the big rocky cliffs
at Champlain where he was fishing.
And basically the, the very beginning of, of, you know, of
finding Marks and throwing at marks to catch small mouth
really kind of became glamorizedat that event because of the

(03:01:13):
that 45 minute window of of Bassett he caught that basically
won in the tournament. And it took my mind and my heart
and my soul away from what was going on in the drama in my life
and helped me focus on filming to what I think.
If I could say this about myselfwas the best filming job I've

(03:01:33):
ever done at any event in 14 years I've ever filmed for Bass
masters on the Elite tour. And it would it, it like I was
just, I was just, I was just dialed.
In to my camera. And what he was doing, I was
getting tight shots of his hands, his feet, the water
splashing on the front of the boat, his front, his

(03:01:56):
Hummingbird, everything. I was just, it was just, I was
just tuned in and it was becauseI wanted to do so well for
Brandon because of the person that he is.
Here's where it gets tough for me so.
I'm driving to the airport. In.
Syracuse and I texted him. I told him what happened.

(03:02:19):
I said, man, you don't know this, but I really needed you.
I really needed. You from a personal standpoint
and told him what had happened in my personal life.
So he wrote me this really cool text back, you know, he said.
Well, you know, I know you thinkthat about yourself and you

(03:02:41):
needed me, but I needed you too because I just come back to Bass
one. You know what, this is my first
win after coming back. And it was pretty emotional for
me, happy to be back. And I couldn't have asked for a
better cameraman to be in my boat to experience that.
And then when he got home, he sent me a package and it was one
of his BNP signature T-shirts ofthe Bottle Rocket small mouth.

(03:03:06):
And he let, he wrote me this note and I haven't pinned up on
a court board over in my editingstation.
It's been there ever since I gotback from that event.
Sorry, sorry. And it says Jake control the.
Controllables. Live in the moment, think deep,

(03:03:29):
smile often and catch bottle. Rockets.
BP and then down. At the bottom in APS.
It says and sip some whiskey. And these are these are
standards that Brandon Polnik lives by and even knowing.
Every single tournament that he does, whether.
He does well or he does. He doesn't do well.

(03:03:51):
These are the standards that he lives by and we talk about this
every time I do get in his boat.We talk about the standards,
particularly the control, the controllables and live in the
moment and think deep. And I just wanted to share that
with everyone because we all know how great he is as an
angler and we all know how greathe is as a person because he's

(03:04:13):
always there at the end of everyevent to congratulate the
winner. And he does that.
It's not fake. There's nothing fake about him.
It's all very real. And I just wanted to mention
that and tell that little story because I've never.
I've never talked about it. Before and now everyone knows.
So BP, thanks bro. That got deep.

(03:04:43):
No, he's a great. Dude, he's a great.
Dude a great. Champion and two great champions
from the state of. Florida.
What a way to start off the 2025Bassmaster Elite series.
Like honestly, when you think about it, get yourself together,
get let's blow your nose, do what you need to do I'm done.

(03:05:03):
I mean, you hopped up on Benadryl, estrogen levels are
all out of whack. Oh, thanks for that.
That'll Get Me Out of it, you jerk.
That's what friends are for. I know.
No, no. Great champions.

(03:05:24):
A great, great way to start. Great way.
To start the season, man, Yeah, and and before you.
Know it, it's. Freaking.
Bass Master Classic in two weekstime.
At Ray Roberts, Yes, Sir. Yeah.
So it'll. Be fun, it won't be as hot.
This year and totally different fishing because it's not going
to. Be in June, yeah.

(03:05:44):
It'll. Be better fishing for.
Sure. Unfortunately, BP won't be
fishing that class. It can be weird, I know, without
him in the classic, but him and Jason, Yeah, yeah.
There's a few. There's a few that you're using.
There's a show there. It's.
Not it ain't freaking easy. No, no, not.

(03:06:04):
One bit. It's not easy, man.
Especially. I mean, it never has been, but
man it is. Competitive as it has ever been
with all the new kids on the block coming up and older guys
fighting for their positions andeveryone in between.
Man, I'm, I'm, I'm really happy to be a part of Bassmaster and

(03:06:25):
I'm. I'm looking forward to the
classic. This is going to be cool.
And I'm really looking forward to next year in Knoxville.
Yeah, now going to be awesome, but it isn't easy.
You know what else isn't easy? Freaking.
Podcast, I mean, it's easy to take a week off.
It's easy to say I'm busy, I'm going shark swimming, but you
got to put a podcast out and sometimes you got to get up at

(03:06:47):
freaking 5:00 in the morning to do it.
And I appreciate you doing that,brother.
Thank you for having me and thank you for allowing me to.
Be a little bit a part of this. You have a great show and a
you're you're an amazing person yourself, Dad.
Thank you. Shut your mouth.
Shut up. Let's talk about you.

(03:07:08):
I got to go cook breakfast for. My kids, what are you making?
Is a like some. Freaking.
Super lean, never even touched an animal meat of some sort.
Like never even, you know, fat and like what are they they I
always I do cook wee wee beans. Edamame.

(03:07:31):
Edamame and sukiyaki. That's what they have for
breakfast. Where they go run a marathon.
Gosh. No, kids are we're up.
I do, I do cook healthy food formy kids and I'm I'm sure it'll
be it'll be eggs and and. Something else I cook, I, I make
them protein shakes a lot too. All right, all right, Shake

(03:07:53):
steak back in your life and I'm a happy camper.
Thank you, Dave. Thank you.
Bye. Well, that's it, that's all.
We laughed, We cried. We.
We we had a mega show. And I thank all three guests for
coming on here and open up beingas honest as they are.

(03:08:14):
I thank you guys for tuning in. Make sure to like, comment,
subscribe, do all those things to help stroke the algorithm.
I sure do appreciate all of you.It was great seeing everybody in
Florida. I look forward to seeing a bunch
of you at the Bassmaster Classic.
And As If this last three hours wasn't enough of me, guess what
you can get more of? This kind of.
Entertainment with Officially Unofficial, a brand new podcast

(03:08:37):
that I'm hoping hosting, hoping that you watch but also hosting
on bassmaster.com. It came out this past Monday,
the 2nd episode where we look atwho are the most superstitious
pros on tour. I am joined by Kyle Patrick,
Matt Robertson, Davey Height andBill Dance in that show and they
tell some, well, insane but awesome story.

(03:08:59):
So make sure to check that out on bassmaster.com.
Later on in the week. You'll be able to see it on
streaming platforms, whether it be Spotify, Apple, all you have
to do is subscribe to the Bassmaster channel, Bat Master
Podcast, Bass Master Podcast channel.
Sorry, my mouth is tired. I've talked a lot.
And you'll be able to see all the Bassmaster podcast.

(03:09:21):
So whether it's officially unofficial, what's the new TNZ
podcast hosted by Tommy Sanders,Mark Zona, a new one of those
coming out next Monday, or if it's inside Bassmaster hosted by
Ronnie Moore and Kyle Jesse. So make sure to subscribe to
that. Make sure to watch more of this
and do everything you can to keep stroking that algorithm.
And I'll do everything I can to jam all of these guests in

(03:09:44):
together and get you guys their thoughts.
Thank you for watching. Enjoy being have a great week.
And as always, Bob Cobb, take itaway.
Thanks for watching. Please like, comment and
subscribe. Because Bob Cobb of the Bass
Masters told you to. You here.

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