Most amateur athletes dream of making the professional ranks. Twelve year old basketball players have NBA aspirations, and there probably isn’t a high school quarterback alive who doesn’t want to make it to the NFL. The same goes for bass fishermen. 
Name any of the major reservoirs in Missouri – Lake of the Ozarks, Truman, Table Rock, Mark Twain, Stockton – and on any given Saturday during the spring and summer there’s a good chance a bass fishing tournament is taking place. These tournaments are rarely of the caliber you’ll see on ESPN. Mostly, they’re local or regional events playing host to a handful of weekend warriors unwilling to let go of the dream, that maybe, just maybe, someday fishing will pay their bills.
A good friend of mine, Steve Hanson, loves to bass fish as much as anyone I’ve ever met. Surely you know someone obsessed with a sport. There has to be a golf addict in your network of family and friends, right? Bass fishing can be just as addictive, and Hanson has it bad.
Small in stature but huge in heart, the kind of guy to give the shirt off his back, Hanson is a maintenance technician at a community college in southern Indiana. He keeps food on the table and a roof over his family’s head, all the while treating his daughter as a princess, but he’s far from wealthy. And bass fishing isn’t cheap.
“Fishing tournaments is expensive, man,” Hanson said, “but it’s like organized gambling. You think if you play your cards right, and catch a few breaks, you can win. You just have to believe in yourself and be in the game.”
Ask any professional angler what the most important aspect of success is, and undoubtedly all will agree its knowledge. The two keys to winning tournaments are: first, understanding where to find fish, and second, knowing how to catch them once they’re found. After knowledge, comes the necessity for good equipment.
To realistically have a chance at winning tournaments, anglers must have a boat, a vehicle to pull the boat, and gobs of rods, reels, lures, lines, and more. Although Hanson’s garage is littered with gear, his arsenal isn’t where it needs to be.
Hanson is just one of the many regional anglers fishing for the dream with less than ideal gear. Last season, he used five vacation days from work to fish two tournaments in two weekends on the Ohio River and Kentucky Lake. The trip was a beautiful disaster.
“I wasn’t half way to the river when the transmission went out on my truck.” Hanson said.
You’d think Hanson would have addressed the automotive problem, but instead he called a buddy to come pick him and his boat up. He gave the friend $50 and filled his gas tank to drive him the rest of the way to the tournament and launch his boat. The tournament was a bust with Hanson boating only “short fish” – too small to qualify as keepers.
On top of all that, Hanson’s boat nearly sank.
“The bilge pump wasn’t pumping, water was leaking like a sieve, and I was starting to go under. I took off for the ramp but didn’t have a clue what I’d do when I got there because I didn’t have truck to pull the boat out with. I lucked out though, a couple kind strangers pulled me out,” Hanson said.
Hanson finished the Kentucky Lake tournament 15th out of 219, and took home a check for $425. A lot of effort for a small payoff, but bass fishing isn’t just about the money.
“Man, there’s just nothing like fishing against all them other fellas,” Hanson said. “It just fills you with adrenaline.”
Whatever it is, there are a lot of bass fishermen around the Midwest dedicated to tournament fishing, and only a handful are making money at it. Here’s to keeping dreams alive.
See you down the trail…
