Lives: McCalla, Ala.
Regular Job: Respiratory Therapist at a children’s hospital
Boat: Ranger Z21
Truck: Chevy Tahoe
Rod: Powell
Family: wife, Beth, son Evan, 4, and daughter Emma, 1 ½
What was your biggest tournament win or place and why?
Ten days after my boy was born I fished a Lay Lake Tournament put on by Airport Marine. The year before I’d won that tourney, same scenario, two-day tourney, but at this point and time things were really weighing on my mind. I’d just finished my third season on the tour with limited success, and I was questioning whether I should be doing this. I had a new child to take care of, but before the tournament my wife told me “you won that tourney last year and you’ve got a gift in fishing, and you need to do it again.” So I fished it and won, and it was a point in time when I didn’t have a lot of money – I was dang near broke -- and I won $27,000. So it was a real pick-me-up. not just to win the tourney but to win it back-to-back against the best fishermen on the lake. It answered my question of whether this is what I should be doing. I thought, “maybe I do have something special.” That was a big turning point for me.
What’s your go-to when nothing is working?
A wacky rigged YUM Dinger in green pumpkin neon, or green pumpkin purple.
It catches numbers as well as if the lake offers what I feel is the right kind of cover and shade, it becomes a bait that I feel I can catch big fish on. I fish it around boat docks, skipping it waaaay back under there.
What do you like about fishing tournaments?
That feeling of knowing that you’ve got enough weight in the livewell to win – that you’ve done your best and chances are, beaten some of the best anglers in the world.
What’s your fishing goal?
To win a national event.
What’s something few people know about you?
One of the things that people when they meet me don’t realize is that I work at the Children’s Hospital. I have an easy time getting on the kids' level. They seems to like me. I wanted to do something that allowed me to fish a lot and give me a chance to become a pro angler, and before I knew it I was enrolled in UAB and committed. I started as a full time employee at the hospital, and after signing up for my first Bassmaster event I qualified for the tour and went part-time at the hospital. My higher ups are hunters and fishermen and are totally cool with it and allow me to make my own schedule, just to take that chance on fishing.