Angler Matt Looney had to miss the event at Wright Patman. He also didn’t fish at the Harris Chain and will miss Pickwick as well as the rest of the 2021 season. Looney will be cheering on the anglers from his house, where he is recovering from a unexpected surgery.
“We were working out after the Eufaula event; it was the end of the work out. I was jumping boxes cooling down and I happened to turn wrong in the air or something and landed wrong on my knee. It popped, hurt bad – I knew something was wrong.”
After a trip to see the family doctor, Looney was told all was well and it would heal up. That changed when a week later, it just completely gave out. Barely able to walk or limp, an MRI revealed multiple tears.
“I had an ACL, MCL, medial and lateral meniscus tears. It was all torn. I had to go see an orthopedic specialist on a Friday, it was the Friday I was supposed to leave for Wright Patman. I was in surgery on Tuesday morning. It was reconstructed, and they took a piece of my quad to replace the ACL. That’s been the hardest part of the recovery is that quad. It went dormant, its like half the size of normal now. That’s the hardest part.”
Looney credits the National Professional Fishing League bigtime for working with him as he will not be able to fish the remainder of the season. A medical exemption and it’s a 6-month recovery process – ouch.
With the down time, aside from working his day job, Looney also, with the help of his wife and friends, run a foundation called Bass for Beckers. The group raises money for children diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy and part of the program is a boat raffle, where Looney literally raffles off his fully loaded Skeeter – Yamaha. The money raised helps kids attend summer camps.
“My nephew has muscular dystrophy and we wanted to help him and others. Currently, we are in the process of building a camp site on a private lake. It’s going to be 100% accessible for kids and it will allow them to go fishing. Lot of these kids have never been on a boat or been fishing and were going to give them both of those things.”
With more and more in the works, were also expanding to help with Lou Gherings disease as well, there will be a boat and everything we hope. Looney is running the foundation form his house, and relies on industry friends to help get the word out.
“Several guys have helped us promote the Skeeter boat raffle. Tyler Anderson, AKA Tyler’s Reel Fishing has been awesome as well as Todd Faircloth. Brandon Palaniuk has also done some things on social media for us and its been huge. It is 100% a work in progress and our goal is to donate 1 million dollars by year 5.
Anyone interested can buy tickets at www.bassforbeckers.com!
