Contributing NPFL Editor, Brock Bila | Photos by Tanner & Travis Lyons
When I was in high school, I daydreamed about becoming a professional angler someday. It sounds like such a far-off goal that it’s hard to visualize how it will work out. I want to tell my story and what I learned to reach the point I am at today.
Going to college was one of the greatest things I have done. The degree was great, but I used it as a way to get my foot in the door with people in the industry and future sponsors. In my sophomore year, I started at BaitWrX. It was not an easy decision because it took time away from my fishing, but I needed to make money so there was gas in the truck/boat. From there, I learned about the potential opportunities I had with BaitWrX. Reps were coming in and out of the doors constantly, and I knew about college fishing. It was my chance to catch their eye.
I am a videographer/graphic designer at BaitWrX, so when our pros need content, I would be the guy who went on the water to record. I learned some of the ins and outs of sponsorships, content, and building relationships. For three years, I fished as much as I could and learned as much as I could. My senior year was the year for me to try and pull it all together to enable myself to fish the NPFL.
I was incredibly lucky to have a few guys guide me in the right direction in creating a media kit that looked good. At the end of the day, it is about what you have to offer to a sponsor, not what they offer you. If you have that mindset and can provide a true dollar amount in value, that’s where sponsorships come from.
The NPFL
After four years of college fishing and working as hard as I could to grow my social media presence, it was time for me to take the step into professional bass fishing. The first event on the schedule was Logan Martin. Since I had never been there, a sponsor (Travis) and I made a quick trip down there before it went off-limits. I found some good fish offshore and was able to locate a few shallow offshore spots I thought could still produce even if rain came in and blew it out.
Many of the same areas I found in pre-practice pulled through for the actual tournament. Clear Creek and Rabbit Creek were the two that seemed the most active at the time. My goal in practice is to dial in the section of the lake where the action is happening. On Logan Martin, it was arguable that I was not in the most active region, but I made it work.
I noticed that the fish were suspended in 2-4 feet of water, and I could get them to bite a jerk bait or a damiki rig. They were biting well, but there were very few 4+ pounders in the mix. So I ran around in that area looking for flats with shallow brush piles. In the Ozarks, that is a prime way to catch big largemouth in the winter/spring. That’s what I did, and it produced 17 pounds on the last day of practice.
Rolling into my first professional tournament day knowing I potentially had something special made me go crazy. The good thing was, it was not something new to me, so I settled down and went to work catching almost 13 pounds on day one, landing me in 15th place. I was never able to get one of those largemouths to trigger. I knew I needed a few of those to make a run at it. The second day, I was able to catch a 4-pound spot on livescope and had 15 or so pounds. I ran my shallow largemouth deal and caught a 4-8 that culled me up to 17-11. That landed me in 3rd place going into Showdown Saturday.
Will Harkins had a 3-pound lead on me, and I had to catch a big bag and also have Will stumble on the final day. I just never had that chance to catch a big one. I fished as hard as I could and only ended up with 12 pounds and change. For my first event, I was very happy with my finish, considering this was not an event I had marked on the calendar.
