I think Grandma might have been with me...

In June of 2008 I lost my grandmother while fishing an FLW Tour event at Ft. Loudoun / Tellico lakes in east Tennessee. Every year that I have competed, my Grandmother knew what lake I was at, and always cheered me on. She was a great christian woman, she was my best ever fan.



For years my Grandma would give each of her grandchildren a $20 bill every year for Christmas, despite our urging not to, she insisted, twenty dollars it was. So a few years ago, not fully knowing what to do with twenty dollars, or at least not knowing how to use it in a manner that was repsectful to whom gave it to me, I started buying fishing baits, hard baits, you know, like crankbaits, topwaters, and jerkbaits. Two weeks ago on the Mississippi river during practice for a tournament, I needed a crankbait, one I felt the fish could see in the dingy water, one with a square bill that would deflect off of objects in the water, without getting hung up. So I dug in one of my crankbait boxes and found the perfect one. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the bait except it had a lot of white on it, perfect, just like a shad in dirty water, they too are very white.


After catching several fish on it in practice, and nearly a limit on the first morning of the tournament, I made a discovery about that bait that made it even more special, check out the
picture below...




You see, when I used Grandma's Christmas money to buy a bait, I put a "G" on the bottom of it, somewhere I thought it wouldn't get rubbed off.

Much to my surprise, when I went to re-tie my bait on the first day of the tourney, and found the "G", I had the overwhelming sense that I had a little help in the boat that day, someone rooting me on, from a far better place.

Grandma, Thanks, I owe you yet another one!