MY WORST DAY OF BASS FISHING
More Worst Days of Bass Fishing with Mark Davis
 Editor's
Note: You're suppose to have fun when you fish for bass.
When you go bass fishing, you don't expect to find yourself
chained to a wall in a medieval dungeon to learn how
much torture you can endure. However, many anglers earn
their living professionally fishing for bass. Their
vocations and jobs mean they have to go to work when
they don't want to, fish in bad, nasty weather and endure
sickness, disaster and disappointment as parts of their
jobs, although most of us think of bass fishing as recreation.
You may think that you've had a bad day of fishing before
or fished in a really-bad bass tournament. But once
you read the experiences of some of America's best bass
fishermen and learn what's happened to them on their
worst days of fishing or during the worst tournaments
they've ever fished, your bad day of bass fishing may
not seem so bad.
 Mark
Davis: Mark Davis, a 41-year-old angler from Mount Ida,
Arkansas, won the Bassmaster Classic in 1995. With three
Angler-of-the-Year titles, Davis' all-time BASS winnings
total over $1 million. "I caught as many if not
more bass than I'd ever caught in my life when I fished
in a Lake Okeechobee tournament in Florida in 1988.
My live well was full of enough big bass to make me
the tournament leader. I cranked my engine, and I drove
back to the take out point in Clewiston, Florida, feeling
really good because I felt certain that if I wasn't
the leader of the tournament, I'd be within the top
five for the day. On my way back, I hit some rough water,
and I didn't know it at the time, but the lid on my
live well came open. One by one, my bass jumped out
of the live well, and I didn't even realize what was
happening until one of the bass hit me on the shoulder.
I grabbed the fish and threw it on the floor of the
boat because I was almost at the take-out point. I stopped
my boat to pick up my bass and throw it back in the
live well, and that's when I realized that four of my
bass had jumped ship. The limit was seven bass, and
when I'd left my fishing site, I had seven really-big
bass in my live well, totaling 20 pounds. However, when
I started taking bass out of my live well to go to the
weigh-in, I only had three, weighing a total of 8 pounds.
I knew when I went to the weigh-in that I'd lost my
opportunity that year to go to the Bassmaster Classic.
I was really upset, mad, aggravated and disappointed
until the next day.
"Then I went back out on the water the next day
and caught a really-big  string
of bass. I was feeling much better and really thought
I'd overcome my bad luck and was back on the winning
track. When I got ready to run to the weigh-in, I felt
confident that I'd move up in the standings. But, on
my way back, my motor overheated and shut down. The
engines we used back then had sensors that would shut
the motors off until they cooled-down. After the motor
cooled-down, the sensor would let the motor come back
up to idle and run again. But as my luck would have
it, the sensor got stuck and wouldn't reset. I could
only get the boat to run at idle speed. I was 20 miles
from the weigh-in with a great catch of bass, and I
could only run at idle speed through alligators, snakes
and mosquitoes to get back to the weigh-in point. Ordinarily
I only would have needed 15 minutes to reach the check-in
point, but at idle speed, the trip took me two hours.
Although I had a great stringer of fish, because the
weigh-in was over long before I got in, I had to release
my entire catch. I was about as mad and upset as a fellow
can be after a day of bass fishing. I had had two excellent
days of bass fishing and should have been in the top
five in the tournament. But I couldn't even weigh in
my fish.
"We didn't have cell phones back in those days,
but someone had come and found me and gotten word back
to my wife, Tilly, that I'd be late coming in, and that
she should meet me at the boat ramp with my boat's trailer.
As I was coming into the boat ramp after dark, in the
light at the courtesy dock, I could see my wife standing
on the end of the dock. She was smiling. I started thinking
to myself, 'Woman, don't be smiling. This  isn't
funny. This is the second-worst day of fishing I've
ever had in my life, and yesterday was the worst. There's
nothing funny about coming in after dark and not being
able to weigh in a really-big catch of bass. I've lost
my chance of making the Classic, and the last thing
on earth I want to see is you smiling.' Well, the more
I looked at Tilly, the more she smiled at me, and the
madder I got. I was steaming. I was mad about the day
of fishing I had, but I was even madder at her for thinking
there was something funny about what had happened to
me. But I kept my mouth shut - at least until she pulled
the boat out of the water, stepped out of the truck
and smiled at me like the Cheshire Cat. Finally I was
so mad I couldn't stand it. I snapped at her and said,
'Woman, what have you got to smile about after the two
days that I have had?' And she answered, 'I gave my
heart and soul to Jesus Christ today.' In that instant,
I went from having the worst day of fishing in my career
to the greatest day of my life. That night on that boat
ramp, I finally realized that there's a whole lot more
to life than tournament-bass fishing. What was the worst
two days of fishing ever became the greatest days of
my life."
TOMORROW: WORST DAYS OF BASS FISHING FOR PAUL ELIAS
AND DAVID FRITTS
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