MY WORST DAY OF BASS FISHING
Gary Klein
 Editor's
Note: You're supposed to have fun when you fish for
bass because most of us think of bass fishing as recreation.
You don't expect to find yourself chained to a wall
in a medieval dungeon to learn how much torture you
can endure when you bass fish. However, many anglers
who earn their livings professionally fishing for bass
must go to work when they don't want to, fish in bad,
nasty weather and endure sickness, disaster and disappointment
as a part of their jobs. You may think 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, your
bad day of bass fishing may not seem so horrible.
 Forty-seven-year-old
Gary Klein of Weatherford, Texas, who finished second
in the 2003 Bassmaster Classic, has earned over $1,220,000
on the BASS tournament circuit. Angler of the Year in
1989 and in 1993, Klein has learned that with all of
that success comes some not-so-successful days of fishing.
“My worst day of bass fishing was almost my last
day of my life," Klein recalls. "I was practicing
on Lake Havasu in Arizona, and my wife Jana was with
me. Although I grew up on the lake, I hadn't been out
fishing on it in a number of years. Lake Havasu is on
the Colorado River and is divided into two lakes, the
main lake and the upper-marsh area. To get into the
marsh area, you have to pass through a big sandbar region.
That's where I went to try and find bass before this
tournament. "When I was younger, there was a little
hidden back lake that I fished. To reach that lake,
I knew I'd have to go through some really shallow water,
and I'd have to get out of my boat and walk up a ditch.
Once I found the lake, I thought I could run my boat
up on plane, fly through the ditch and get onto the
lake. However, once I got into the ditch, the trolling
motor buried up into the mud. I stepped out of the boat
and started walking into about knee-deep water, up the
ditch to look for the lake.
“When I was 50- to 60-feet away from the boat,
I dropped off into mud up to my waist. Immediately the
mud was up to my armpits, and then the mud was up to
my nose. I realized I was about to drown. There was
no way I could get out of the mud, and no way Jana could
get to me. I felt sure I was going to die in that mud.
I never will forget looking back at the boat and seeing
Jana standing on the bow of the boat with a blank expression
not knowing what to do but knowing she needed to do
something to prevent me from drowning. I realized the
only way I could survive was to relax and think about
what I needed to do. I decided that if I could arch
my back, I might be able to get on top of the mud. Once
I got on my back, I rolled over onto my stomach. My
body would displace more water and mud than it would
if I was vertical. Then I crawled back to the boat on
my stomach and climbed into the boat. There is no doubt
in my mind that if I hadn't relaxed at the time that
I was about to die and thought about what I needed to
do to save myself, I would have died."
TOMORROW: WORST DAYS OF FISHING FOR LARRY NIXON, GERALD
SWINDLE AND KEVIN VANDAM
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