Marshall Experience

Well, I got home Sunday after 3 days of riding around with the pros. It was awesome! It was well worth the 100 bucks and on top of that I won a Mustang auto-inflate life vest at the rules meeting Wednesday afternoon. I was able to be a marshall for 3 days; Thursday - Saturday. They only drew 6 names out of 100 marshalls to ride with a pro on Sunday, but I wasn't lucky enough to get one of the spots. Thursday I was with Cliff Crochet "The Cajun Baby". He was awesome and I learned a few things. It took me half the day to figure out what he was trying to say most of the time! :doh: Towards the end of the day he caught a 5 pounder on the squarebill he was throwing. We ended up exchanging high fives, and he was so happy he gave me a hug. It was pretty funny actually. After that he kept doing his best Takahiro Omori bassmaster classic impression after he caught those 3 fish off that tree. He kept saying, "I knew it, I just knew it!" in his best cajun/japanese accent. :rolling:

On Friday I was with David Smith. He was really nice, but I just don't see him fishing the series that much longer. He was an older guy, and he was really scatter-brained. He forgot his rain jacket in his room that morning, so we missed take-off by about 10 minutes while he ran back to his room to get the jacket. After that was worked out, we went out and fished in a heavy rain for 5 hours. That was a lot of fun...NOT! He ended up catching a limit, but didn't make the top 50. He's the first person I have ever seen take a 1,000 dollar combo and throw it in the water to get a 2 dollar jig unhung! He owns the biggest trophy company in the country, so I guess money is not an issue with him.

On Saturday, I got the chance to fish with Alton Jones. He was freaking awesome! Hell, he even shared some of the jalapeno/cheese deer sausage he had with me. Super nice guy and he knew what he was doing. The other two guys knew what they were doing, but Alton was a step above both of them. I learned more from Alton in one day then I did from the other two guys combined. I met him at his "tour bus" camper in the morning and his wife drove us to the ramp and backed us in the water. She even picked us back up in the afternoon and drove us to weigh-in. That was nice!

I wouldn't say any of the three pros I was with fished any different then I would have fished. The only difference is that they fished faster, and burned a lot more gas then I would have. I did pick up a few tricks from Alton though!

Here's a few pics:

 

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