Journeyman, everyman and survivor
After missing out on this year’s FLW Championship by exactly one place in the standings, bass-fishing pro William Davis continues to overcome significant obstacles both on and off the water
William Davis was born in what many bass-fishing enthusiasts would call the promised land. With Wheeler, Wilson and Pickwick lakes all within easy reach of his north Alabama home, Davis grew up fine-tuning the skills that would eventually lead him to the professional bass-fishing circuit.
He got his start in the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League Choo Choo Division, ranking No. 1 in 2002 with three top-10s. The next year, he began his assault on the EverStart Series Central Division, where his best season so far was this year, ranking sixth and landing a record-breaking catch on Sam Rayburn.
2005 was also his first season on the Wal-Mart FLW Tour, where he proved he could run with the big boys with a top-10 finish on the Ouachita River. He also had the dubious distinction of being ranked 49th – the first man out of the championship, but only by a point.
With that kind of track record, William Davis is the quintessential FLW angler. He earned his way to the upper echelon with solid performances in building-ground tournament trails.
“I’m pretty much one of the FLW boys, I guess,” Davis said. “I’ve earned it, in all seriousness. I don’t like to see people fish the FLW Tour that haven’t earned it. There’s nothing really wrong with it, but that’s how I feel.”
Davis may be a new name to FLW Tour fans, but his long history of dominance in north Alabama has translated well in lakes across the country, proving Davis’ mettle and establishing him as a force to be reckoned with.
“I’ve lived around Pickwick and Wheeler and Wilson all my life,” Davis said. “It’s unlimited what you can learn.”
Upon graduation from high school, Davis entered a five-year apprenticeship program to become an electrician, and during that period, his time on the water became limited. But in the back of his mind, Davis was always aware of what he needed to do.
“I knew to fish (professionally), I had to spend a lot of time at it or I was going to lose,” he said. “Once I got done with my apprenticeship, I started fishing all the time with my dad. He’s the one who took me fishing as a kid.”
Like many professional anglers, Davis was introduced to the sport through family, with his father and grandfather being the primary influences. He has fond memories of trips not only near his home but also in neighboring Tennessee, where he was often dropped off to explore the Buffalo River.
“I had a good buddy, and in the summers, from ninth grade on, we’d go to the Buffalo River in Tennessee,” he said. “My granddad would put us in a flat-bottom, and we’d float for a week and camp every night. Whenever we got tired and ready to come home, we’d find a road and start walking until we found a phone. We’d call him and tell him where we were and to come and get us.”
Overcoming adversity
This innate survival instinct is but one of many skills that have served Davis well in his career and in life in general. Take, for instance, the story of his baby daughter Savannah. When Savannah was only 9 months old, doctors cut a 6-pound tumor from her body and removed her right kidney as well. The baby underwent 18 chemotherapy treatments, but like her father, Savannah is a survivor. She made it through and is now a healthy 21-month-old.
“She’s got a 95-percent chance of it not coming back,” Davis said. “It was a trying time, but sometimes you don’t know why things happen to you. Life goes on.”
Davis says that perhaps as a result of the ordeal, Savannah is now highly tolerant of pain, not even protesting during a recent ear infection.
“She’s tough, but I’ll tell you what, even though that happened, I don’t treat her any different,” Davis said. “I try not to. Nobody else does. That’s just how life is.”
Savannah and her mother, Michelle, don’t often accompany Davis to tournaments, due in large part to financial constraints. Such is the life of a fisherman – nomadic, solitary, even lonely at times. But Davis has learned how to parlay all of that into a more effective performance on the water.
“I would like it if my wife was there for the whole duration, but when they come in and I do well, I hardly ever get to spend any time with them,” he said. “All my effort and energy is on that tournament, so they’re almost a distraction. If I had a lot of money I’d like to rent a cabin or something so I could have my family there. Of course that’s the dream, but right now it’s just not financially feasible.”
Financial struggles are practically inevitable in the life of a pro fisherman, and as such Davis continues to work as an electrician when he’s not fishing. Typically, he fishes from January to June and works from July to December – his pattern for the last three years.
“I need to be working for insurance and stuff like that,” Davis said. “About 90 percent of these fishermen are poor as dirt, and the other 10, they just look like they’ve got it. I’m not going to put me and my family in debt for 20 years.”
To avoid that pitfall, Davis and his wife sold their new home and moved to a different part of town to help fund his fishing career. He admits he and his family have made some substantial sacrifices, but he is confident their decisions have been the right ones.
“When I’m working, I’m thinking about fishing,” he said. “I work out on the dams, so I’m out there on the water. I really get sick watching all these other cats out there fishing. But I feel like you only live once, and I do not want to be 65 years old, saying, `Boy, I wish I’d have taken a chance’ – bottom line.”
Into the record books
By the time age 65 comes around, Davis will no doubt have a lot to be proud of. At 35, he already does. This past February, Davis rolled into Sam Rayburn Reservoir in southeast Texas for the EverStart Central opener and rolled out a record-holder. Davis’ day-two stringer weighing 27-2 propelled his total opening round catch to 51 pounds – the highest two-day weight on record in EverStart Series history.
“It was unreal, really,” Davis said. “It was one of those situations where I hadn’t caught a fish in practice. The fish had pulled up a couple days before the tournament, getting ready to spawn. Those storms rolled in that first day, and I had two bites at 10:30, and I lost both of those. I reached in the rod box and pulled out a spinner bait. I hadn’t caught a fish on it in practice, but I got fortunate enough and got one pretty quick. I knew then I was on the right ticket.”
Davis used his favorite baits – jigs and spinner baits – in isolated places to catch the Sam Rayburn bounty. Making the story all the more remarkable was the 10:30 a.m. time frame. Davis reports that there were four or five people in the area, and all of them caught their fish after 10:30, though some less patient folks might have given up a lot sooner.
“It was awesome, I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. “I had a great day. It was really easy to give up on (the fish) if you weren’t careful in that tournament. Once the fish pull up, they’re there. That second day I had a 3-pounder, and if I had known I wouldn’t catch them the third and fourth day, I would have busted a 30-pound sack. I believe I could have done it. It was two of the best days of fishing I’ve ever had.”
Indeed, the bite fell off on day three and Davis mustered 6-10, improving his catch on day four to end the tournament in sixth place with an 18-12 total catch. As thrilling as that opening round was for Davis, he says his ascent into the FLW Tour through the EverStart Series ranks as his greatest career accomplishment.
Climb to the top
As a rookie on the FLW Tour in 2005, Davis experienced firsthand the level of intense competition in the upper ranks. To survive, he knew he had to strengthen his mental game as much as his fishing game.
“I’ve learned that the biggest thing about fishing the FLW Tour is when you make a mental mistake, they make you pay for it,” he said. “When you make a little mistake, you might get away with it when the competition is not that strong, but fishing on that level, there are enough of them that don’t make mistakes. I made a couple of mistakes this year, and I really knew better. I just didn’t adjust. Don’t ever wait on fish, I can tell you that.”
That, Davis believes, is the mistake he made at the tour’s final event of the season, held on the Potomac River in June. His performance there takes the lion’s share of the blame for his fall from championship contention.
“Everything I heard and read was when the tide gets right, they’ll bite, and they didn’t bite,” he said. “I pulled down there the first day, and it was cloudy and rainy and on high tide. I caught them. The next day, I’m sitting there at 12 o’clock with one fish. I could have never cranked the motor and caught one fish.
“But you can’t look at one day. I had three dead fish at Wheeler. When you make a mistake, the boys on that level will make you pay for it. That’s how it is.”
Indeed, Sam Newby finished sixth at the Potomac River to slip into the championship in the last position as the No. 48 seed, one point ahead of No. 49 Davis. It’s a place no one wants to be, but Davis took it in stride, learning what he could from the situation and moving on.
“It was totally my fault,” he said. “It wasn’t that I got kicked out as I kicked myself out. Hindsight’s 20/20, but if you look back on it, I’d been fishing like 16 days straight besides driving one or two days, and mentally I wasn’t as sharp as I should have been. That second day (on the Potomac) I just wasn’t thinking – I should have adjusted. The whole key to it is it never goes like you think it’s going to go.
“I could be down in the dirt right now, but if it’s not God’s time, there’s no sense in worrying about it. You’re not in control. It doesn’t matter how bad you want something, it’s not going to happen. That’s the way I see it.”
Home-field advantage
As for his mental game, Davis had fished the EverStart Central Division closer on Kentucky Lake the week before the Potomac River FLW Tour event, taking fifth place and a good check but perhaps at the expense of a rookie FLW Tour championship berth. However, Davis will contend in this year’s EverStart Series Championship with a home-field advantage – the November event takes place on Pickwick Lake.
“I’ve got the EverStart championship on my home pond,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll catch them, but I’ll have an idea what’s going on, maybe. I’m looking forward to it and will have to do a lot of work for it.”
Though Davis described Pickwick as a smallmouth fishery, he admits that he hunts strictly for largemouths.
“I’ve caught one big stringer of smallmouths on Pickwick my whole life,” he said. “They just got in my way.”
The trick to Pickwick and other north Alabama lakes is that while smallmouths may win you tournaments, they won’t do that consistently. If consistency is the key, then largemouths are the catch of choice.
“I enjoy finding fish,” Davis said. “Once I find them I couldn’t really care less about catching them. As far as fishing tournaments, it’s very fulfilling when you’re up there with a big sack of fish and everybody’s wondering how you caught them. There’s nothing worse than being on the other end of that and you don’t have a clue how they caught them.”
Nevertheless, Davis says his ultimate goal is to be able to make a living in professional fishing without having to worry about catching them every time. He’d like to be more aggressive on the water, he says, but the bottom line keeps him conservative.
“A lot of these guys, like Dion Hibdon or somebody like that, they’re going for the throat every time,” he said. “When you’re like me, you want to go for the throat, but you better go catch you some fish, because if you don’t finish so high, you’re not going to be in it next year. There’s nothing guaranteed. If I finish 101st I’ve got to go back to the EverStarts, and it could take 10 years (to requalify for the FLW Tour). People that are coming up have got to catch fish every tournament, and that makes it a little hard.”
Don’t worry for Davis, though. After all, he’s a survivor – he’s proven himself time and again. On the other hand, though, he’s a realist who knows there’s more to life if this fishing thing doesn’t work out.
“I’m 32 years old, and I’m not going to be 45, saying, `One more year, one more year,'” he said. “I’m realistic about it. But I feel like if I go out there and put my time in, I can fish with about anybody.”