Nobody ever said that being a professional bass fisherman was easy. Or even painless. Just ask Bully Dog pro Britt Myers.
The South Carolina pro has long been one of the most easygoing, enthusiastic anglers fishing the MLF Bass Pro Tour, but when Myers splashed his boat for the first day of competition at the recent BPT tournament on the Harris Chain in Florida, he was quietly wishing for the day off. Normally the picture of health and fitness, Myers had awoken in the middle of the night two days prior to Day 1 in agony, thanks to a mysterious wrist injury.
“Literally out of nowhere, and it hurt so bad that I thought it was broken,” is how Myers describes the pain.
A visit to a local urgent care produced inconclusive X-rays and some basic pain medication, so Myers steeled himself to fish the Harris Chain tournament – home of some of the biggest bass in the country – with what he estimates as 5 to 10% functionality in his right (casting) hand
“It was almost like my whole body would lock up whenever I had to try to set the hook with my right hand,” Myers says. “I’d try to use that hand, and literally my entire body would stop. If you were watching me, you’d have thought I was having some kind of seizure. My body would just … stop.”
Despite the limited use of his dominant hand, Myers managed to land the biggest fish of the event – a 9-pound, 8-ounce behemoth – and finish in the top 30.
Myers hustled in to see a hand specialist in the short week between the Harris Chain tournament and the start of the next event on Lake Chickamauga, and a second set of X-rays revealed the issue: missing cartilage between the ulna and radius, coupled with inflammation (possibly from the repetitive motion of Myers’ job) equaled an uncomfortable week for Myers.
But when the South Carolina pro hopped in his rig for the drive to East Tennessee for the Lake Chickamauga event, his wrist was almost pain free thanks to treatment to reduce the inflammation.
“I just needed a little tuning before I got on the road again,” Myers joked.
It’s an appropriate analogy for an angler who tows a boat tens of thousands of miles in a year and is also the longtime owner of an automotive accessories shop that specializes in after-market improvements to trucks. Myers has relied on the boost of Bully Dog GT Performance Tuners for his tow rig for years, and sells them in his shop at CS Motorsports.
“The analogy I always use when I’m explaining the benefits of a performance tuner is: you take a 300hp Camaro and a 300hp Mustang to the drag strip,” Myers said. “They both weigh exactly the same, they have the same times, everything is the same. But why is one of them quicker at the drag strip? It’s because one of those cars is set up better. It’s tuned better. That’s what a tuner does: It sets all kinds of parameters in your vehicle that make it perform better.”
Myers’ six-hour drive from his home in South Carolina to Dayton, Tennessee for Bass Pro Tour Stage Four took him through the hills and valleys of the Smokey Mountains, 302 miles behind the wheel of a Toyota Tundra loaded with fishing tackle with a Bass Cat Cougar FTD in tow. It was a journey made more efficient and enjoyable thanks to the performance adjustments of his Bully Dog tuner.
“My truck is optimized for towing,” Myers said. “I get better mileage and better performance with that tuner – it gives me more power for taking off at a boat ramp and better horsepower to pass when I’m going through the mountains. These tuners basically pay for themselves because of the improved economy, and they just make driving and towing a boat easier and more fun.”
MLF pros David Walker and Britt Myers joke that they’re “part-time bass pros and full-time truck drivers.” With the amount of time these two Bass Pro Tour pros spend at the wheels of their tow rigs, pulling bass boat all over the country for tournaments, one can understand where they’re coming from.
Both Walker and Myers experienced noticeable boosts in their trucks’ performance when they installed Bully Dog performance tuners: more torque and power, improved gas mileage and better overall knowledge of their motors and systems. Log on to www.bullydog.com to match your tow vehicle with the perfect Bully Dog tuner.