James Watson Claims Title as MLF’s Best Trash-Talker
HOT SPRINGS, Arkansas – It’s a bold statement coming out of Major League Fishing pro James Watson’s mouth as he sits among a group of Angler of the Year winners, Bassmaster Classic champions and Million Dollar Club tournament earners: “I’m the best, hands down. I’m number one. It’s not even close.”
Watson, a third-year Select pro from Missouri, doesn’t blink as he says it, though. Quite the contrary: the garrulous pro punctuates the statement with a wink and a Cheshire Cat grin at the other anglers within earshot at a hotel conference room in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
The discussion had started out about fishing skills – specifically “What do you do better than anyone else?” – but Watson has redirected the question, instead applying it to a “skill” that the former U.S. Army drill sergeant is uniquely adept at: trash talking.
“To be totally honest, all of these guys are better fishermen than I am,” Watson insists. “There are some days when all I have is trash talking, so I have to run my mouth to make up for my lack of skill.”
Watson is overdoing it on the self-deprecation. He has an FLW Tour win, a B.A.S.S. Open win and a Top 15 finish in the Bassmaster Classic in the past three years, and has been a factor in a handful of his eight MLF Select events. He’s collected professional Top 10s in fisheries from Lake Okeechobee to the Ozarks.
But the smack-talking claim? That’s no exaggeration.
“That’s a skill that cannot be taught,” Watson says. “You have to be convincing, and you have to be a little bit of an actor. You’re trying to get into somebody’s head, so you have to sell it and know how to tell a story. Otherwise, you just end up sounding like a nerd.”
And selling and storytelling are two things that Watson does like a champ. He amassed over $100 million in residential real-estate sales before embarking on a full-time tournament career in 2010. Before that, Watson “sold” the discipline of being an infantryman while serving as a drill sergeant at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.
“I made my living in real estate by being a good guerilla marketer, and did my job as a drill sergeant by being the ‘funny’ guy who didn’t go by the book,” Watson says. “I was pretty convincing at both, and that’s a trait you have to have to really sell something.”