COLUMBIA, South Carolina – From where he sits in the interview room at MLF headquarters in Columbia, South Carolina, first-year Major League Fishing p
Ah yes, the glamorous life of a professional bass angler.
“If there was one thing I wish I would’ve understood better when I started my career as a bass pro, it’s how to deal with all the travel,” Meyer admits. “You have no idea how hard it is to stay on top of everything when you’re operating clear across the country from your home and family.”
Meyer is in Columbia via Marbury, Maryland (473 miles), where he finished third in the FLW Tour event held on the Potomac River three days prior. He arrived in Maryland via La Crosse, Wis., (1,017 miles), where he had driven to from Rogers, Ark. (677 miles).
Those aren’t unusual numbers for a tour-level pro, but unlike the majority of his competitors, Meyer doesn’t have the option of swinging by his home to kiss his wife, play with his kids, or reorganize his boat and tackle in between events.
“The amount of planning that goes into it is pretty astronomical,” he says. “When I leave my house in January, everything I think I’m going to need is in the back of my truck. I have to account for every possible scenario I might run into. I’ll need flipping sticks for this lake, drop-shot baits for that lake, deep-diving crankbaits for that other lake. I need to bring cooking utensils, a spare air mattress, tools in case something breaks down … it just goes on and on.
“Most of the guys fishing on the Tour get to drive their rigs home between tournaments – they can go out to the peg boards in their shop and grab the stuff then need tournament-by-tournament. Me? Every single piece of tackle I might need for eight months goes in the back of that truck.”
The travel grind seems to suit the Daiwa pro just fine, though: Meyer has claimed 26 Top 10 finishes in nine years as an FLW Tour pro, and is a fixture in the Top 10 of the Bassfan.com World Rankings. He’s cashed Top 5 checks from Lake Shasta to Lake Okeechobee, despite the fact that his exposure to the majority of the lakes in the South was limited to Google Earth for the first half of his career.
“It’s a lot of homework,” Meyer admits. “You have to find out where tournaments have been won in the past, and start to narrow things down. The first few times I fished places like Lake Okeechobee, I went “Holy smokes, where do I start?!?” That place is H-U-G-E! Back home at Clear Lake, I can run all the way from one end of the lake to the other in 20 minutes. That barely gets you outside the lock at Okeechobee. It’s a shock.”