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Norman,
OK -- Where were you at 19 years old? Probably thinking about keg parties or schoolwork, maybe working an entry-level job for spending money.
Probably NOT fishing the Bassmaster Elite Series.
Through a 4th place showing at last year’s Wild Card tournament, Texas teenager Cory Waldrop found himself in position to compete against the anglers he’d idolized since grade school, which, upon further consideration, doesn’t mean all that much since it was only a decade ago. Now, after taking his lumps (and experiencing a few triumphs as well), he has decided to go back to school and delay re-entry into the top echelon of competitive fishing.
To some extent, that decision has been made for him via a 96th place finish in the final standings, but last week he made a decision that “even if they call me, I’m not going back (next year). I’m going to finish my education and then come back.”
Accordingly, he enrolled at a community college near home for the fall semester. He will go back to TCU, which he previously attended, in the spring.
The Difficulties
At the beginning of the 2008 season, Waldrop had high hopes.
“Coming into the season, watching Alton Jones win the Classic on TV and kind of sizing up the people I’d fished against in the Opens, I felt comfortable,” he said. “I set high goals for myself.”
While he was careful not to make excuses, he explained that mechanical difficulties derailed him from the start. He had been given the opportunity to use an RV and a double-decker trailer, but the trailer wasn’t ready in time for Florida.
“All I had to pull with was the RV so I had to bum a truck off of Brian Clark,” he said. “I’d drop him in the water, go back, hook up my boat, and dump it in. It was really inconvenient.”
He said that trailer troubles limited his practice at seven or eight tournaments, and noted that “it would have been easier to do it the old-fashioned way and stay in hotels. People don’t realize how hard it is to be out there, just getting from point A to point B. Time management was the thing that brought me down the most.”
After 94th and 80th place finishes in Florida, he crept into the money at Falcon, but then suffered miserable 106th and 98th place finishes at Amistad and Clarks Hill. Even when he managed to get checks at Murray and Wheeler, he couldn’t build on that momentum and failed to make the top 70 in any of the last four events.
Perhaps his most frustrating tournament was Erie, where the conditions got the best of him.
“I felt like I was on the right fish, but I only got to fish 30 minutes the first day,” he said. “My boat was sinking and the Coast Guard had to come get me and dragged it into Dunkirk. BASS was kind enough to loan me a backup boat to get my fish back. It was completely submerged with only about 10 inches of the cowling showing.”
“We don’t have waves like that back in Texas.”
The Positives
Monday was his first day back in classes and to some extent he was already “homesick” for the road.
“I miss it,” he said. “It’s a lot tougher to sit in the classroom than to be out on the water.”
While there were certainly some negatives associated with his year on the water, he chose to learn from the bad experiences and fondly remember the good ones.
“It was one of the most positive experiences of my life,” he said.
Oddly enough, his best showing on the water came after one of his most disastrous mechanical failures. At Wheeler, he suffered a broken axle and a broken bearing and ended up staying up all night long in a Wal-Mart parking lot to get it fixed. He still managed to make it to Sunday and ended up 9th overall.
“Even though I had those difficulties, it grounded me a lot,” he said. “When things click, and you can fish instinctually, make all the right moves, it’s great.”
“Sometimes, you get all caught up in being in the Elites and forget where you came from. That (tournament) remotivated me. It was a blast, watching the helicopter fly over me and having the spectator boats around.”
Despite the difficulties at places like Erie, he refused to focus on a particular tournament that he’d like to have back: “Hindsight is 20/20. The learning curve was amazing and I know that the key is being on the right fish. What separates the great from the mediocre is the mental aspect. Someone like KVD, you can just see the confidence he carries. He’s the ideal athlete for the game. I’m going to take some time off and get myself grounded.”
He plans to fish Opens when the schedule allows, in order to “keep (his) foot in the door.” He’ll compete at Texoma, but knows that he won’t be able to fish Kentucky Lake due to academic obligations.
Any regrets? Did he commit to the Elite Series too early in his career?
“I’m 100 percent happy that I took this opportunity,” he replied. “There’s a maturity level that comes with competing at that level.”
Maturity is one thing the kid doesn’t lack. It’s easy to forget that this will be the first presidential election he’ll be able to vote in and that he still can’t legally buy a beer.
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