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Norman,
OK – The 2008 Elite Series regular season was a streaky one for Alabama pro Tim Horton. He started the year with four consecutive finishes out of the money and finished the season with five tournaments where he finished no worse than 36th. In between those two runs were two dramatically different results in South Carolina – 6th place at Clarks Hill and a season’s worst 83rd at Lake Murray.
While the season’s bookends were vastly different, neither streak mattered as much to Horton as the fact that he was able to extend his consecutive appearances in the Bassmaster Classic to ten.
After Amistad, the fourth tournament, he was in 68th place overall. After a healthy jump to 45th at Clarks Hill, he backslid to 54th after the Murray debacle. But each tournament thereafter he gained some ground until he reached his final spot at 20th.
How it Happened
Florida and Texas can’t quite be qualified as disasters for Horton – even though he finished out of the money in all four tournaments, he never had an 80th or 90th place clunker – but they certainly weren’t the way he wanted to start the season. Still, he doesn’t necessarily feel that he was doing anything wrong.
“There’s a fine line between 20th and 70th place in this sport,” he explained. “It’s a razor’s edge.”
“Sometimes it’s a matter of not getting a couple of bites during the day or the way you get drawn out. I just got in a groove where things like that happened.”
But he’s enough of a veteran to know that a season can be turned around quickly and that it’s essential to “keep working hard in practice.” So he went to Clarks Hill and seemingly shook off the bad feelings of the first four events with a Sunday appearance that produced a 6th place finish and moved him up 23 places in the AOY standings, to 45th.
“I really felt good after Clarks Hill and then Murray ended up being my worst tournament,” he said. “Those blueback lakes are really tricky. There’s no secret on those lakes. You have to be following the bait on the main lake points. I enjoy fishing them a lot. But I was glad when we got back to shad.”
The return to shad lakes certainly paid off as he sandwiched a near win at Kentucky Lake between a 27th on Wheeler, near his Muscle Shoals home, and a 36th at Old Hickory. He was fishing well, but couldn’t exactly explain why.
“Sometimes things happen that we aren’t able to explain,” he said. “You can’t make it happen. Once you have some success, you build up more confidence and it just happens. If we could ever figure it out, we would all be successful all the time.”
He closed the season out with a 17th place finish at Erie and a 26th at Oneida. Those last five finishes moved him up 28 spots to 20th overall, not quite in the hunt for AOY, but well within the Classic cut.
Classic Qualification
In his decade as a full-time pro, Horton has never missed the Classic. His ongoing streak of 10 straight appearances is second in longevity behind only Kevin VanDam.
“It’s something that I hold very dear, to be up there with only Kevin ahead of me,” Horton said. “It’s something that we measure ourselves by. When you look at the Skeet Reeses, the Mike Iaconellis and the Denny Brauers, great fishermen who haven’t been able to do it, it makes it very special.”
He claimed that despite the hole he’d dug himself into in the first half of the season, he continued to fish to win throughout the latter half of the schedule, despite the perception that “swinging for the fences” often results in a strikeout.
“One thing I’ve never been able to do is fish for points,” Horton said. “You can see that in the fact that I have a lot of low finishes, especially in the Classic. But the one exception (this year) was Oneida, where I knew I just needed to catch some fish to make it. It was just that things started flowing better.”
AOY Dreams
While Horton is immensely proud of his streak of Classic appearances, and would certainly love to win the Classic, winning a second AOY title holds a higher position in his list of career goals. He won his first such award in 2000.
Did winning the AOY title so early in his career cause him to take it for granted?
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I remember being in Chicago and talking to a Japanese writer about that. I knew the magnitude of it. I was a fan of the sport and I still am probably the biggest fan among all the pros. Outside of Trip Weldon, I could probably win a trivia contest.”
“I would rather win one more Angler of the Year than three Classics,” he continued. “That doesn’t belittle the Classic. It just means that much more. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to win a Classic – it does so much for your sponsors – but to me the Angler of the Year is more important.”
But he knows that an AOY trophy reflects a special campaign, one which doesn’t allow for a four tournament streak of missing the cut to start the season.
“Everything has to go flawless,” he said. “Look at the year Todd (Faircloth) had. It was absolutely phenomenal but he had one stumble. It just shows what an incredible angler Kevin is (to always be in contention).”
Red River Prep
But all Horton’s talk of AOY aspirations doesn’t mean he’ll under-prepare for the Red River Classic in February.
“I’ll probably spend about a week down there before the cutoff, trying to get some timing things down,” he said. “Once my competitive drive gets going, I could get amped if we’re fishing in a 5 acre pond.”
He has previously been quoted as saying that the Red River is one of his least favorite venues on tour, and he has only had mediocre finishes there, but that doesn’t faze him one bit. “I actually think it’s a good fishery. But if it’s flooded, it’ll be tough on everyone.”
He’s never finished above 10th in the big show, and that may be partially attributable to a strategic flaw that he intends to modify.
“Where I missed up in the early Classics was that I made it a bigger deal than it was,” he said. “I thought you had to do something out of the ordinary. Look how (George) Cochran ran through shallow water when everyone else was fishing out deep. The media makes it seem super-human. That was my mistake early on.”
“It’s just another tournament. With the exception of last year, my finishes have been getting better.”
Legacy Concerns
Horton’s off-season will be filled with more than just preparation for his 10th Classic appearance. Sure, there will be the requisite time deer-hunting, but as the newly-installed president of the Professional Anglers Association he’s also spending more than his fair share of time behind a desk these days.
“I get up at six in the morning, snap my fingers and it’s five p.m.,” he said.
He’s certainly excited and “intrigued by what’s happening. We have a new website, a television show, the Corporate Cup and we’ll have another TTBC next year. I’m just continuing the groundwork that Mark (Davis) laid. There’s no doubt we need to be more creative. We want to educate and entertain.”
His desire to make a difference once again reflects his understanding of the history of the sport and a need to contribute positively going forward.
“Some guys are very good fishermen but they don’t have things going on beyond their career on the water,” he said. “I’m not knocking them at all, but I am concerned beyond Tim Horton. I want to know how things affect Matt Herren, how they affect Jimmy Mason, how it affects the fans, youth and conservation. We’re all wired differently and this is something that drives me.”
In addition to his tenth Classic qualification, he achieved another milestone this year when he passed the million dollar mark in BASS winnings. “The group on that list, I think it’s somewhere in the thirties, it’s very rewarding to become a part of that group,” he said.
With an eye on the past and his legacy secure, Horton, still is his mid-30s, has a bright future ahead of him.
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