This thing with the “win streak” (http://www.bassparade.com/k-short-qa-on-winning-streak) got me to wondering the other day. Just how many and who has won three or more B.A.S.S. events in consecutive years? That’s a pretty lofty feat, I would think, as it’s hard enough to win one at the Open or Elite level, but to string several of them together across consecutive years, well, that’s a whole different bag of Zoom lizards. I sat down at the trusty innerwebz and here’s what I came up with. Keep in mind that I don’t have a vault of B.A.S.S. records to thumb through; this is what I came up with by searching the Bassmaster.com website. I’m sure I might have missed some of the “old timers” that fished back in tha’ day, but I tried to search on as many names as I could recall. If you come up with additions to what I’ve found, feel free to add them to the comments after the story.
As I’m watching this video (http://youtu.be/TyftJByLORE) the other day, I’m wondering a few things. One, what exactly are these cats saying? I have no idea what they’re rattling off, but it sure looks like they’re having fun with it. Two, can I get the head stick stacker at St. Croix Rods to build me up a few of these Super Dooper Ninja Whomping Sticks? Thirdly and finally, what kind of H-E-double-Hockey-Sticks is going to happen when I tie an Alabama rig to the end of each string threaded through my Quad Shafted Ninja Whomping Stick? Would that be legal?
Before we get into the how and where of the derby win on T-Rock last week, let me clarify a statement that opened the tease for this. In the tease, I said that money was tight in the K-Pink hacienda and it was. Not so tight that we were in fear of losing the farm or anything like that, but K2 and I were working very hard to be even more frugal than normal. When your accounts payables are way more than you’re receivables, guess what? It’s pretty simple math; you better have some jack socked away to pay the bills. After doling out almost $51K in entry fees for the Elites, Northern Opens and Northern EverStart’s and winning a whopping total of $28,731.00, it doesn’t take a CPA to realize that red ink is flying. Add to that 51K figure travel expenses for 15 plus weeks, a truck, a boat, and the assorted tools of the trade, and there was a LOT of red ink spilled on the carpet. Fortunately, I had banked a big chunk of the past two Elite wins and we had a cushion, but the cushion had limits and we were efforting to be smart.
Funny how a span of seven days can change your whole outlook on life. A week ago, I was seriously wondering how the K-Pink household was going to make ends meet through the winter. Wondering if I would have enough money to pay the mortgage. Wondering if I could scrape up enough to pay entry fees and expenses to go another round in the Elite Series ring. Yep, it was that close. Crazy how seven days can make that big a difference. Actually, it all came down to a matter of six and a half hours on just one of those seven days. Six and a half hours on the last of the seven days, which would have been Saturday. Six and a half hours of knowing exactly what to do to get the job done.
*Click the images for a larger view*
So I’m out in the middle of Table Rock last Saturday, which was an absolutely gorgeous Indian summer day. I know it was a Saturday and a nice day because there were oodles and oodles of boats on the lake that looked nothing like fishing boats. Everyone out for the last boat ride of the year before Old Man Winter comes to town. House boats, pontoon boats, wake boats, and these HUGE cruisers. As I’m bobbing up and down from the wake off one of these cruisers, I’m thinking why do you need a 42 foot cruiser in a lake?
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