My dream of making the world team and competing for Team USA was finalized just one week prior to the competition start. I had just missed making a spot on points but received word that the amazing Calvin Lai was in need of a dive partner for the event. I was excited but concerned because I wasn’t sure I would be able to make it work. I had just started a new job and had only been there a week. The stars all aligned and I was able to make it work. Calvin did all the heavy lifting as far as scouting. Along with his father “Pops” and our awesome boat captain Ed they spent a solid 5 days leading up the event scouting what seemed like every inch of the lake. They identified what they felt were the best spots for both game and rough fish and we developed our strategy. Day one was game fish day and we decided that we would only spend an hour trying for a striper and then move to the other game fish categories. We dropped on our spot and I immediately saw a beast of a striper but it was flying through and out of range for a shot. A few drops later I thought I had landed a small striper but it ripped off as I was trying to get it on the stringer. We left that spot with me thinking that I had missed my chance at one. We moved to our previously designated drum spots where we were looking for big slabs. I had shot two drum and a couple of catfish at this point when I was on a drop at 22 feet. I was at the end of my dive and was about to come up when a decent little striper approached on the left. He was going away and I felt like it was a bit of a long shot but decided to go for it anyway and to my surprise I connected! I wasn’t going to lose it this time and I made sure to secure him in a death grip before getting him on the boat. The day ended with me shooting 3 drum, 3 cats and 1 striper and Calvin shooting three really nice size drum. We ended day one in 7th place team and I was in 6th as an individual with Cal 14th. We knew that it would be super critical to get a lot of good drops in on day 2 if we were going to have any chance of making the podium. We were rather concerned because on game day I saw a total of 5 rough fish the entire day and Cal had seen about 10. We felt like if we could shout 30 fish between us that we would be in contention.
Rough day started out just that, rough. On my first two drops I shot two fish but they both tore off. I was so frustrated and knew that I had to let it go. In the first 4 hours I shot a total of 4 fish which was well off the pace of what I needed. Cal had 6 fish after 4 hours and we knew we had to pick up the pace if we were going to win. We found that the best areas seemed to be on the points near the coves. We would drop on a point and could shoot two fish and then we would jump to the next point. It was working well until my mono ripped out after shooting a carp. Calvin also had some gun issues and we were both pretty frustrated. I had to use my shorter gun the last hour and a half which resulted in less power and range. By this point I had shot 9 or 10 fish and Calvin was on a tear and had logged nearly 20 fish at this point. We buckled down and fought hard the last hour to finish the day with 11 fish for me and 21 for Calvin. On the day I lost 6 fish and Cal had 3 get away but we felt good about our efforts and awaited the results.
We must have done the math 10 times and couldn’t believe it when we found ourselves in 4th overall as a team. We had made the podium and it felt so good. Calvin was super stoked to have made the top 6 as an individual. I finished just one spot below him in 7th place as an individual. What an amazing experience this was for me personally. I wasnt even supposed to be here and I walked away with a trophy and a top 10 personal finish. I learned a ton and feel like I truly can hang with the big boys. Thank you for putting on such an amazing event. Thank you to all the amazing sponsors as well. I can’t wait for Worlds in 2023.
