Imagine Mike Wurm's surprise recently when he caught a 2-pound bass without making a cast or retrieve.
"It was the strangest way I've ever caught a bass in my life," the Classic contender and Elite Series pro recalled. "I was fishing a reservoir in south Arkansas and the water was real shallow. I don't have a depth finder in the aluminum boat and I was just checking to see how deep the water was.
"I had my spinnerbait reeled up to the end of my rod and I was using my rod tip to feel the bottom. I was using my trolling motor to try to find a deeper spot and just dragging the bottom with my rod. Then my rod started jerking and I thought it had gotten it caught in my trolling motor. But, believe it or not, a bass took that bait as I was dragging it on the bottom rolled up against my rod tip. I could not believe it. He had eaten that spinnerbait."
Rogers Making Strides in Latest Career
Mark Rogers has been an athlete as long as he can remember.
After lettering in various high-school sports, the Florida pro was well on his way up the professional volleyball ranks as a college student with Chrissy, now his wife of five years, as his partner. The Rogerses were talented enough to become national champions in the Co-Ed A Division of the Bud Light beach volleyball series in 1995.
Throughout his athletic endeavors, however, there had always been an interest in tournament bass fishing.
Rogers and his father competed in team tournaments in southern California before moving to Naples on the opposite coast in 1988. He continued fishing through high school, as well as during his years at the University of Central Florida, where Rogers majored in criminal justice.
"I thought I was going to take a different route with my life," he said. "But I had fished my whole life, and I always wanted to be a professional fisherman. I just wasn't too sure about it.
"I continued fishing and started getting higher up in the tournaments and really getting more and more into bass. I just kept going that route. And it's worked out, luckily."
The 33-year-old pro has made good strides in his second career.
A year after joining the Bassmaster Tournament Trail full time, Rogers garnered considerable attention when he opened the 2004 Tour stop on Alabama's Lake Eufaula with a five-bass limit weighing a whopping 31 pounds, 3 ounces. Included was a 9-pound, 6-ounce largemouth that took Purolator Big Bass honors. That catch helped Rogers finish 10th in the tournament and qualified him for the coveted BUSCH Shootout.
Overall, Rogers has cashed a check in 17 of 33 Bassmaster events and posted a pair of top-10 finishes.
"I've had some great days," he said. "That day at Eufaula was an awesome day. I've had several good tournaments. I've kind of been up and down. The past couple of years I've been trying to level it out and get a little better average in there.
"I think this next year I'm going to kind of change some things up and just fish for average fish. Sometimes I take chances a little too much, which has hurt me. I'm just going to try to average it out because I really need to make a (Bassmaster) Classic. That's the thing that's really lacking for me."
Rogers has performed well enough to qualify for the Bassmaster Elite Series' inaugural season.
"For years I've always thought that was the way it should be with the smaller field," Rogers said in praising the Elite Series. "I think the most important thing is the increase in tournaments. It's hard to get out there and fish six tournaments for three months out of the year and really promote your sponsors in a professional type of way.
"When they increased the tournaments, that really makes for a professional sport. And I think it's going to be huge."
As the Elite Series approaches, Rogers is negotiating with two non-endemics companies for sponsorship, but will likely run a Gambler Lures boat wrap. His other sponsors include Gambler Boats, Mercury Marine, Pflueger reels, All Star Rods, Thunder Shad crankbaits and Maui Jim sunglasses.
ROLE REVERSAL
The delicious irony does not escape Jason Quinn.
For several years the South Carolina pro has been sponsored by C&S Motorsports and Audio Excellence, companies owned by Britt Myers of Mt. Holly, N.C. Now it seems Myers has qualified for the new Elite Series through the Bassmaster Opens and is seeking sponsors of his own.
"Britt is also my fishing partner, my team partner in local tournaments," Quinn said. "I got him in the Opens this year and he qualified for the Open Championship. Now he's going to fish the Elites.
"I think it's neat that one of my financial sponsors goes out and qualifies for the Elites, and now he's looking for financial sponsors of his own."
It was Quinn that got Myers interested in tournament fishing.
"We kind of grew up in the same area and knew each other through school," he said. "He never actually wanted to pursue the dream of professional bass fishing because he has a business to run. But once he got in there and got a taste of it, now he can't get it out of his system."
BRAUER RECOVERING
After finishing third in the Bassmaster Open Championship and qualifying for his third Classic appearance, Chad Brauer recently underwent surgery to repair a hernia.
Although he won't be able to do any heavy lifting for a while, the 33-year-old Missouri pro said he should be fully recovered in time for the 36th Classic, which is slated Feb. 24-26 on Lake Tohopekaliga in Florida.
DID YOU KNOW?
Women's Bassmaster Tour pro Penny Berryman was a highly decorated athlete in the professional water-skiing ranks for 15 years before launching her tournament career.
PRO BIRTHDAYS
Ohio pro Frank Scalish turns 45 on Jan. 3. Virginia's Chris Daves will be 34 on Jan. 6. Arkansas' Virginia pro and Classic contender Rick Morris will be 44 on Jan. 11, while Texan Bud Pruitt turns 40 two days later. Missouri's Mark Tucker will blow out 45 candles on Jan. 31.
IF I HADN'T BECOME A BASS PRO,
If he hadn't gotten the tournament bug, Elite Series pro and ESPN2's "BassCenter" co-anchor Byron Velvick might have pursued a career in the legal profession. After getting a degree in English with a minor in philosophy at the University of California-Irvine, Velvick planned to go to law school. He had joined a pre-law fraternity and worked at a free legal clinic on the UCI campus before changing his mind.
THEY SAID IT
"I think it was just as tough back then as it is now. The only difference is now you have more fishermen than we did in those days. All these guys are good fishermen. The fields were smaller back in the '70s. If we had 130 guys, that was a pretty field; where now you've got a full field at every tournament. I think a lot of the fishermen now are more prepared probably than some of the guys back then." - Former Bassmaster Classic champion Larry Nixon compares the different eras of tournament fishing.