How many wives of Bassmaster Classic winners can say that their angling achievements match – or perhaps surpass – those of their world champion husbands?
Vojai Reed may be the only one.
As the first female angler to compete in a B.A.S.S. event, she blazed a path for women such as Pam Martin-Wells and Kim Bain-Moore, as well as the sizeable contingent of women who’ve fished the Opens in an attempt to qualify for the Elite Series. A few years prior to Reed’s 1991 debut, her husband Charlie had won the 1986 Bassmaster Classic on the Tennessee River in the first of five times he’d qualify during a fishing career that would span most of the 1980s and 90s.
Mrs. Reed never set out to be a trendsetter or trailblazer. Despite being born in 1936 in a log cabin on land that was later inundated by the construction of Broken Bow Lake, the Reed family moved away when she was a year old, before the lake was impounded. Like many Oklahomans of that era, as immortalized in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, they left for California in search of greener pastures. Whether they found anything greener is debatable, because they ultimately settled in the Mojave Desert. She married Charlie in Twentynine Palms, California in 1953. They subsequently moved to Colorado, where their first two children were born, then to Mississippi and back to Oklahoma in 1962, adding two more children along the way.
While Charlie had fished for trout before they were married, and then in ponds when they lived in Mississippi, neither of them fully caught the bass bug until they were back in the Sooner State. At that point they joined a series of clubs, which led Charlie to eventually dip his toe in Bassmaster competition in 1979, and then more regularly beginning in 1983. Meanwhile, Vojai started fishing various women’s circuits and experiencing great success. She won an Angler of the Year title on the Lady Bass circuit and also won the Bass’N Gal Championship on New Mexico’s Elephant Butte Lake.
“I don’t think he could stand that I had a world championship so he fished Bassmaster,” she recalled. Shortly thereafter, he matched her feat, winning the 1986 Classic, an event that she still calls the highlight of their joint fishing career.
Through the early years of B.A.S.S., Ray Scott expressly prohibited women from fishing in the organization’s events. Indeed, it went even further than that. Ken Schultz reported in his book Bass Madness that Roland Martin’s then-wife, Mary Ann, was not allowed to join him at his first Classic because despite being engaged, they were not yet legally married. When it came to the tournaments themselves, it was the era of pro-on-pro draws, and partners were not allowed to leave each other’s sight. Scott asserted that coed anglers’ need to relieve themselves during the day would create problems. Many of the anglers – and their wives – agreed.
Reed was opposed to the idea herself, and as Scott and his staff fended off all prior challenges, she agreed with the organization’s stance. In May of 1991, though, things came to a head three days prior to the start of practice for the Missouri Invitational on Truman Reservoir, when the Corps of Engineers made the surprise announcement that the tournament’s permit would be revoked if women were not allowed to compete.
“Helen (Sevier) from B.A.S.S. called me and asked if I would be the one,” Reed said. “I was not for it. It seemed like such an inconvenience to everyone and I was afraid that everyone would end up hating me. I asked her to wait to let me talk to Charlie. He came home, and I asked him and he pointed out that I could get a lot of ink out of it. He said I should do it. I’m glad that I did.”
Vojai finished 58th, 21 places behind her husband. “I kept thinking to myself, ‘Gosh I can’t come in last,’” she said. Perhaps more importantly, her presence proved largely anticlimactic and non-controversial.
“The men all treated me well,” she said. Including first day partner Homer Humphreys. “But I wasn’t worried as much about the men as about the wives. They called me the ‘Mystery Woman.’ In the end, I think most of them were just tickled that I didn’t draw out with their husbands.”
She fished six more B.A.S.S. events over the next 12 months, never improving upon her inaugural finish. Today she regrets that she didn’t compete more and practice harder. “I might have won a little more if I had worked a little harder at it,” she said. “The fellowship is great, but winning is what it’s all about. Charlie worked at it. He kept records of the weather, the sunset, all of that. I didn’t.”
Charlie continued to fish with B.A.S.S. for another five years, until one day he came home after a tournament on Alabama’s Lake Neely Henry and declared himself done.
“He told me it was his last one,” Vojai said. “It wasn’t the fishing, it was the traveling. He was in the land sales business and just had too many irons in the fire. Every now and then he missed it. He fished up until the end.” Charlie who’d started his fishing career late and won the Classic at 51, passed away in 2013 at the age of 78.
In addition to losing her husband to lung cancer, Reed has experienced other intermittent heartaches throughout her eight decades. In 1980, her daughter died in a car crash driving between home and college. “She loved to fish,” Vojai said. “And before she died, she told me, ‘Mother, do not mourn.’” Her three other children have survived, and produced three granddaughters and eight great-grandchildren, but the youngest granddaughter – still in her mid-twenties – suffers from terminal brain cancer. “My motto is that you should continue to rejoice in the darkness,” said the ever-positive Reed. “I believe in rejoicing. I may have that put on my tombstone.”
At an age when some people would be inclined to slow down, Reed seems to be picking up steam. She is the part owner of Vojai’s Winery (www.vojaiswinery.com) in her native Broken Bow. The website’s home page features two quotations, the first from Calamity Jane:
“I figure if a girl wants to be a legend, she should go ahead and be one.”
The second is from Vojai Reed:
“I figure if a woman wants to build a winery, she might as well go ahead and build it.”
One of Reed’s daughters owns and operates a winery down the road, and Vojai did not hesitate when the opportunity came up to own one of her own. “I really like being around people,” she said. “I don’t want to have any enemies. I think people miss out on a lot in life because of that. When Charlie passed away, I still wanted to build something, and this was a great opportunity. There are about 3,000 cabins being built around Broken Bow Lake. People come up from Dallas every weekend. It’s like a mini-Breckinridge.”
While most of the wines don’t relate to her fishing background in any way, there is one chardonnay – “Classic Run” – that was her husband’s favorite and is dedicated to his memory.
While Vojai doesn’t actively follow professional bass fishing due to days as long as 20 hours at the winery, she admitted that “if it happens to pop up on TV, I’ll watch.” Nevertheless, one question has followed her through her fishing days until today: What is the origin of her first name (pronounced Vo-Guh)?
“Many people assume that it’s an Indian name, and I do have a little bit of Cherokee in me,” she replied. “But it’s actually Scandinavian. My mother let a friend name me. It was New Year’s Eve and they might’ve had a little bit too much to drink.”
No word of whether it was a red or a white that inspired her mother’s friend, but the name has truly had a Classic Run – and there may be more to come.
“I like the wine business,” Reed concluded. “But every couple of years I like to try something else. On paper, it may say I’m 82, but I don’t feel that way. I feel like I could swim the English Channel.”
