“There are places I remember…”
Dateline: Toledo Bend
“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.”
~Mark Twain
“Been fishing with Tommy Martin for 35 years, couldn’t keep up with him back in the day, can’t keep up with him now.”
~Larry Nixon
1983 Bassmaster Classic Champ
&
Best Friend
If tomorrow never comes, I would smile tonight, a good life my way came.
A good life is one of joy and sorrow, success and failure, boredom and adventure, but mainly, a good life is one filled with love.
A good life is to love, and be loved.
A great life is to love the life you are in, not the life you are not.
In a month and 3 days I will be 64 years old, and I’m at peace with that, I do not think I’m young, I do not think I’m old, I just think, I am.
I rest in peace while alive. It’s calmer that way.
Aging is a concept, I frankly, have never understood, sure the man in the mirror looking back at me looks like an old fool, but inside of me is still just a young fool.
I am is all I have ever been.
Judge not the skin, judge what’s within.
“…all my life though some have changed…”
“The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
See photos of db’s day with Tommy Martin
I was happy when my friend Rick Clunn won a tournament this year, but very unhappy with the reporting of the win, in the almost 10 years I have been doing the gig I never once read of a winning angler’s age, I checked all the stories of the Lake Wheeler tourney, none said “46 year old Tak won…”
I struggle with that, and I struggle with this story because, even though I don’t want to, even though I have to, have to say Tommy Martin is 75, have to say that at age 73 he came in 2nd in the Bassmaster Opens and qualified to fish the Elites, a story dealing with age should have nothing to do with age.
And so, Tommy’s, and any other Bass “Legend” I do a story with will not be about their age.
Will not.
It will be simply about…I am.
“…some forever not for better…”
“The only source of knowledge is experience.”
~Albert Einstein
“I am fishing the Central Opens because I want to get back to the Bassmaster Classic, you know db, I won it, the Classic that is, in 1974, on Lake Wheeler, my goal is to fish one more Classic.”
It is early morning, we are driving the back roads of East Texas, I’m in Tommy’s wrapped truck tagging along with him on his normal morning “rounds.”
“Why do you want to fish one more Classic, what’s with that.”
We drive across a bridge, Tommy spots Rick Clunn fishing a spot near the bridge and basically almost turns sideways in the drivers seat, he is facing north, the truck is facing east…
“…um…” I say not really as a question but more as a reminder that we are actually driving on a two lane bridge….
“…Rick and I go way back you know…” Tommy says as he turns the upper part of his body back in the direction of the truck’s travel, “…he’ll do good at that spot you know, twenty, it’s twenty.”
I’m thinking “twenty,” twenty what, I know Tommy guides this lake is the spot Rick’s on Tommy’s number 20 spot….twenty?
“My next Bassmaster Classic will be the 20th Bassmaster Classic that I will have fished in, twenty is a good number, I’d like to experience it, the Classic in the modern time, so to speak, and with it being on Lake Conroe next year, I got me a good shot at doing well in it.”
I smile, smile at the thought, smile at the goal, smile at the fact that he answered a question I asked 15 minutes ago, 10 miles back.
“…some have gone and some remain…”
“You are never to old to set another goal or to dream another dream.”
C.S. Lewis
Somewhere in the 501 area code, Larry Nixon is laughing as I tell him a couple “Tommy” stories.
“I’ve heard them all Mr. Don.”
Tommy Martin and Larry Nixon are the kind of fishing buddies that Hollywood makes movies about.
Best friends, they have fished together and against each other now closing in on four decades.
Larry is 10 years younger, I called him because on the water, no one knows Tommy better than his wingman.
“He never sits down, except to take a nap, you know.” I do, during my 10 minute talk with Larry, Tommy walked by doing something 6 times.
I tell Larry about Tommy’s goal of fishing another Classic, “Yep,” was all I initially got, a “yep” said not so much as a “Yep…good luck at that…” but more like a “Yep…he will.”
“You know, if Bass eliminated practice, just had the competition with no practice Tommy would be one bad, hard dude to deal with, no one gets on bass as fast as he does.”
We talk some, mainly laugh, I tell Larry how I would like to have a tournament out here where, “I take away all the batteries,” take away all the electronics and gizmos that somehow makes fishing a video game, “…80% of the field would be lost, my money would be on Tommy.”
Then in area code 501 the laughing stops, “Mr. Don, you and I are about the same age, you know this that you don’t get older if you stay busy, you don’t worry about your age if you are doing what you love, still dreaming of what can be…”
Silence some, “…I try to pattern myself after Tommy’s enthusiasm , I see him and know I have 10 or more years of fishing left and it makes me happy, makes me happy.”
“…all these places have their moments…”
“The years teach much which the days never know.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
It’s not quite like Norm from “Cheers” walking in, but darn close.
We have just walked into, Martin’s Corner, a little local grill in Milam, Texas that Tommy and his wife of 34 years, Sheilah, own, “My mother didn’t name me Sheilah with an ‘h’ but that’s what it says on my birth certificate, they must have typed it wrong, but now I love it.”
I have long called her, Sheilaaaaaah.
So, I have now stayed over the past years, THREE WEEKS within the home of Tommy and Sheilah, and for some reason Tommy still talks to me as if I fish tournaments.
“You know db when you throw…”
“I don’t fish Tommy…”
“Oh yeah, uh huh, yep, but when you throw…”
Tommy has told me, “Most of my friends either hunt or fish, I know a few who don’t but I prefer talking about fishing and hunting so most of my friends do that.”
I do neither.
But we are friends. Good friends, Tommy is not a hugging another guy kind of guy so I always go out of my way to hug him when I see him.
“You’re the only fishing writer that doesn’t write about fishing, you write about the people who fish and I find that fascinating to get to know how the anglers think, and why they do what they do, not so much the how of it all.”
“When fish read Tommy, I’ll write for fish.”
Behind that tanned face, a big smile breaks out.
“…with lovers and friends I still can recall…”
“Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.”
Oscar Wilde
If you listen you can learn a lot about a lot of what you don’t know.
My favorite part of the gig is not the talkin’ part, it’s the listening part.
Back when we had the Classic in New Orleans and all the guys fished a ton of miles away in Venice, Louisiana I asked my buddy Rick Clunn this exact question, “Are all the bass dead between here and where you are fishing.”
The next morning I found on the doorstep of the camper I had then a two page hand-written by Rick explanation of the why of making that long run, and no the bass were not all dead along the way.
I still have and will always keep that note.
It’s okay to not be a big shot, to not be a know-it-all, trust me, you learn more being honest and humble, knowing a little bit about everything doesn’t make you smart, it just makes you a pain in the arse.
So while I don’t fish, I do listen to those who do, and my innocence and openness about it always, ALWAYS, leads to the most interesting conversations.
Listen:
“I grew up a saltwater guy, db, when I came to Bass fishing I didn’t know much, wasn’t a lot of stuff out there that could educate you about it so I just learned by listening to the fish…”
Not being an angler helps when you are told about listening to the fish.
“…if you listen the fish will tell you why it was caught.”
Intrinsically, I get that. I know stories write themselves.
“When you catch a fish they tell you lots of things, tell you the depth they were caught at, how cold the water was, the cover, what they like to eat, how long it takes for them to strike, you just have to listen.”
We are eating breakfast, eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. Tommy is drinking coffee, I have a can of coke, I know that listening to Tommy talking about “Listening to the fish,” will be a conversation I will remember and cherish as much as the two page note from Rick.
“…some are dead and some are living…”
“Sometimes, when I see my granddaughters make small discoveries of their own, I wish I were a child.”
~Dr. Seuss
On the way back to Tommy’s house we drive back over the bridge, Rick Clunn is in his same spot, “…just over some.”
We stop at a local tackle shop, Tommy talks with the owner and some of his customers, on the counter I see Tommy’s guide service biz cards, up front there is a rack of the rods that sponsor Tommy, he sits at a table and talks with a customer, I watch another guy come in and buy ½ a pound of minnows, I feel bad as he walks out as I know some of those tiny fishes are about to have a really bad day.
On the drive home we get stopped waiting for road construction to clear, Tommy tells me that he used to “measure the water depth by sticking my rod in the water and counting how many of the rod guides got covered with water…”
I smile, I’m a wrist to elbow measuring stick using guy myself.
“…many times during practice I just go out there and turn the motor off and just sit, I listen, listen to the water, listen to the birds, watch the birds, never make a cast, just sit and listen, listening tells me where the fish are.”
I too, sit and listen.
And learn.
“…in my life…”
As I age, know this of me, I am not what I was, what I was is what I am.
Me then is still me now.
I may not be as quick.
I may not be as strong
But I am better.
I know the answers before you ask the questions.
It is a gift to be able to look back, and smile.
I am, me, no other qualifiers are needed.
Hey Tommy, listen:
“If you had one thing to say to Tommy, Larry what would it be.”
And from Area Code 501 came words that I could feel way over here in 409:
“Mr. Don I’d tell him this, don’t ever quit fishing…”
A moment pause.
“…and tell him I love him to death.”
“…I’ve loved them all.”
In My Life
The Beatles
db
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was.”
Satchel Paige