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It was Sunday July 15th, the day before practice started for my first Elite Series event. The anticipation for the tournament had begun on January 7, a blistering cold day when 3 feet of snow lay on the ground in Buffalo.
I was locked onto my computer to enter in the most outrageous fishing purchase to date. I had fished a few other tourneys on Lake Erie, but none of them could compare to fishing with all the pros I have grown up reading about in the pages of Bassmaster Magazine and watching on ESPN2 on Saturday mornings.
I had a few things to do on Sunday that involved running back home to Angola. To travel from Buffalo to Angola you have to pass through Hamburg, the town where most of the anglers were lodging.
What I did next was very uncharacteristic; as a matter of fact it is down right embarrassing. Driving with my girlfriend, I intentionally took a detour to ensure I would pass by some of the hotels the pros were staying at. That's right: I did a drive by.
I then took it upon myself to pull into the hotel and talk to the anglers. My intent was to score a ride with one of them the following morning for practice. The first person I spoke to was Derek Remitz. He told me he had not heard from his co-angler and would be happy to take me if he did not show.
After that I walk down the rows of bass boats looking like a kid in a candy store, or as my friends pointed out to me, a 13-year-old girl at a Backstreet Boys concert, talking to all the anglers I have read so much about.
Charles Waldorf
