KVD Wants One for the Thumb
September 04, 2009 – by Pete Robbins
Kalamazoo, Mich.—Whether he’s talking about an individual tournament or an Angler of the Year title is unclear, but it really doesn’t matter. World-beating professional bass fisherman Kevin VanDam wants to win. Strike that, he expects to win. And once he wins, he wants to win again.
The first 14 BASS trophies weren’t enough. He added a fifteenth this year, sight fishing on Virginia’s Smith Mountain Lake. He won a Classic title in 2001 and then added a bookend Classic trophy in 2005. But right now he’s focused on the AOY title – he has four of them to his credit, and will do everything within his power to grab a fifth.
“From the first day of the first tournament of the year, it’s on my mind,” he said. “My goal is to be in contention going into the last event.”
He said that actual numerical finishes don’t always concern him – he’s had 20th place finishes where he was “real pleased” and runner-up performances that left him “very disappointed” – but ultimately it’s wins and individual honors that people remember. After a nearly decade-long drought in which he failed to win an AOY title, VanDam stormed back last year and is anxiously awaiting the two-event Alabama sojourn, two more opportunities to fight off all challengers.
“Each time you win one, you appreciate it more and more,” he said.
Will luck play a role?
For a Michigan resident, KVD has paid an awful lot of taxes to the state of Alabama over the years. He’s fished 34 BASS tournaments in the state along with three FLW tournaments. He’s certainly familiar with the bodies of water, even if he’s proven himself more thoroughly on the Tennessee River chain than on the Coosa River chain. But so too are Gerald Swindle and Randy Howell, the two Alabama residents in the top twelve, along with most of the rest of the remaining field. Given these circumstances, VanDam believes that there’s no such thing as a home-field advantage in this abbreviated chase for the cup.
“The bottom line is that there’s not an angler in this field who can’t catch them on any given day,” he said. “They all know how to catch them on the Tennessee River, the Coosa River or up at Lake Champlain.”
While he expects it to be a test of the best, he’s not necessarily thrilled with the format that BASS has devised, which involves adjusting the points, even if he understands the rationale for that change.
“If we had last year’s format, it would come down to Skeet and I,” he said. “I don’t have a problem with trying to create excitement, but the thing I’m having a hard time with is calling it the Angler of the Year. Basically it comes down to four days of competition and it’s hard to get used to that.”
“Just about every sport has a post-season,” he continued. “They all have something along these lines. What I don’t like is the chance that luck can come into play and the way to take luck out of it is to put more days into it.”
His recent history on the lakes to be fished is decent, but not characteristically stellar. In the 2003 Alabama Showdown, he finished 18th out of 50. The next year in the Elite 50 on the Alabama River he was 12th in a field of the same size. In a perfect world, he’d rather the two tournaments be on lakes the entire field had fished during the regular season, albeit at different times of year.
What he left behind
As noted above, the signature moment of VanDam’s season was his win at Smith Mountain Lake, where the sight bite, thought to be his one remaining weakness, was dominant. In some ways it was reminiscent of the Elite 50 at Lake Lewisville in which he set a then lake record with an 11-pound bass caught on a shakey head. The common wisdom at the time was that he was ill-equipped to capitalize on a finesse bite and he showed the world that wasn’t the case.
He’s justifiably proud of the changes he’s made in his fishing. After a long AOY dry spell (although there were two intervening Classic titles), he’s back on top consistently, and he believes he understands why.
“What I’ve really learned is when to power fish and when to slow down,” he said. “If I find a special spot, I’ll milk it for all it’s worth. I don’t just do well when the conditions meet my strengths, and that’s what keeps you from having bad finishes, those 90th place finishes. You have to grind it out when you can.”
The proof is in his results. He earned eight checks in eight Elite Series tournaments this year, and only at Wheeler (45th), did he finish below28th. Four of the eight checks were Sunday appearances, including the win at Smith Mountain, runner up finishes at Kentucky Lake and Dardanelle, and an 8th place finish in the season opener at Amistad. All told, he’s had 15 straight Elite Series money finishes – the last check line he missed was at Amistad in April of last year.
Despite his consistency, in the VanDam stratosphere, where every point counts, there are often some regrets. “Wheeler was one, definitely,” he said. “I felt pretty decent coming in but it all comes down to decisions and the decisions on where to go the first morning changed the whole outcome of the tournament.”
He’s also rehashed the Amistad event in his mind numerous times. “On the final day I took a big chance and went out and threw a big swimbait all day looking to move up a lot. I went out there thinking I had to have a giant bag. If I had known that the other guys weren’t going to catch them that well I could have stayed with my original pattern and moved up a few spots.” Nevertheless, he doesn’t regret his decisions – “I’ve learned over the past 10 or 15 years that if you want to win you’ve got to take a chance” – but he still thinks about what might have been. Once the dice are rolled in Alabama, it may prove to be a pivotal decision or it may end up not mattering at all.
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