Kevin VanDam

KVD’s Best and Worst of the ‘07 Season

December 12, 2007 – by Kevin VanDam

The best thing about the 2007 season for me was winning at Lake Guntersville. I’ve fished a ton of tournaments there over the years, and it’s always been good to me, but I could never pull-off a win. I love that lake, and to finally win there was the highlight of my year.

The worst thing about the 2007 season for me was by far, all the long road trips and way too many days away from Sherri, Jackson and Nicholas. The way the schedule lined-up this year was just exceptionally busy and demanding compared to other years. Just to get started, I drove from the Bassmaster Classic in Birmingham straight to Orlando, and then from Orlando, I drove my Tundra® 20 hours back west to Lake Amistad. By far, this year involved some of the longest road trips of my career.

As for the one that got away this year that sticks in my mind the most: Unfortunately, there’s more than one, but the one that burns the most is the one I lost in the 8-pound range at Clarks Hill (Georgia). I caught an 8-pounder and a 6-pounder from one particular point at Clarks Hill in practice. Then in the tournament I lost an 8-pound class fish on the same point. It cost me making the Top 50 cut. (Note: KVD finished 55th and failed to earn a paycheck at Clarks Hill).

When I look back at the one lure that brought me the greatest amount of success it would definitely have to be the Strike King ‘Sexy Shad’ colored crankbaits. I’ve always depended on Strike King Series 5 and Series 6 crankbaits as go-to lures, but I started working on a ‘special’ shad color for those baits three years ago. It turned out to be the now famous ‘Sexy Shad’. I designed that color to fit a wide variety of water clarities, and it’s just turned out to be a killer shad color. There are doubters out there who will say that any similar shad color would have worked just as good, but I disagree. The guys I share information with on the Elite Series trail and myself have had too many examples of Sexy Shad out-catching other shad colors. It’s the perfect ‘hue’ in the water.

The most memorable meal I ate over the past 40,000 miles would be: That’s pretty easy to answer. Davy Hite is a good buddy of mine, and we room together on the road a lot. Davy has a friend in Charlotte who is a seafood distributor. We order fresh Yellowfin tuna and other fresh seafood to be flown in to wherever we are on the road. We love sushi. We all pitch-in to cover the costs of the fish and the shipping, and usually Skeet and Scroggins get in on the action too. I’ve had sushi at the best restaurants in Vegas, and they don’t touch the tuna this dude ships us.

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