Lucas Punkari
For local angler Bryan Gustafson, the chance to tackle the FLW Everstart Southeast Series was one he couldn’t pass up.
“Basically, there’s no time like the present to try something like this,” he reasoned.
“If you don’t try to go down and take on that next level of fishing, you may never end up doing it and you end up staying close to home for the rest of your career, not that there is anything wrong with that,” Gustafson said.
“But anybody who competes in sports wants to compete at the highest level, and I felt like I could go down and try it for the next couple of years.”
The 23-year-old currently is in Okeechobee, Fla. preparing for the first of four events on the tour, which will take place Jan. 19-21 on Lake Okeechobee.
“I’m pretty pumped up about it,” Gustafson enthused.
“This week I’ll be hitting the water a lot to get some of the rust off before the event as I’ve been off the water for about three months or so now,” he noted.
The other three Southeast tour events will be taking place on Lake Seminole in Georgia (March 22-24), the Santee Cooper Lakes in South Carolina (April 19-21), and Lake Guntersville in Alabama (May 3-5).
The top anglers in the final standings earn a spot in the FLW Championship on the Ouachita River in Louisiana in November.
“I chose this section of the [FLW] tour because it will not interfere with my participation in the big tournaments back home,” Gustafson explained.
“I would love to do the Northern series, but I would end up missing the Fort Frances tournament, the KBI [Kenora Bass International], and Bassin’ for Bucks and those are the three big ones.”
Competing on the Southeast tour does present a number of different challenges for Gustafson, though, as most of the knowledge he’s gained on area lakes over the years won’t be much help on the one he’ll be competing on down there.
“Down here, I’m like a fish out of water,” joked Gustafson, who won last year’s Bassin’ for Bucks tournament in Sioux Narrows with partner Darrin Bohonis.
“If I were to fish on the Northern series, obviously there wouldn’t be as much stuff to learn as their lakes are more relatable, with Lake Champlain [in New York] being very similar to Rainy Lake,” he noted.
“Here [in Florida], though, the deepest spot on the lake is about 11 feet deep, and you are doing a lot of running through thick vegetation to get to your spots.
“You end up putting your boat through things that you wouldn’t consider driving through back home.
“So more or less, I’m kind of starting from scratch to try and figure out what’s happening,” Gustafson added.
Another difference Gustafson will be facing on the FLW tour is that he’ll have no partner to back him up in the boat, unlike the tournaments that take place here in Sunset Country.
“You might have another angler in the boat with you, but he can hurt you more than anything,” Gustafson explained.
“He’s only allowed to fish at the back of the boat, but he’s going after his own fish so it’s all on you in these type of tournaments,” he stressed.
“You don’t have somebody who will be there to help and bail you out if you are having a bad day like we do in the events up here.”
With as many as 200 anglers vying to crack the top 50 that will weigh-in on the third and final day of each tournament, Gustafson will find himself in tough during the four events on the tour.
But he’s keeping his goals realistic.
“I talked to the event director a couple a weeks ago and he was telling me that I was the only guy that was going to be taking part that hadn’t been on one of these lakes before,” Gustafson recalled.
“If I could cash a few cheques, or make it into the title round, that would be great,” he reasoned. “But I don’t know if I’ll be gunning for any of those spots right away.
“If I could pick up enough points and make a run into the championship at the end of the year, that would be great.
“But I can’t have any bad days out here as these are the tournaments where you can get cut,” he warned.
Gustafson also feels that competing in the FLW will help him out come summer when he takes part in the FFCBC, KBI, and Bassin’ for Bucks.
“I might pick up a few techniques here [in the south] that I might be able to try out back home, but these event will pretty much help you out mentally more than anything,” he explained.
“Competing down here makes you a lot tougher, especially when you seeing all those big-name games that will just whoop your butt,” he laughed.
