Eaker Returning To Site Of His ‘retirement’ To Fish Paa Tournament On The Arkansas River
Legendary boat manufacturer and fishing icon Earl Bentz once asked prominent bass pro Guy Eaker when he was going to retire.
“Retire and do what, fish?” retorted the veteran tournament angler from Cherryville, N.C. “That’s what I do.”
Eaker actually “retired” two years ago, dropping off the Bassmaster Elite Series to spend more time at home and care for his wife who suffers from fibromyalgia. But, with his 73rd birthday coming up in November he is still pursuing bass and entering big-time tournaments, just not as much as he did in the 35 years he was a regular on the B.A.S.S. Trail.
During that span he fished 286 B.A.S.S. events and qualified for 10 Bassmaster Classics. This year he is fishing the 2012 Bass Pro Shops PAA Tournament Series and the final PAA tournament of the year next week will bring him full circle back to his final B.A.S.S. Elite Series event on the Arkansas River in 2010.
“I fished the Arkansas River for three days in practice then and was catching a lot of 3- to 5-pound fish. But we had 5 inches of rain that last day of practice,” Eaker recalled. “Then I got a text message on my cell phone. It said, ‘Get off the river. There’s a wall of water coming.’ Before I got back to the landing I hit a log. They were floating everywhere.”
The river had become extremely dangerous to boaters. The next day as Eaker was crossing the bridge he looked down and saw the river was up out of the banks. B.A.S.S. moved the tournament to Fort Gibson Lake and all the work he had put in finding quality fish went down the river with the flood.
“I thought I was on enough fish to really do good on the Arkansas River,” Eaker said. “I was trying to help Paul Elias because he was on the verge of making the Bassmaster Classic. We do a lot of trading, so I told him something I was doing,”
Eaker explained that Elias fished deep while he prefers to fish shallow.
“I told him to fish the rocky points. I was catching fish on crankbaits and a Shakey Head. He went out and caught 15 pounds a day and I caught 13 pounds a day. He was the last man to make the Classic.”
So, Eaker will return to the Arkansas River and once again the weather is expected to play a major role. Hurricane Isaac drenched the region in the past week and places that were bone dry from a pervasive drought are now under water.
“It is all according to how much water is running in the river. You can catch fish off the wing dams in the river, but that storm put a lot of water in the river, so until we get there I won’t know how that river is running.”
Eaker and his traveling buddy, fellow PAA competitor David Hendrix who co-owns The Great Outdoors in Cherryville, will leave early Saturday morning and drive straight through to Three Forks Harbor Marina in Muskogee, Okla.
“We’ll get on the water Monday morning and practice three days before the tournament,” Eaker said. We might have to fish the bayous, little creeks and sloughs, places you could not get into when the water was say down.”
The high water will change everything, Eaker said, but he feels with three solid days of practice he will be able to find some good fish and get on a solid pattern.
“If I get on a good pattern I will just stay with it,” he said. “Sometimes you can take a spinnerbait, a crankbait and a buzzbait and cover a lot of water – and maybe catch bigger fish, too.”
Eaker enters the tournament ranked 18th in points and needs to have a good tournament so he can move up into the top 15 in the rankings. The top 15 from the 2012 Bass Pro Shops PAA Tournament Series Angler of the Year standings qualify for the Toyota Texas Bass Classic on Lake Conroe, which has long been considered a world championship of bass fishing. Besides the top 15 from the PAA Series, the TTBC will also feature the top 15 from the 2012 Walmart FLW Tour Angler of the Year list, the top 15 from the 2012 Bassmaster Elite Series Toyota Tundra Angler of the Year standings, four tournament sponsor exemptions and 2011 Champion Keith Combs.
The 2012 Toyota Texas Bass Classic will be held September 28-30 at Conroe, Texas.
“I’ve got a little work to do next week to make the Classic,” Eaker said. “As for retirement, I am not going to sit in my chair and die. I plan to stay active. My health is pretty good and I feel I can still compete. I don’t mind fishing a week at a time. The only thing I hate is the long drive. It’s a thousand miles to this tournament.”
Bass Pro Shops PAA Arkansas River Tournament
Sep 10-15, 2012
Arkansas River
Three Forks Harbor
www.fishpaa.com/2012-arkansas-river-tournament-info
