It’s long past midnight, and Brandon Palaniuk has the rock music blaring. He’s been driving all night, and he has three more hours to go. He pops open a Red Bull and takes a deep swig. It’s a liquid jolt. It’ll help him stay awake to make it to his destination, a state park campground at the next tournament site. This is one more leg in his first season on the Bassmaster Elite Series circuit, and 23-year-old Palaniuk is living his dream.
Gerald Swindle wasn’t expecting much on the final day of 2011. At the urging of his friend and neighbor, David Kilgore, Swindle decided to spend it as he had so many fall and winter days over the past 20 years – bowhunting for whitetail deer near his Jasper, Ala., farmhouse.
It’s often perceived that professional anglers are the luckiest guys in the world. If you subscribe to the theory that making a living doing something you love is among the first steps to a happy life, then for sure, the Bassmaster Elite Series pros are a fortunate bunch.
But they too have hopes, dreams, fears and concerns all interwoven into a daily pile of thoughts not drastically different than your own. And at Christmas, they have wishes. Some of their wishes are serious, some humorous, some tied to fishing – and all of them tied to the heart.
Gerald Swindle's mechanics for early winter fishing
It's coming, and for some of us, it's already here. We're talking about winter, and if it hasn't already in your area, the weather's going to turn cold ... maybe even really cold.
What should we bass anglers do? What lures should we throw? Where should we be fishing? Should we be fishing at all? Bassmaster.com asked Gerald Swindle those questions. Here's what he had to say:
The first morning of the 2011 Toyota Texas Bass Classic didn’t see a sunrise. Instead, dogs shivered, cold winds blew, and fans bundled beneath layered clothing as 50 of the best bass pros in the world readied for the first day of competition on historic Lake Conroe, which is currently seven feet lower than normal.
This past weekend on the shores of famed Lake Guntersville, amid the autumn colors of the southern Appalachians, at a table filled with deep fried pickles and catfish fillets, was all the faith you’ll ever need to believe that young America is going to be just fine -- and that people actually win those trip-of-a-lifetime sweepstakes contests you’ve always felt were just a marketing farce.
Dissecting a dock for both spotted and largemouth bass with Gerald SwindleBy Shaye BakerAlabama native Gerald Swindle has proven himself as one of the most animated and talented pros to ever tour the Bassmaster Elite Series. Growing up along the heavily docked Coosa River he became a revered dock fisherman. Though he is no one trick pony, one thing is for certain: if there is a dock bite on competition water, look out. Docks are a great, year-round fish attractant that many anglers don’t take advantage of.
