The postseason is over. I'm fairly happy with it. I moved up from 11th place to 4th place in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings. It's hard to complain about that. Now it's time to turn my attention to other things.
As many of you have no doubt heard, I'll be getting married in about two weeks. My fiancée's name is Becky Mattes. We're getting married in Richmond, Va. There's a small mill there near her home that's been refurbished. We're going to use that for the ceremony. It's beautiful and outdoors. I think it'll be really neat.
It's best that we do it near her home. I think that's important — to be married where her family and friends can all come and see the ceremony. I'm not saying it's not important to me or my family, I'm just saying it's really nice for her.
Before I get in trouble talking anymore about that I think, maybe I should say something about my future bride. I met Beck — that's what I call her — at ICAST in Las Vegas three years ago. I was out there working. She was on vacation. We met at Caesars at a Red Bull gig through a mutual friend of Byron Velvick.
We hit it off right away. I had a tournament on the Potomac River the week after that. She was living in DC at the time. I called her up; we went out and had a really good time. From there our relationship blossomed.
I asked her to marry me at ICAST this year in Orlando. I'd thought about doing it earlier but ICAST seemed like the right place and the right time. That's where we met, so it only seemed right that we get engaged there.
She's going to help me with my business interests. Actually she's helping me now. She handles all my media requests, my travel schedule and a lot of my publicity. She has a background in that type of thing, so it's working out pretty well. I really respect her work. She knows what she's doing, that's for sure.
But, her most important job — and her toughest one — is being my anger management therapist.
No kidding, she's been helping me with that. I think it's working, too… sort of anyway. Only a few short years ago I was breaking light poles. Now I'm down to breaking fishing poles, and then only under extreme circumstances.
With Beck's continuing help, it won't be long and I'll be down to breaking lures. Who knows where it could go from there? Maybe someday I'll be reduced to talking to myself. Won't that be great?
Next week we'll talk about a really neat thing I've got going with Pete Gluszek called "The Bass University." I think a lot of you guys will be really interested in it.
