Jaclyn Cherry’s role in aiding her husband’s fishing career takes on many facets, but the most impressive might be her telepathic communication.
Her husband, Hank, surely couldn’t hear her as she prayed he stood tall on Championship Sunday of the 2020 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk, but she thinks he got the message loud and clear.
“I think as his wife, you want to be the yin to the yang,” said Jaclyn, who sees her duties as lifting him up when he’s down and cooling his jets when he’s too high.
Cherry was riding high in the 50th anniversary Classic, taking a big lead with his Day 1 bag of 29 pounds, 3 ounces. That lead shrunk from 7-11 after Day 2’s 16-10, but Cherry was still in the driver’s seat, up 4-13 on his nearest competitor. Yet early on Championship Sunday, three anglers leapfrogged him.
Thoughts of 2013 crept into minds. That’s when Cherry lost the potential Classic winning fish on Grand Lake and infamously laid on his boat deck in anguish, realizing a great chance to realize his childhood dream was gone.
The potential for another close miss was raised at 9 a.m. when, with only one fish in the boat, Cherry lost a fish. That’s when Jaclyn, watching on Bassmaster LIVE, sent the mental message she believes was answered not long after.
“I’m looking at my iPad, ‘Get up. Let’s do this. Cast again.’ I’m not letting him get down. I know he can’t hear me,” she said, adding he knew to maintain focus or when he got back, “‘Jaclyn is going to yell at me.’”
Jaclyn did get to personally address Hank about his missed fish late on Day 2. That fish would have given him closer to 20 pounds and made him feel more comfortable heading into Sunday. She knew she had to talk him down.
“That caught him yesterday. It got to him,” Jaclyn said. “I was like — this is me being the hard butt that I am — ‘Get over it. Get over it. Get back up. Stop it. You did great today. Tomorrow’s a new day. Stop it.’”
That message to keep on keeping on had to have been fresh in his mind. Jaclyn said so. Guntersville is known for flurries that can get an angler healthy in a hurry, and 30-pound bags are always a possibility. But so are 10-pound limits.
Wives have little control over the fish, especially sitting in a hotel 70 miles away, but Jaclyn, raw knees and all, got the prayer chain rolling.
“I think this morning when there was the lull and he didn’t catch anything, I called my mom,” she said. “I told her my only prayer today — I don’t even care if he hoists the trophy — is that he has redemption on that fish.”
Cherry got it and much more. After a short move down the riprap on the Brown’s Creek causeway, he landed his second fish at 9:26. His third came 10 minutes later, putting him back ahead by about 3-12. Another 10 minutes passed before Cherry landed his biggest fish, a 5-pounder that put him up nearly 9 pounds.
“Yeah baby!” he yelled. “One more, Jesus. Let’s go!”
Let’s go is the family rallying cry. Hank attends and helps coach his son Christian’s basketball and baseball games, and that phrase has insider meaning.
“Let’s go. It’s my son’s saying. That’s what he says at baseball or basketball,” Jaclyn said. “When my son gets excited, when Christian gets pumped about something, he’ll look at him and say, ‘Let’s go, dad! Let’s go!’ Hank knew he’d be watching, so the ‘Let’s go’ was for him.”
Christian was with Hank’s parents at the time of the big catch, but Jaclyn called and she said Christian answered the phone with a hearty, “Let’s go! He knew. He knew.”
At 9:55, Cherry landed his fifth fish, and with a lead of around 10 pounds, the Classic was going his way. While the fourth fish eased Jaclyn’s mind in her roller coaster morning, she said his limit fish hit her hard.
“I’ll be honest, when the fifth fish was in the livewell, I lost it. I lost it,” she said. “I was alone with my daughter. I cried. I just cried. He told me he needed five. When he had five, you can take a breath.”
Two more culls in the afternoon gave Cherry at 19-8 for the day, a 65-5 total to win by 6-11, and a $300,000 check from the $1 million tournament payout.
Despite an iffy start to his final day, Jaclyn said Hank was steady all week. She felt besides the momentary worry that Saturday’s lost fish might be costly, there was little self-doubt.
“This week as his wife, it’s actually been different than any tournament he’s ever fished,” she said. “There’s been this calm confidence that I cannot explain, all week. ‘I’m here to do a job and I’m going to do it, and if I lose doing it, I’m going out with everything I have.’ That got me because he normally gets confident, and there’s kind of a roller coaster. He’s just like everybody else.
“We were walking back to the room last night — I’m sorry I don’t want to get emotional — and he looked and me and said, ‘Are you ready for this?’”
Jaclyn choked up a bit, proud of her man for reaching his dream, and pleased she could be there as his greatest supporter, either right in front of him or miles away with her telepathic well-wishes.
“Often times you hear guys talk about their support system, well my wife has truly been mine,” Hank said. “She has been with me through thick and thin and she makes me a better person. I’m not sure where I would be today without her.”