Sometimes you’re the hammer, but most times you’re the nail in tournament bass fishing.
Gerald Swindle knows that — he’s living it — but the lows have allowed him to greater appreciate the highs. All 300 of his B.A.S.S. entries, the cellar finishes along with 56 Top 10s, have helped create G-Man, the two-time Bassmaster Angler of the Year who’s well-respected by fans and fellow anglers.
Editor’s note: Read part 1.
“I think if it would have come super easy, maybe I would have been a different person,” Swindle said, adding he just had this discussion with fellow Elite Carl Jocumsen. “Maybe the struggle, and the slipping down and the grinding and the grinding, molds people into winners and champions. It can change them, let them have a good perspective on their career.
“I think the struggle built me to where I am today. It’s probably why my career has been as long and relatively successful at all levels. I told Carl, I don’t practice and fish enough to win.”
Although he would like more than his one Bassmaster win, Swindle said that’s never really been his focus. He said he became fascinated with point races early on from fishing Jerry Rhine’s tournaments, where he sandwiched a 1995 AOY with runner-up finishers. That’s when he teamed with longtime Bassmaster tournament director Trip Weldon, who watched him win his first boat.
Strategizing for competition, Swindle, if not on the rare winning deal, would adjust his mindset on the AOY race, thinking, for example, a 26th here would be a personal win.
“Watching points, you focus on that so much, you don’t risk it for the biscuit and go for the wins,” he said. “You just fish solid and consistent.”
Swindle parlayed steady seasons in 2004 and 2016 into AOY titles. There are 26 anglers who have won the 52 B.A.S.S. AOY trophies awarded, and Swindle is among the 11 with more than one. And of course, the points are the main avenue in qualifying for the Bassmaster Classic, which Swindle has done 19 times.
“It’s the biggest stage in the world, and Hartwell just proved that over and over,” he said. “Once you’ve been there, you’re like that drug addict. That’s what that Classic is. Once you ride through that arena, once they open that curtain and people are screaming, you never forget that feeling as long as you live.
“I started prepping to get back to the Classic as soon as I walked off the stage at Hartwell. At the camper, I was taking tackle out and prepping and telling LeAnn how we got to get back here. It’s that big of a deal for anglers.”
While Swindle would love to join the 12 pros with both AOY and Classic titles, he realizes he’s already carved out a rather successful career. He’s earned more $2.2 million with B.A.S.S. and is a fan favorite.
His sole Bassmaster win came in the 2011 Open on Florida’s Lake Toho. His weight of 80 pounds, 13 ounces stands as the B.A.S.S. record for a three-day event. Swindle did score a major victory early, winning $150,000 in a 1998 FLW event that added some sweetness to the 29-year-old’s career.
“I went to the bank to deposit it and told the lady I wanted my sucker,” he said. “I’ve been coming here forever putting my little bitty checks in the banks. Today I want a sucker, a grape sucker. Everybody else got suckers. Old construction workers, we just got a deposit slip.”
Besides being able to afford bags of suckers, Swindle said the cash gave him comfort to take more chances and discover what he was an angler, helping him become G-Man. He agreed most sustained bass fishing careers require some early success — he’ll applaud talented young anglers but hopes they don’t get too spoiled or cocky because this sport can be a cruel mistress.
“Nobody ever talks about this,” Swindle said. “They have a bakery that travels with the Elite Series, and they cook and serve humble pie right at the back of the tent every event. And you can wash it down with shut-up juice. This place and this sport will humble you.”
Swindle said he humbly returned to the Elites after a year fishing MLF. One of 68 Elites who left B.A.S.S., Swindle agreed his reasoning included FOMA, or fear of missing out. At the 2019 Classic, in what might have been his last hurrah, Swindle was quoted in Live-or-die week that he might work his way back to B.A.S.S.
After one season, Swindle, citing he missed his “home” and feeling like the prodigal son, returned to the Elite Series on a Legends exemption offered to the few with Classic or AOY titles.
“The first time I crossed that B.A.S.S. stage when I got back, it was a really damn good feeling,” Swindle said. “I just didn’t realize how much I would miss the structure of what we do, the fans and how it grows. I think it was a big learning lesson.
“I’m still a student of the game. That was being a student of the game in a different way. You’ve got to always make decisions. You never know they’re right, but you have to know when you made a bad decision and you’ve got to be man enough to correct it as quick as you can.”
After three events, Swindle stands 24th in the 2022 Elite Series AOY standings, in position to qualify for his 20th Classic, which most likely won’t be his last. While there’s been offers and other opportunities in the sport, Swindle said he’ll probably be like NBA’s Kobe Bryant, who retired only after falling out of love with the minutiae.
“I find myself out here prepping tackle for four or five hours — I’m still in love with the little things,” he said. “I still feel like I got another run at AOY in me, a little unfinished business. And I still enjoy it. I still like the lifestyle. Going back to Hartwell this year and seeing the crowds at Santee Cooper Lakes, you’re just like, this is the greatest it is.
“Out hunting I was asked, ‘You ever thought about retiring?’ I said, ‘And quit the greatest job in the world? It’d be stupid.'”
After a disappointing 97-place finish recently in his 300th entry, the St. Croix Bassmaster Southern Open on Cherokee Lake, Swindle made the cut and earned a paycheck finishing 30th at the Guaranteed Rate Bassmaster Elite at Chickamauga Lake.
“Don’t let the gray hair fool you,” Swindle says he tells LeAnn all the time. “The snow on the roof don’t mean there’s no fire in the cellar.”
His fire’s burning, and G-Man can’t imagine doing anything but tournament bassin’ in the foreseeable future.
“It’s been a fun ride for me,” he said, “but 300 tournaments, whoever would have thought that?”