Alton Jones’ Skeeter became America’s Bass Boat 1 when he and his son took out President George W. Bush for a fishing expedition at Bush’s Texas ranch.
The Joneses made 40-minute ride up from Lorena to Crawford, where they led the 43rd president to his best day of fishing there. They presented him a gift as well as knowledge to improve his fishing experiences in the future.
“The special thing for me, for over three hours, it was me, my son and President Bush,” Alton said. “I was just very honored to have that kind of access, and to be able to draw wisdom from somebody like that. You learn the things that are important to him.
“One of the things that really struck me was to see that even though he’s no longer president, he still lives for and upholds the same principles that he had when he was president. He has the same values. He’s not a different guy.”
During those three hours on Bush’s 15-acre lake, there were a bunch of bass brought in, briefings on bait, backlashes, a bump on the brain and bonding.
“We got to fish all morning, and (The President) said it was the best morning he had ever had on his own lake,” Alton Jr. said. “That was really special. We all caught some really good fish.
“It was all pleasure and no business. There was no political talking. It was really cool to see him in that setting. I’m used to seeing him in a press conference, not cutting up and having a good time.”
Alton said he saw early on that Bush, while serious about angling, wanted a fun day. One request Bush’s ranch manager made was for the Joneses to offer suggestions on how to improve fishing on the lake. Alton said that wasn’t Bush’s main concern during the outing – the president wanted a good time.
“He definitely joked with us,” Alton said. “A good example: one of my recommendations was to stock more food in his lake. His bass are healthy, but they can be another level of healthy.
“I told him, ‘When you’re talking about a bass lake, there’s no such thing as a buffet too big.’ So he looks straight at my stomach and says, ‘I can see that.’ I said, ‘OK, I can see how this day is going to go.’ So he was really funny all morning.”
Studio tour impresses the Joneses
Alton Jr. had actually met President Bush when the family was invited to the White House after his dad’s Bassmaster Classic victory in 2008. He was just a young teen and thought that would be his greatest and only presidential story.
“I thought I was going to tell it forever,” he said. “I thought, ‘When will I ever get to meet or be around another U.S. President?’ So to get the invitation to spend the whole morning in the boat with him … it’s no knock on the White House, but they say you learn more about someone in an hour in a personal setting than a week in their work space. It was great to just be friends.”
Asked what he found most special, Alton Jr. said the President allowed them to get a glimpse of his life at Bush’s Prairie Chapel Ranch. After the fishing, Bush showed them places at his “Western White House,” where world leaders had met with him during his two-term presidency, 2001-2009. Most personal, though, might have been a visit to his art studio.
“Just going into his art studio and seeing the paintings he’s done, you could see his passion,” Alton Jr. said. “There were paintings of all his hats, scenery, his nieces and nephews, and he actually painted on one as we started asking questions about it.
“That was probably the coolest thing to me about the entire visit – just knowing these paintings might someday be in the Smithsonian.”
Alton said he realized it was rather special for Bush to show them around. They got in his Polaris Ranger and left Secret Service folks trailing by a couple hundred yards.
“He didn’t have to do that. That showed us after we fished, he enjoyed his time with us,” Alton said.
Showing President his lake was loaded
Alton has known Bush since before he became governor of Texas in 1995. They actually fished together in 1991 and met again later at a golf tournament. After Alton won the 2008 Classic on Lake Hartwell, Bush invited him, his family and women’s champion Judy Wong to visit him at the White House in Washington, D.C.
Bush later sent Alton a letter thanking him for coming – “I was the one who needed to be thanking him” – and saying he would love to invite Jones to Crawford to fish. Alton put it in the back of his mind, wondering if it was just something idle talk.
“Years went by, and I was amazed when just a few weeks ago his ranch manager called and said Bush wanted to invite me and my son out to Crawford,” Alton said. “He was making good on that promise he made several years before. It shows he has an incredible memory and he does follow through.”
The Joneses were also commissioned with helping the President learn a little bit more about his lake, and maybe give bait recommendations. Days before their fishing excursion, they went out in Alton Jr.’s Skeeter, and using Garmin Quickdraw Contours software, mapped the lake for Bush.
“He didn’t have any contours whatsoever to tell what was really offshore,” Alton said. “And then we presented him with a Garmin unit with that information.”
During their three-hour tour, the Joneses showed Bush the true potential of his lake. The three totaled about 35 fish caught, with several in the 5-pound class.
“The lake is loaded, and he didn’t really know how loaded it was,” Alton said. “A lot of his fish are staying offshore. So basically on a trip, he would put his boat in and make a circle around the shoreline and catch 8 or 10 bass in two hours, and he was done.
“He said, ‘All these years I’ve been fishing my lake completely wrong.’ Hopefully we showed him some things that are going to give him little bit more enjoyment out there.”
The Joneses showed Bush those offshore points, humps and rock piles in various areas, and gave him a primer on how to fish each of those spots.
Not many folks can say this
After their outing, Alton Jr. can now say he’s in a rather exclusive club. Not just for fishing with Bush, but for an incident that happened.
“I have to throw this in there, but (Bush) probably wouldn’t like me to,” he said. “I took about a 3/8-ounce tungsten bullet head to the back of the head.
“He swung on a fish and came back with no worm and the weight actually caught me in the head. He told me, ‘I’m sorry,’ and I told him, ‘You got the Presidential pass on that one.’”
Alton said that was the Joneses’ opportunity to joke at Bush’s expense. But would the God-fearing Joneses even entertain lampooning a former president they respect so much?
“Absolutely, we did,” Alton said. “I said, ‘See son, you got to do something not a lot of people have. You’ve been whacked by the President.’
“And I got to pick out a backlash. We were giving him a hard time about things like that. And he was amazed to see that we backlashed, too. He thought as pros, we were perfect. I think it was fun for him to see that.”
It was really fun that the Joneses put the president on the most fish he’s ever seen come out of the lake, while giving him a few tactics to unlock the lake. The president asked them to go out again, as well as doing some more work to help enhance fishing there. Alton said he recommended that they add threadfin shad as an additional food source for the bass. The Joneses next mission is to further survey the lake for prime fishing spots.
“If any bass member every had the chance to go fishing with President Bush, he’s just a regular guy who loves to fish who’s done some incredible things in his life,” Alton said. “He’s just an incredible person, but still a regular guy.”
