Skeet’s Beat – Perspective

I’m at West Point Lake getting ready to start practice for the fifth tournament of the year at West Point Lake in Georgia. I’m ready to get the second half of the season underway, and I feel ready to fish. I know I need to start the second half on a good note and carry it through the rest of the season, but I’ll concentrate on them one at a time.

West Point looks like it’s going to be a tough bite; I think that 12 to 13 pounds a day is going to be solid. There will be some 20 pound bags caught I’m sure, but the bite should be tough overall; I need a good finish to get back on track.

Some of us took the time to go down to the marina at the resort where I’m staying; Highland Resort / Marina to go to a kids fishing club event that was happening there on Sunday. About 10 or 15 of the Elite Series pros went down there and met everyone and signed autographs for the kids that were there. It was fun to see how excited they got in having us there to watch their club in action.

While I know what I need to do as a professional angler this week; it all seems like it kind of pales in comparison to what the South went through last week with the big storms that ripped through the area. 130 tornados touched down, hundreds of people killed and missing and billions of dollars of property damage can put a lot of things into perspective.

I got to see the aftermath on Friday when I flew into Birmingham to pick up the Lucky Craft / Berkley Havoc Big Rig to head to West Point. Seeing the area, all of the destroyed buildings and tracks that the tornados took from the air was too real to imagine.

We hear about tornados and the damage they cause all of the time, but to see it only a day or so after they went through with such ferocity was absolutely chilling. Last week was a real reality check for me. I do what I love for a living, and whether things go exactly as I want them to on the water, I need to remember how lucky I am.

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who lost friends, family and loved ones as well as those who are trying to dig out of the debris.

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