Stacey King Withdraws from Final Walmart FLW Tour Events

Veteran bass-fishing pro Stacey King of Reeds Spring, Mo., has withdrawn from the final two events of the 2014 Walmart FLW Tour season due to undergoing cancer treatment. He will undergo surgery on his tonsils Thursday and doctors will then determine what sort of treatments he’ll require going forward.

“They’re going to take out my tonsils and also take three biopsies,” said King, who has been fishing professionally since the mid-1980s. “There’s a chance the cancer could be in my tonsils, but they’ll be able to tell more after I’ve had that operation. I know one thing, I’ve had so many tubes and scopes poked down my throat and my nose that it’s made me pretty sore. But other than that I feel fine and never had felt bad from it.”

King said that he first noticed swollen lymph nodes in his throat about six months ago, and after tests were conducted, was told that nothing abnormal was discovered, although he should remain vigilant.

“I kind of put it aside when we got into the heat of the tournament season,” King said. “The lymph nodes never changed one way or the other, so a month or so ago I went to a different doctor and he looked at it and said ‘you need a CT scan and a biopsy.’ It showed some cancer in there, but they don’t think it’s in my lymph nodes. They can’t tell where it is right now, but they’re going to find out.”

King had been enjoying a very successful 2014 season, finishing in the top-30 in three of the four FLW Tour events held so far. He is currently ranked 26th in the Kellogg’s Angler of the Year race and was in contention to qualify for the fifth Forrest Wood Cup appearance of his career.

“All of our thoughts and prayers are with Stacey and his family right now,” said Kathy Fennel, FLW’s President of Operations. “We know how tough he is and if there is anyone out there who can get past this, it’s Stacey. We wish him the best of luck with his procedures and hope to see him out on the water competing again very soon.”

In FLW Tour competition, anglers are vying for valuable points in hopes of qualifying for the 2014 Forrest Wood Cup, the world championship of bass fishing. The 2014 Forrest Wood Cup will be in Columbia, S.C., Aug. 14-17 on Lake Murray and is hosted by Capital City Lake Murray Country. Anglers could win as much as $500,000 – professional bass-fishing’s richest prize.

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