Can You Handle The Truth?

[Our fourth and possibly final guest post of the week is by the one and only Kevin Short, aka K-Pink. I’ll never call him that because I’m comfortable with who I am…or something like that.

Him, Johnny Crews, Kenny Cook and some other dude who calls himself the Red Baron or sumpin have this very cool website called InsideProBass.com. There they dish out some of what it’s like to be a pro. It ain’t all champagne and caviar, folks! Anyhow, one from K…Short.]

I had a little email drop into the Inbox the other day from one of our readers here at Insideprobass.com busting my cahonies because we weren’t serving up tasty little nuggets fast enough for his palate.

Hold on there, little pardner, this here blog thing is a work in progress and some days we make progress and some days we don’t.

Cahony Buster just flat out stated that maybe we just needed to shut all this down, if we couldn’t post some new stuff to keep his interest up. He was also wondering just how long it took to pound out a few words, already. I was wondering just how much free time dude had at work every day to be checking out the innerwebz. Just a thought…

Yes, we’re working on bringing you the insides of the pro bassin’ scene. No, we’re not where we want to be in terms of content. W-O-R-K  I-N  P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S. Hey, as soon as I run across a few more Tour-level pros who can string together 10 words or so to form a complete, coherent sentence AND who will be somewhat responsible and reliable about sending those sentences my way, I’ll have more stuff for you to read, Cahony Boy.

In the midst of stewing over all this, the thought hit me that, hey, maybe everyone doesn’t realize just what it is that we bassin’ pros do on a regular basis. Like, the Elite Series season is way done with, so we must just be sitting around, strumming our guitars and downloading iTunes. Right?

I wish.

What follows is just a sample of an average couple of weeks in the life of K-Pink.

9/12 – Monday

Load up the 3500 and drive 12 hours and 687 miles to Wabash, Indiana. We had parked the camper and BassCat here at Sherm’s Marine after the last Northern Open at Sandusky, Ohio. Sherm did some service work to the Merc. I figured after 236 hours with just gear lube changes every 30-40 hours, it was time to do some service work. Arrived at Sherm’s, loaded the camper, hooked up the BassCat, and headed on down the road to a nearby state park for the night.

9/13 – Tuesday

Drove another 12 hours and 695 miles to Cape Vincent, New York. Wanted to spend a day or two in the Thousand Islands Region before heading down the road to Oneida Lake for the last Northern Open. Pulled into Cedar Point State Park just before sunset.

9/14 – Wednesday

Not in a big hurry to get out of the bed this morning. Wonder why. Spent most of the morning getting stuff in the BassCat arranged and re-organized for Oneida. Took K2 out for the afternoon on the east end of Lake Ontario for some smallmouth action. I think we saw one other boat all afternoon – and it was NOT a bass boat.

9/15 – Thursday

Rain and high winds kept us off the water. Not a problem. I worked on several pieces for Insideprobass.com and finished getting the BassCat ready for Oneida.

9/16 – Friday

Loaded up the camper, hooked up the BassCat, and headed down I-81 to Oneida Lake. Set up the camper, dropped the BassCat in the lake and took a quick peek around the pond for the rest of the day.

9/17 – Saturday

Dark to Dark, baby. That’s right. Practice days start at daybreak or a few minutes after and go until the sun goes down. Might come in an hour before if I need to work on tackle or equipment, but it’s usually dark to dark, which this week is around 6:45 AM to 7:30 PM.

9/18 – Sunday

Ditto.

9/19 – Monday

Ditto, ditto.

9/20 – Tuesday

Ditto x 3.

9/21 – Wednesday

Not ditto today. After 4 days on Oneida, or anywhere for that matter, I’m either going to catch them or I’m not. I’ve become so accustomed to 2 1/2 days with the Elite Series that anything more than that feels like cheating. I know there are quite a few Open anglers who are spending weeks practicing before each event (subject of a future piece), but I’ve never been one to spend that much time “practicing”. Just what are you “practicing” for and why does it take that long. Anyway, registration day is not a fishing day for me in the Opens. I spend it catching up on phone calls, rigging rods, and making sure that everything on the BassCat is 100 percent and ready to roll.

9/22 – Thursday

Derby Day. Up way too early. Down way too late. Had a decent limit of Oneida brown fish. Need to do better on Friday.

9/23 – Friday

Derby Day 2. Again, up way too early. Caught just barely enough to get my first ever check at Oneida Lake. Woohoo! Dinner with db that evening. After dinner, K2 and I get the camper ready and loaded to blast off in the morning for the Potomac.

9/24 – Saturday

Hook it up and drive south for ONLY 8 hours and 420 miles to Smallwood State Park for the last Northern EverStart. Set up the camper and pretty much unload everything out of the boat; tackle, rods, reels, drift socks, etc. No smallies in the Potomac, none that will help you anyway, so it’s time to change out for largemouth stuff.

9/25 – Sunday

D 2 D. No, I didn’t write anything for Insideprobass.com when I came off the water. Sorry.

9/26 – Monday

See 9/25 – Sunday above.

9/27 – Tuesday

Ditto.

9/28 – Wednesday

No practice. Rigged and took K2 out for a couple of hours of shark tooth hunting. If you’ve never looked for shark teeth along the Potomac, you need to check it out if you ever make a trip there. Cool stuff.

9/29 – Thursday

Derby Day. Did I mention that it has rained for the past 10 days? Yeah. First creek I ran to was running with chocolate milk. Not pretty. Managed to find a pocket of clear water and catch a miserable little limit. Visited a couple of other creeks without helping myself.

9/30 – Friday

In addition to the mud, I had two boat loads of commercial fishermen stringing 500 feet of gill net around my clear pocket. What luck. I run the BassCat 20 miles down the river and manage to squeeze out a small limit. 4 ounces separate me from a check I this one. Drats. On the bright side, I finish 8th in the Northern EverStart points, which qualifies me for the FLW Tour. Cool.

10/1 – Saturday

I hang around and take noted writer Pete Robbins out for a few hours in the AM for a couple of stories and some photos. It’s a cool 53 degrees with a brisk northwesterly breeze at 15 – 25 as K2 drops us in the water. Within 10 minutes, I’ve captured a chunky 4 pound photo fish.

Where was that one when I needed to get a check? Huh? Huh?

Pete and I catch a few more fish and retreat to his truck for a quick interview and a warm up while a little light shower passes. We head back out for a few grip and grins.

K2 picks me up at the ramp. Pete heads off to his suburban mansion (I really have no idea what the man lives in, it just sounded good) while K2 and I load up the camper and head off again. This time we are headed south to Pell City, Alabama for a writer’s conference. We drive 4 hours and 210 miles to Kerr Lake, just across the North Carolina border and pull into RC Cooper Campground for the evening.  Wait – JC Cooper. RC is a friend of mine. Dude, it all runs together after a while.

10/2 – Sunday

We head out for the remainder of our trip to Pell City, which is 9 hours and 536 miles. Set up the camper and work on de-funking the BassCat. After two weeks in the rain and on the road, it is nasty. Not very impressive to be hauling around outdoor writers in a funky BassCat.

10/3 – Monday

Finish de-funking the BassCat and get some tackle ready for fishing with the writer’s, who start arriving shortly before noon. Here’s how this works; mornings and afternoons are all about photos. With the angler of the sun low, the light is much better for “making pictures.”

Ever wonder why many of those pics you see in Bassmaster magazine look so good? Mostly because the guys who take them know what they are doing and they do it mostly early and late in the day to get just the right light. Spend the afternoon with Louie Stout talking shop and taking a few snaps.

10/4 – Tuesday


Dark 2 Dark at the writer’s events, too. Don’t’ think for a minute that these things are steak and shrimp on the bar-bee and a bottomless cooler of Miller Lite. There’s a fair amount of work going on here too, bro. Where do you think they get that stuff in Bassmaster?

10/5 – Wednesday

Same as Tuesday. Pull the BassCat out just before dark and pack it up for the trip home. Finally.

10/6 – Thursday

Load up the camper and head for the hacienda. 7 hours and 420 miles later, we pull into our own driveway for the first time in 24 days.
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So what’s next? Oh, how about unwrap the truck and the BassCat; that will take a couple of days. Take the truck to trade it in on a new one. The new one has to be rigged to carry the Lance camper, which involves air springs, an air compressor, new hitch and hitch extension, backup camera monitor, centering guides and tiedowns, and in-bed wiring harness. Should take me around 20-24 hours over 2 1/2 days. That’s good, since we only have 6 days before we take off again for another derby.

Is this normal? Pretty much the way my life has been since the end of February. A week or two slow here and there, but for the most part, this is what it is.

And he wonders why I can’t post something new every day…

BTW, Cahony Boy, these 1,730 words took me around an hour and a half to pound out. I could have spit out a few hundred a whole lot faster, but it just wouldn’t have conveyed my true feelings on the subject.

K-Pink Down.