As you well know, we scan a lot of newspaper archives here at the Bass Fishing Archives. We do this because the organizational magazines give one side of the story, but the local news rags give another. Today in Nixon’s Prediction 1983 we have a piece that I don’t recall seeing in Bassmaster Magazine or anywhere else. I also wish I’d seen it prior to last week.
Last week was the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame Induction Dinner, an event that saw three new inductees try on their new blue jackets. The room was filled with past and present inductees as well as a few future ones, I’m sure. At the event I got to talk a bit with veteran pro and legend, Larry Nixon, an inaugural Bass Fishing Hall of Fame inductee himself.
I said in the lead-in paragraph I wish I’d have seen this article prior to the Induction Dinner last week because I would have asked him about it.
The article was written by veteran outdoor writer Reeves Feild of The Times – Shreveport-Bossier. Feild had been following the Hemphill Gang and their exploits for years by this time and had a mainline connection to Nixon, Tommy Martin, and the rest of the gang. But what Nixon told Fields during this interview put Fields back on his heels.
Here’s how it was written in the Sunday July 31, 1983, edition of Feild’s column.
Feild: “The personable East Texan isn’t saying much more than that … other than the fact that he thinks he’ll win the Classic.
“Say What?”
Nixon: “If I don’t, I’m going to give someone one heck of a run for it. I’m about as confident now as I’ve ever been. I’ve felt this way going into three other tournaments. I won two of them and finished second in the other one.”
By this time Nixon had already won five events and two Angler of the Year awards. One of the wins was the 1982 B.A.S.S. Champs event on the Ohio River, the stage for the 1983 Classic. As hot as Nixon was at this time, who could doubt him.
Feild also interviewed the rest of the qualifying Hemphill Gang as well as some other locals. None of them felt confident about the event, knowing how difficult the Ohio River fishery is. In Nixon’s B.A.S.S. Champs win the year before, he set an all-time record low weight for a Bassmaster win with 16-pounds, 5-ounces. Anglers who fished prior to the cutoff were hoping for just five bites a day and Martin predicted it would take less than 20 pounds to win.
But should he have let the tough fishing get in his head.
It appears Nixon was welcoming the tough conditions. Having won a low-weight event there may have propped his confidence going to the tough fishery. He knew it was going to be tough for the entire field and he only had to weigh in a few fish a day to stay in the hunt.
The next time I see Larry I’m going to ask him about this event as well as the other three events he had a premonition about. Like I said, I wish I’d seen this column before last week.
For those of you who would like to read the entire article, it’s posted below.
