(Note: Industry rep Alan McGuckin caught up with Elite Series angler Casey Ashley, who spent several hours Monday night stranded on a sandbar in a backwater on the Mississippi River.)
Casey Ashley is known for his love of flip-flops, his laid-back style and Costa sunglasses, but as Labor Day night turned into Tuesday morning, he found himself beached well past midnight in a very distressed fashion during day 1 of practice for the Mississippi River Bassmaster Elite Series.
Finally, on Tuesday night, after losing most all of day 2’s practice to the sandbar mishap, the likeable 2015 Bassmaster Classic Champion stood in a dark, rainy, hotel parking lot after a much-needed trip to Olive Garden with friends, recounting his taxing first 36 hours in La Crosse, Wis.
“Our first day of practice was Monday, Labor Day, and I was running back in to the ramp to call it a day when I got stuck at about 7:30 that evening,” says Ashley. “I was so shallow that nearly my entire boat was out of the water. I knew there was no way I could call a fellow competitor to help me because they’d have got stuck, too.
“It was so shallow that just before dark, as I sat there waiting on help, I had a raccoon wade past me and he didn’t even get the fur on his belly wet – I’m dead serious.”
Thankfully he had cell service, and after placing a call to tournament director Trip Weldon to explain his predicament, Ashley and girlfriend Kenzi Hartman, who was back at their hotel in La Crosse, began placing calls in search of a tow. However, on Labor Day evening, help was hard to come by. Eventually, a marine rescue team from a local fire department was dispatched.
“I gave them my GPS coordinates and texted them a pin on my phone’s map, and for nearly 3 hours I could sit there and watch the red light flashing on the top of their boat, but they couldn’t see me,” explains Ashley.
A raccoon wasn’t the only wildlife on the scene. Mosquitoes were taking full advantage of Ashley’s predicament.
“They were eating me alive, so I put my rainsuit on, my cold-weather face mask on, and stuffed my feet into the arms of my hoodie because they were biting my feet so bad,” he said.
Just before 1 a.m., the firemen arrived at Ashley’s location and transported him back to the ramp. His boat remained beached.
“I got back to the hotel at 1:45 a.m. and all I could do was lay there and think about how in the world I was ever gonna get my boat off there in the morning,” he said.
That’s when help came from a fellow angler in the form of longtime FLW Tour pro and La Crosse resident Tom Monsoor, a Mississippi River tournament king often credited with inventing the swimjig.
“We owe the people at Island Outdoors a ton of thanks because they were the ones that put us in touch with Tom and his airboat on Tuesday morning,” Ashley said.
Monsoor (shown in the photo to the right next to Ashley's boat) pulled him free from the sandbar in minutes, but Ashley had to visit the Mercury service area to make sure no dirt had damaged the inner workings of his outboard. Finally, he got back on the water for a 4-hour practice session late Tuesday.
Wednesday is the final day of practice and it began with rain and occasional lightning flashes, a further reminder to Ashley and other Elite Series anglers what a stressful grind the life of a pro can be. Ashley enters this week’s tournament in 41st in the Toyota Bassmaster Angler of the Year race, a couple spots outside the projected cut to qualify for the 2017 Bassmaster Classic.
“I’m a bubble boy to make the Classic, and there’s about 10 of us all packed together in the points, so I need to catch ‘em,” he said, “but at this point, even though I missed a lot of practice, I just gotta roll with it.”
