Imagine Cody Bird’s excitement as daylight broke on day 1 of the Forrest Wood Cup. He and 45 other anglers were primed to blast off to all corners of Lake Lanier in FLW’s signature event. The anticipation rivaled a kid on Christmas morning coming down the stairs to see what was left under the tree.
“I was all hyped up and ready to get up one of those rivers and start catching ‘em,” he said. “You know how it is on the first morning of a big event like that.”
His excitement quickly turned to concern when he felt something mechanical go wrong about 5 miles into his run. His initial suspicion was a lower-unit problem.
“It just stopped all at once,” he said. “I put it in gear and it wouldn’t go.”
At the registration meeting the night before day 1, FLW tournament director Bill Taylor had informed the anglers that a couple of back-up boats would be available should someone experience mechanical problems on the water. Typically at Tour events, anglers are on their own to deal with boat or motor trouble.
“They’ve never done that before,” Bird said.
Bird immediately called Taylor to inform him he was having some sort of motor problem.
“He said, ‘How can I help you in the quickest way,’” Bird recalled Taylor asking.
Bird told him he was going to take a closer look at the issue to see if he indeed needed to switch boats.
“I’ll bring you one as quick as I can. Tell me where you’re at and I’ll bring it to you and then you can swap your stuff over,” Taylor told him.
After further inspection, Bird discovered he’d actually spun a hub. He let Taylor know, but Taylor had gone ahead and had the back-up boat in the water and ready to go just in case.
“Man, that was a huge relief knowing I was going to get to fish,” Bird said. “I figured out it was the hub and I had an extra prop. I actually had to beat the other one off with a hammer. It was fried so bad. I called Bill back and told him I had fixed it. He said the boat was in the water already and was ready for me. That was the biggest thing they’ve ever done for me. I was so happy to know that he’d done that.
“He never hesitated, so I wanted to thank Bill Taylor and the whole FLW crew. He was Johnny on the spot and was ready to help me.”
Bird said he lost about an hour of fishing time, but he went on to catch 14-11 on day 1, which had him in 5th place. He eventually finished 17th, his second-best result in four career Cup appearances.
