Top Pros' Offseason Rituals Run The Gamut

By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor

For the vast majority of anglers who compete on either the Bassmaster Elite Series or the FLW Tour, the 2014 season came to an end a couple months ago. Aside from a Bassmaster Open, a Rayovac Series event or a Major League Fishing shoot, by and large, casting for cash at the sport’s top level is over and done with for the year.

While some take refuge and find comfort and solitude during the offseason in a tree stand, others can’t bear the thought of being off the water for days at a time. Whether it’s to tinker with new baits, refine a technique or just stay sharp and in tune with seasonal patterns, some pros make it a point to wet a line pretty frequently during the offseason.

BassFan tracked down five of the anglers ranked among the Top 10 in the year-end World Rankings to see how they’ve spent their offseason so far and what else they have planned before they start seriously preparing for the 2015 tournament season.

Honey-Dos Getting Done

Cody Meyer is on a tight schedule. He has a lot to do get done around his house before he and his wife welcome their first child, a girl, which is due Jan. 12.

From the moment he got home after his season concluded, he’s been going non-stop.

“It’s by far been the busiest offseason ever for me,” he said. “No lie, I started in September with a honey-do list about 4 feet long. I’ve got it down to about a foot now. It’s all about getting ready for the baby, but like all of us anglers who are gone so long, there’s always something to do around the house like cleaning up brush or painting.”

Meyer says he has a standing engagement with his dad to chop firewood every fall. This year was no different, but, “we cut so much we’ll have enough for the next 3 years,” he said. “Usually, we go through a cord or a cord and a half per year. We have 15 cords now so the good news is next year we won’t have to cut wood.”

He has found time to do some fishing around home. Meyer is fortunate to live in the community that’s built around Lake of the Pines in Northern California so he has easy access to some prime bass fishing.

“It’s 2 minutes from my house so it’s nice to go and every time I do you just crack on them,” he said. “It’s good for a guy like me because let’s say I don’t have a lot of confidence in a certain technique. I can go out there and work on it build that confidence.”

Aloha, Ehrler

By most accounts, Brent Ehrler’s season was a successful one, but it’s never complete until he makes the long drive home to Southern California from his final competition of the year. This year, that meant venturing back from Shreveport, La., area where the year’s final Major League Fishing competition was filmed in mid October. Needless to say, it was a relief once he finally pulled into his driveway.

“I feel like I’m actually back where I actually live,” he said last week.

Ehrler had a month at home before being gone for 10 days at the MLF event and the free time gave him an opportunity to start getting back into some good habits. This fall and winter, he’s focused on getting back into shape as he looks ahead to making his Elite Series debut in 2015.

“I’ve been jogging a little bit and I went to a spinning class,” he said. “I’ve been working out 6 or 7 days a week. I’ve slacked off the last couple years. Being on the road, it’s so tough to eat well and exercise. It’s a little easier to do it in March and April, but once May and June roll around and the days get longer, we’re out there fishing until 8 at night. It’s hard to come back in and eat and exercise. Usually, you relax a little, do some tackle and go to bed.”

Now, that he’s back into some semblance of a routine of going to the gym, he can sense his body has readjusted to the regimen.

“A couple times, I’ll go for 90 minutes in the morning and then later in the day you kind of get excited about going again,” he said. “I’m at that point now where your body almost craves it. I have plenty of time to get back into shape before next season starts. I don’t want to be lazy because if you’re physically fatigued, you’re going to be mentally fatigued.”

This week, though, he and his wife are enjoying some time to themselves in Hawaii.

“We always try to do something at the end of every season,” he said.

They’re staying on Kauai and were joined by fellow pro Brett Hite and his wife, along with former FLW Tour pros Rusty Salewske and Jon Strelic.

“It’s going to be a fun group,” Ehrler said. “We’re staying in two different places. The first half of the week we’ll be on the north side and then we’ll be on the south side for the second part of the week. Kauai is one of the smaller islands and it’s very low key and not very touristy.”

Once he returns, though, it’s back to work.

“I have a lot of (video) content I need to generate for my sponsors for next year,” he said.

Combs Tinkering with Rods

Keith Combs had another rock-solid season on the Elite Series, posting a 6th-place finish in Angler of the Year points. He also collected another win at the Toyota Texas Bass Classic and he’ll be gunning for his fourth career TTBC title next spring.

Before he shifts his focus to that, though, Combs has been tinkering with new rods thanks to a new relationship with Batson Enterprises, a Washington-based company that specializes in custom rod design and components.

Since fishing his last tournament at the Sam Rayburn Texas Rayovac Series, Combs has done some promotional work for his sponsors and found some time to fish around east Texas. The highlight of his offseason so far, though, has been the work he’s doing designing a signature series of rods with Batson.

On a recent trip to Washington, he took some of his favorite Power Tackle rod blanks and the folks at Batson were able to reconfigure the guides and make other tweaks to maximize casting distance and feel.

“Just by changing guide placements and adding guides, it’s really increased my casting distance,” he said. “It’s been really interesting. We kept some things and incorporate other things like changing the reel seat placement for better balance. It’s a unique deal to be partnered with a rod manufacturer (Power Tackle) and also with a component manufacturer.

“It gives me a lot more options. The rods I’ve been using I’ve been very happy with them, but after dealing with the guys at Batson, it gives you a whole new perspective. They’ll say, ‘This blank is awesome, but have you tried it with this guide placement or with this reel seat?’ I’ve learned a whole lot about the rod-building industry in the last few months.”

He also learned a little about salmon fishing during his trip to the northwest.

“We went out in Puget Sound and we caught six in the first 30 minutes,” he said. “We were trolling in 500 to 600 feet of water and had our baits down in 40 feet on downriggers. It was pretty intense and fast-paced. I was just standing there taking in the scenery and all of a sudden we hooked a double.”

Now that he’s back home, he’s started to plan out the rest of his offseason, including scouting trips to Lake Hartwell, site of next year’s Bassmaster Classic, as well as Lake Havasu and the California Delta.

“It looks like December is going to be a busy month,” he said.

Before he heads off to the East and West coasts, he’ll spend some time on the water in Texas as well. He’s the type who isn’t comfortable falling out of tune with the fish.

“I’ve done this before where it’ll be cold some days and I don’t have a tournament, but I still have to stay focused on finding fish every week,” he said. “It can be hard to make yourself go, but I’m trying to stay in the fishing mode.”

The unseasonably cold winter in Texas last year knocked him off the water for a month. Another cold snap late last week didn’t prevent him from doing some work.

“When I got back out there, it felt like I hadn’t been out in 2 years. I hated that feeling that I wasn’t in tune with what was going on,” he added. “As cold as it was (Wednesday), I was out until noon. I had to try out some new rod blanks. When I’m not in tournaments, I still love to fish. It’s the same old stuff, just not as fast-paced.”

Thrift Still Going Strong

Much like his reputation for fishing at a breakneck pace on the FLW Tour, Bryan Thrift still has the pedal to the metal even when the season is not in full swing.

“My life still revolves around it,” he said. “I spend as much time fishing now as I do during the season. I fish a lot of local stuff. I’m also spending more time with my family.”

He said his 4-year-old son, Wylie, has kept him busy.

“My son and I do something different every day,” he said. “He’s taken up golf and that’s not good because I don’t know the first thing about it and he’s 4. We bought him a set of kid’s clubs in October and we’ll go to the range and he’ll hit a bucket of 100 balls and then he’ll want to hit another 100. Nobody in my family bass-fished when I was a kid so I believe you have to pick out your own interests and put in the work. If it’s a good, sunny day outside, he’ll want to go out in the yard and hit plastic balls.”

When he’s not caddying for Wylie, Thrift is a fixture in the local tournament scene near Shelby, N.C. Last week, he spent a day each at lakes Wylie and Norman.

“I try to find a tournament every weekend to fish,” he said, “We have so many good anglers in this area, it’s harder to win a local 1-day tournament around here than anything. Especially around Norman, there are so many good anglers with (Hank) Cherry, Todd Auten, (Chris) Baumgardner, Shane Lehew.”

He’s anxious for the winter tournament trail at Lake Norman that started this past weekend. It runs through February and usually draws a strong field.

“It’s something to do,” he said. “I don’t deer hunt. I’d rather be on the water fishing. This is my play time – my time of year to experiment with new baits or work on stuff I want to get confidence in. If I go 4 or 5 days without being on the water I get a nervous twitch. At this level, you have to immerse yourself in it. You can’t afford to take the offseason off. If you fish from February to August and quit until January, it’s hard to keep the competitive edge.”

No Fishing for Faircloth

Unlike Meyer and Combs, Todd Faircloth, fresh off a runner-up finish in the Elite Series AOY race, hasn’t been in any hurry to cast a lure since his tournament season wrapped up at Escanaba, Mich., a couple months ago.

“I’ve stayed at home for the most part,” he said. “I’ve been doing some hunting with my kids and spending a lot of time with the family. I’m still doing some contracts and getting that stuff wrapped up for next year.”

The closest he’ll get to fishing is working on designing his boat wrap for 2015.

“This is my down time,” he said. “I try to take a break from fishing. It helps me recharge my batteries. Just being out in the woods and there being no pressure. I don’t have to be anywhere in a hurry. When we’re on tour and traveling from one event to the next everything’s just wide open and rushed, so it’s nice to relax and not feel rushed. When January rolls around, I’ll be ready to go fishing.

“It’s different for different people. Some people can fish every other day. It’s good for me personally to take step a back and take a break.”

In the meantime, he’s spending as much time as he can with his kids. His oldest son is 10 and is involved in travel baseball. They’ve also been hunting several times.

“My two boys have killed a couple hogs,” he said, adding they’ve been out scouting for whitetail deer as well. “We haven’t seen a great big one that we wanted to shoot.”