A look at Matt Herren's FLW Tour record for the 2003 through 2006 seasons shows exactly one triple-digit finish – he was 100th on the nose at Beaver Lake in '05. He ended up in the top half of the field at the 23 other regular-season events during that span, and 16 of those were Top 50s.
The 45-year-old Alabamian was one of the most consistent anglers in the world, and his steadiness was reflected in his climb to No. 6 in the BassFan World Rankings presented by Tru-Tungsten in '06, as well as in the Angler of the Year (AOY) standings. His final placements on the points list in those 4 years were 11th, 9th, 4th and 2nd.
But he's been all over the map since the end of '06 and has finished 110th or lower in three of the last six Tour events. He dipped all the way to 48th in the '07 AOY race (not bad by most anglers' standards, but far below the bar he'd established), and he's fallen to No. 70 in the Rankings.
He did notch the biggest victory of his career last year at the Dardanelle Eastern FLW Series, but he hasn't fished the third day of a Tour event in nearly 2 years. He's inclined to write it all off to an inevitable down period in the career of a tour pro, but there are other factors at work.
Too Much Company
Today's FLW Tour is a tough circuit for an angler like Herren to excel on. The lakes it visits are good fisheries, but they can get beaten up quickly by the 200-boat fields
His preferred style is power-fishing – he likes to establish a pattern, and then run it in as many places as possible around the lake. But more than anything, he detests fishing in a crowd.
And at some of the more recent Tour events, if you weren't sharing water, you weren't around fish. With a 200 boats on the water, there are only so many schools to go around.
"I push so hard trying to win, and the schedule we've been fishing the last couple of years has hurt me a little bit," he said. "I'll go to the far ends of the earth trying to find something I can have to myself, and I've done that several times trying to win events and catch big stringers.
"Sometimes you'll do that and it works out pretty good. But if it doesn't, you end up bombing, and I've thrown up a couple of bombs recently. There's a fine line between fishing conservatively and fishing to win,"
If shaking worms is the only way to catch fish, he's perfectly willing to do that. But he doesn't want to do it on a hopscotch course full of boats.
"I can't stand to fish in an area where there's 40 other boats – I just hate it. The last two times we were at Okeechobee, you could walk boat-to-boat for 6 miles. I'll get tired of that and go off and try to find my own deal."
Herren said he's still locating good fish in practice, but at times he's been unable to exploit them on competition days.
Failure to Execute
Herren doesn't blame all of his recent struggles on crowded conditions. There have been times when he's had good fish to himself, but was unable to capitalize.
"My fishing hasn't changed – I'm still locating fish in practice and catching a lot of quality. I watched Brett Hite win at Toho, I was on those same fish, but then we got fog-delayed 2 days in a row and I just didn't figure out the bite after that (he finished 125th).
"Then I lost a $10,000 fish in the last 3 minutes. It was big, and it just came off. In that respect, my struggles really haven't been about trails. I've had opportunities, and I just need to start putting them in the boat."
He plans to fish all three Bassmaster Southern Opens this year in an attempt to qualify for the Classic – a tournament he's long wanted to fish. If he achieves that goal (or even if he comes up just a hair short), he'll be eligible to join the Elite Series.
If that occurs, he'll have a big decision to make. Mark Davis, another notorious crowd-hater, opted to go back to BASS this season after he qualified through the Opens
"I think the limited field size (110 boats) would help my style. If I could qualify, I'd have to sit down with my wife and look at the economics of it. We'd have to look at the big picture and figure out what kind of sponsorship help we'd have.
"A lot of the venues we go to (on the FLW Tour) are fine. It's just with the 200 boats out there practicing and the co-anglers practicing, it puts a lot of pressure on the fishery. There are a lot of variables and if you miss by just a little, that can be the difference between a Top 10 and 120th place.
"I'm frustrated beyond belief, and maybe I'm just pushing too hard," he added. "I've fished enough tournaments at different levels to know this is part of the game – you're going to go through your ups and downs. And a lot of it has been my own undoing."
Notable
> Herren doesn't consider his 110th-place finish last year at the Detroit River a true bomb. He'd already qualified for the Forrest Wood Cup via the 2006 FLW Series, and he opted not to go out on Lake Erie when it was swept by powerful winds.
> If he never had to fish another tournament at Toho or Okeechobee, that would be fine with him. "I hate Florida," he said. "I don't know if I can label it as guys going out and getting lucky, but so much depends on one big bite. When you look at the standings, you don't realize how many guys wouldn't have been in the Top 50 if they hadn't caught an 8-pounder."
