By Todd Ceisner
BassFan Editor
It’s the first week of January and with the FLW Tour season roughly a month away, one would think Jamie Horton’s thoughts would be centered around bass fishing and getting prepared for the upcoming tournament season.
While that’s on his agenda, there’s the small matter of his beloved University of Alabama football team taking on Clemson in college football’s national championship game next Monday that’s starting to consume him. He admitted that once the game is over, his focus will shift 100 percent to fishing. For now, though, he’s getting a kick out of razzing good friend and Clemson grad Andy Montgomery, his former travel companion when Horton competed on the Elite Series.
“We talk about every other day,” Horton said. “I keep telling him the media is doing a good job of building his boys up and giving them some false hope.”
When the college football season finally wraps up and Horton’s mindset shifts over to fishing, he’ll start formulating a plan to tackle the six-tournament FLW Tour schedule. After competing on the Elite Series from 2012-2014 following his B.A.S.S. Nation national championship win in 2011, Horton decided to not return to the Elites in 2015 mainly due to the travel demands the schedule would’ve put on him.
The Centerville, Ala., native works a full-time job as a project manager for a fabrication company and he didn’t want to take extended periods of time off to accommodate the West Coast swing and the tournaments in the northeast.
“Last year’s schedule was difficult to manage working and fishing,” he said. “The FLW schedule is more manageable with almost one tournament per month. With the Elites, some of those back-to-back situations means you’re gone a month at a time and that makes it difficult.
“I’m honored to fish either one. They’re both great trails. I don’t look at it as a choice between FLW or B.A.S.S. I just went with what fit me better.”
Second Chance
Horton is looking forward to returning to the top tier of tournament competition. During his three-year Elite Series stint, he finished in the money six times, with the highlight coming in 2012 at the Mississippi River in La Crosse, Wis., where he finished 4th.
After the 2013 season, he toyed with registering for the 2014 FLW Tour, but he ultimately wound up returning to the Elite Series.
“I really battled with myself over fishing FLW versus the Elites,” he said. “I battled back and forth and the week that B.A.S.S. had that wild card event at (Lake) Okeechobee – that was the week I had to commit to one or the other. I couldn’t decide what to do. Growing up, I would’ve loved to fish either one. Having to choose was hard.
“I just told my wife to mail in an entry fee to one or the other because I had to get back to focusing on the wild card tournament. My sponsor was going to support me either way. That Tuesday night, she called and told me I was fishing the Elites.”
Following the 2014 season, he decided he wanted to give the FLW Tour a try, but stricter qualification criteria for the 2015 Tour left him with no way into the field other than to be placed on a waiting list. He declined that option and instead fished the Southeastern Division of the FLW Series and the Alabama River Southern Open.
“The way last year wound up was a disappointment,” he said. “It was disappointing not getting into the Tour.”
He has since bought a Ranger boat and was able to register for the 2016 Tour via the Ranger owners’ route. Moore’s Marinades will continue to serve as his title sponsor.
Missed the Competition
Horton said it was an adjustment last year not fishing the Elite Series. He wasn’t a fan of sitting on the sidelines, but he did enjoy being able to watch his granddaughter’s softball games and his nephew’s baseball games that he would’ve missed had he been on the road.
“It was kind of frustrating,” he said. “The Rayovacs are a good trail, but it’s not the same as competing against the top level pros. That’s why I wanted to make sure I got in this year.”
With three years of Elite Series experience and countless other tournaments under his belt, Horton will be far from a rookie when the schedule kicks off at Lake Okeechobee in early February. He hopes to apply some of the things he’s learned, especially when it comes to practice.
“A lot of it is time management and how to be the most productive on and off the water,” he said. “FLW will be a little different with an off day on Wednesday. You can go more full speed Sunday, Monday and Tuesday with that day in between to refresh everything.”
He said he’s going to try not to get hung up on things that work in practice and to keep more of an open mind once the tournaments begin.
“It’s one thing to practice Friday and fish a tournament on a Saturday,” he said. “We all know how it changes from Friday to Saturday, but it really can change from Monday to Thursday. Maybe I have not been as open-minded as I should’ve been. I have had success duplicating practice time, but that’s going back to the day before. If you have a good Monday, it’s hard to shake that off come Thursday even if you haven’t found anything better. I’m going to be more about fishing in the moment than what I did in practice.”
