By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor


As of last week, John Cox hadn't done any black bass fishing since winning the Forrest Wood Cup at Alabama's Wheeler Lake in early August. He pursued some peacock bass for a couple of days with one of his daughters, but those excursions were less productive than he'd hoped.

He'd like to fish some local events around his home in DeBary, Fla. (hard by the St. Johns River), but he's been blackballed from most of the derbies he would've entered.

"Some have rules against guys who've fished the (major) tours, if you've paid so much in entry fees," he said. "Last year a buddy and I fished a couple of 2-day deals on the St. Johns and we won one of them by almost 10 pounds and they told us they'd appreciate it if we didn't come back next year.

"I told my buddy we should've thrown our last 8-pounder back to make it closer, but he didn't want to."

The ultra laid-back 30-year-old looks upon that banishment the same way he does most other things that come his way – he tries to find humor in just about every situation he encounters. He's gone from success to failure to even greater success in a shorter time period than it takes most young pros to even learn the ins and outs of the professional game, and thus is already full aware of what a roller-coaster ride it can be.

BassFan recently conducted a brief question-and-answer session with the sport's latest major champion. He expounded on a wide range of topics and found something to laugh at in just about every exchange.

BF: You said in the immediate aftermath of your Cup victory that it would take awhile to set in. Has it done so yet?

JC: Yeah, I think it has now. Some of it came when I went to the bank and deposited the ($300,000) check and got all of the tax stuff straightened out so I don't go to jail. I did quite a few interviews and every time I was introduced on the radio, it was "Forrest Wood Cup champion." After that it was like, 'Yeah, I really did win that tournament.' It was pretty cool.

BF: Do you have any big plans for the money?

JC: I've thought about that, but I don't really need anything. I don't have much left to pay on my house (which he purchased after winning the Red River FLW Tour in 2011), so I'll probably pay that off. I might have quite a bit of it until my girls (now ages 7 and 5) get a little older and start spending it all."

BF: Where did you go on your recent trip to fish for peacock bass?

JC: It's near the Miami airport – I don't know what the place is called. It's in "the 'hood', I'm honestly surprised when I get back to my truck and the windows aren't busted out. The last couple times we really caught them good, but this time it was the tail end of the spawn and there were a lot of fry-guarders, and most of them weren't even 2 pounds. Those 4s and 5s went somewhere back out into the lake.

My daughter caught a baby iguana and some other kind of lizard I'd never seen before with a net. They were both probably 6 or 7 inches. There's some giant ones out there, like 5-footers. In those canal systems near Miami, there's a lot of stuff that shouldn't be there."

BF: Are you going to compete in either of the two FLW Invitationals this fall?

JC: I'm not sure yet. I know FLW's trying to fill them up, but what bothers me is that 35th place is only worth 7 grand. I would like to go to Norman, but I just wish it was the same format (as Tour events), where if you have a decent finish you get paid 10 grand.

BF: You've pretty much got shallow-water fishing mastered. Do you plan to work on you offshore game at all this off-season?

JC: Down here that's pretty hard. I do have three brush piles sunk in the lake that I live on, though, and I can reach them from a lawn chair in the back yard.

BF: What do you think about the seventh 2017 Tour event that was announced at the Cup – the season-opener at Lake Guntersville in early February?

JC: We usually start in Florida, but I guess this year I'm going to be throwing Rat-L-Traps instead of flipping. It's going to be so weird starting off there. There should be some fish shallow, but I really hope it doesn't snow on us.