By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
After sitting out the last two Bassmaster Classics, Shaw Grigsby is thrilled that he'll be a part of the field for the 2017 version at Texas' Lake Conroe in March. Personal circumstances will make his 16th appearance in the event even more special.
Grigsby's title sponsor for the past several years has been FIRST/TBS, a consulting firm that focuses on power-generating gas and steam turbines all over the globe. Increased efficiency and a longer lifetime for the ultra-expensive units are the company's stock in trade.
FIRST/TBS, which is a double acronym for First Independent Rotor Services Technology/Technical Bolting Solutions, is based in Houston, which will host the Classic Expo at the George R. Brown Convention Center and the daily weigh-ins at Minute Maid Park (home of the Houston Astros). Grigsby is greatly looking forward to acknowledging company founder and CEO Paul Tucker's aid from the biggest stage in the sport.
"There'll be 10,000 to 20,000 people there and a whole bunch more watching on the Internet, and to be able to stand up in the city where he's located and thank him in front of all of them will be really cool," Grigsby said.
Came Along at Right Time
Grigsby and Tucker had a chance meeting at a restaurant that turned out to be quite fortuitous for the 60-year-old from Florida who's competed at pro fishing's top level for more than three decades. It occurred during the time when the sport still hadn't recovered from severe financial struggles brought on by the country's economic downturn.
"We were at a (Professional Anglers Association) event in Branson, Mo., and I was eating sushi with my roommate, (fellow Sunshine State angler) Patrick Pearce," Grigsby said. "This guy comes in and sits behind us and hears us talking fishing, and he starts asking us how we're catching them and drilling me with all kinds of fishing questions, which I answered. When it was over, it was kind of a 'nice talking to you' kind of thing and I figured that was the end of it.
"Then I get (an email) message from him 4 or 5 days later and he's saying 'Here's all my stuff, this is the business I'm in and here's what I've done,' and that he wants to sponsor me."
Grigsby's deal with Dick's Sporting Goods was still in place at the time, but it would go away within a year. That opened the door for FIRST/TBS and the relationship between Grigsby and Tucker, who share a strong Christian faith, has continued to grow ever since.
"It was a Jesus thing," Grigsby said of his introduction to Tucker. "This was a guy who'd started a church and gotten together the funding to bring in a pastor, and I met him a year before Dick's dropped me.
"I never had any doubt about who was in control and keeping me fishing."
He said he's never held any animosity toward Dick's – in his view, the move was a good business decision on the company's part.
"They had me and (Mike) Iaconelli and they'd just signed Skeet (Reese), and Skeet was selling a ton of those yellow rods. At the time, maybe I wished they'd kept two of instead of just one, but in the end I'd have probably done the same thing they did."
So-So Season
The 2016 season was somewhat of an anomaly for Grigsby. His yearly ledgers have long tended toward the mercurial – a couple of single-digit finishes interspersed with a major bomb or two – but this year everything was scrunched more toward the middle.
He ended up 35th in the Angler of the Year race, which was five places higher than where he ultimately needed to be in order to get into the Classic. In nine regular-season events, he had five finishes of 30th or better, but none higher than 21st. On the flip side, his worst outing was a 77th.
"Anytime you make the Classic it's a good year, but this certainly wasn't a great year," he said. "In normal years I'll make a couple of Top 12s, and I didn't do that. But overall, I'm not going to complain when I make the Classic – there's a bunch of guys who didn't and who wish they were going to be there, and I mean some good ones.
"Anytime you get a shot at winning the Classic, it's a great thing. But the first thing you have to do is make it (into the field), then you put everything you can into winning it."
His only previous visit to Conroe was for the 2010 Toyota Texas Bass Classic – a fall event in which he caught a 9-pounder en route to a 15th-place finish in the 50-angler field. He plans to make a pre-practice trip next month.
"I'll try to spend about 5 days and see if I can figure out some things that might work when I go back. After that much time, I'm usually bored. I get tired of fishing the same body of water every day and having to keep trying to change things up."
Unless a real graybeard qualifies via the Bassmaster Team Championship, he'll be the oldest competitor at next year's Classic. He's the fourth-oldest on the Elite circuit, trailing only Rick Clunn, Paul Elias and Bernie Schultz.
"It doesn't seem like very long ago when I was one of the young up-and-comers, but I guess I'm an old guy now. I'm good with it, though."
