By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
Tim Klinger had a pretty good year on the FLW Tour in 2010, logging two Top-15 finishes in five regular-season events and landing at No. 17 on the final points list.
And then he was gone.
"I was engaged at the time, and when I lost my National Guard team deal I decided to stay home," said the 43-year-old resident of Boulder City, Nev. "I ended up getting married and I've got kids that are (ages) 3 and 4 now. I still fished stuff around here, but everything else got put on hold.
"Something told me I needed to stay home and not pursue it any further at that time, but now I'm itching real bad."
Come March, he'll get to scratch that itch in the granddaddy of all fishing tournaments – the Bassmaster Classic. He qualified via his 3rd-place showing last month at the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship.
That derby took place at Lake Conroe in Texas, which will also be the site of the 2017 Classic.
"Fishing professionally is a lot of people's dream, but you've got to have sponsors and you've got to have your family behind you 100 percent," he said. "I don't know what will happen come Classic time, but I feel good about it. If things work out, I'd love to get back to fishing full-time again."
Tamed Beaver Right Away
Klinger fished his first season on the FLW Tour in 2004. It was mostly a struggle, as he finished 121st or lower in four of the six tournaments, but he had one stellar week: He boxed 51-04 over 4 days to win the Walmart Open at Beaver Lake, which back then carried a top prize of $200,000.
After sitting out the following year, he returned in '06 and displayed some consistency as he ended up 13th in the Angler of the Year (AOY) race despite just one finish higher than 55th (he was 23rd at Lake Okeechobee). He made the first of his two Forrest Wood Cup appearances last year, with the other one coming after his final campaign.
He enjoyed success for 4 years (2007-10) on the now-defunct FLW National Guard Western Series. He won the event at Clear Lake in '07 by catching nearly 60 pounds over the final 2 days.
He's been employed primarily as a "ground man" in the electrical field since leaving the sport's top echelon, helping with repairs to power lines and sub-stations, but that gig has been less than steady.
Klinger's victory at Beaver Lake during his 2004 FLW Tour rookie campaign earned him a big paycheck.
"I might work for 6 or 8 months, but then I'll be off for a few months straight," he said. "I've been off for a month and a half now and they don't see any work in the near future, so it's a struggle.
"For the last 5 or 6 years I've been thinking about guiding here on Lake Mead, but I'd need to get a (Coast Guard) captain's license and all that stuff. I think I'm now at the point where I need to jump on board and do that."
Bruiser Bite Paved the Way
On the second day of practice for the B.A.S.S. Nation Championship, Klinger found an area in the north end of Conroe that looked a lot like places he used to fish at Mead before the current drought in his home region dramatically lowered the water level. It was full of various types of woody cover.
His first bite came from a fish that weighed more than 8 pounds, and that jacked up his confidence level. On the competition days, he worked over the area with jigs and Texas-rigged plastics, occasionally mixing in a spinnerbait.
It took him 2 hours on the final day to get his first bite, and then he lost several good ones. He eventually caught three fish that combined to weigh 10 pounds, and that was enough to claim the third and final Classic slot from the event with a 3-day total of 37-11.
"When (tournament officials) said I was in, it was an overwhelming feeling," he said. "The Classic is the Super Bowl of bass fishing and it's where everybody wants to be."
He's sure the lake will fish much differently when he returns in 3 months. In fact, he's not even certain that a scouting trip before it goes off-limits next month would be productive.
"I'm sure I could go mark some stuff, but who's to say those fish would be there when I got back. I don't know if practicing in January would help or not because by March, they should either be flooding the banks or leaving them.
"No matter, it's going to be a great tournament, that's for sure. It's going to be a lot of fun."
