By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor

Mike McCoy's fishing résumé certainly isn't the most sparkling of the more than two dozen rookies who'll compete on the FLW Tour in 2017. The majority of the high-level competition that the 48-year-old Ohio resident has seen has been from the back of the boat.

This opportunity came about based more on McCoy's sales acumen than his fishing ability.

"I'm a guy who paid my way to get in this year," said the former Marine who serves as the brand manager for Fish Allure. The company produces adhesive tabs that are attached to hard baits (crankbaits, jerkbaits, etc.) and release fish-enticing amino acids when activated by water.

He calls the gig his "dream job," and he proved last year that he's good at it. While fishing the Tour and some Bassmaster Opens as a co-angler and FLW Series and BFL events as a boater, he visited approximately 600 mom and pop-type tackle stores in the vicinity of the tournament venues and got Fish Allure placed in more than 100 of them.

That led the company, which also lists Elite Series veteran Fred Roumbanis as a pro-staffer, to back his foray into FLW's top echelon. Because the Tour has no hard-and-fast qualification criteria, he was able to gain a spot in the 165-angler field.

He hopes to make at least three paychecks from the seven regular-season tournaments.

"My ultimate goal is to fish next year, too," he said. "Even if all the sponsorship went away, that'd be enough (money) to allow me to come back."

Been Around the Block

McCoy, who was born in Pittsburgh but spent much of his youth in Florida, did a 14-year stint in the Marines before a severe ankle injury incurred playing softball forced him to take a medical discharge. He was working in human resources for a manufacturing firm in Cleveland when the chance to go to work for Fish Allure full-time came about in 2015.

Over the past 20 years, he's fished competitively whenever and wherever he had the opportunity. He says that not being in any one place for an extended period of time and having no true home lake has helped him become a pretty versatile angler.

"I kind of hate to say it, but I'm basically a junk-fisherman," he said. "Being in the back of the boat, you have to try to pick up whatever the guy in the front misses. I don't think I have one core strength, but I think I can do a little bit of a lot of different things.

"I've spent time in the Carolinas, down to Florida and up through Alabama, so I've seen a lot of different lakes at different times of the year. That's kind of made me a jack-of-all-trades."

Take Some, Leave Some

McCoy has fished the Tour as a co-angler off and on dating all the way back to 2002. Frankly, he's had his fill of that.

"I've had it in my mind since last year that I never wanted to fish out of the back of the boat again," he said. "One thing that drove me, I've fished with some great fishermen, but I've fished with another group who did a good job of showing me what not to do. I don't want to bad-mouth anybody, but I've had a nice smattering of that."

Having been around the top Tour performers for years, he said he won't be intimidated by going up against them. What he lacks in experience he'll try to make up for with hard work.

"I've been in the boat with some of the best anglers in the world, so there won't be any kind of a star-struck factor. As far as the mental part of fishing against them, they can't control what I do and I can't control what they do, and I'll get just as much practice time as they well.

"I'm not saying that I'm better than anybody out there – I don't have the experience and the time on the lakes that a lot of them do. But with the way the Tour schedule sets up the year, I think it levels the playing field just a little. There's a few venues that those guys haven't been to, either in a long while or maybe ever."

Notable

> McCoy relocated to Ohio not long after his discharge in order to be closer to his wife's family (they have a son and two daughters). "She'd spent all of that time I was in the Marines following me around, so it was time to let her decide where we were going to go next," he said.

> In addition to Fish Allure, he's sponsored by Z-Man, Adventure Products (the manufacturer of EGO nets), Stanford Baits and Icon Coolers. The latter two came on board for this season.