Thankful I'm a lawyer
Last week I followed one of my passions - I went to Del Rio and served as a Marshall for the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament. For you non-fisherman, the Elite series is a series of tournaments across the country for the 100 best fisherman in the world. They fish for money - $100,000 is usually first place, as well as points for an angler of the year competition (which pays $250,000)
This was the first year for the Marshall program - basically you get to ride in the boat with a professional angler. Technically, you are there to ensure they follow all the rules - which really isn't necessary because they are the most honest guys in the world. Actually, its a way for BASS to make a little extra money, and expose people to professional bass fishing.
Del Rio was not very South Texas - the temperature never got above 48 - the first day the wind was howling, which is means the lake looked the Gulf of Mexico. I learned within the first 10 minutes that professional bass fishing is not all fun and glory - that would not be the way I way described blasting across a lake at 50 mph in freezing cold (usually they go about 70-75, but the waves made them slow down) Taking it a slow is not an open when you are fishing for the kind of money they are.
If you think practicing law is hard, think again. These guys have to pay $5,000 just to fish in the tournament. They also have to pay for transportation to and from the event, and lodging. Of course they also the normal expenses associated with fishing, such as gas, tackle, etc. If they do well, they might make enough to cover their expenses - if they don't, they are in the hole.
These guys are good (if you think this is sexist, they do have a separate women's tour). Yet they don't have control over anything. One of those is the weather; during the first part of the part when they were allowed to practice, the temps were in the 80's. That all changed on the first day of the tournament. Needless to say, bass (like humans) behave differently when its cold than when its hot. So basically, anything they learned during practice was out the window.
Bass do not volunteer to be caught. Professional anglers know more about bass behavior than we probably know about human behavior. Basically, fishing is trying to trick them into biting an artificial lure. There are thousands of different lures, and hundreds of different ways to fish them. They have to decide which lure, and which technique is best on that particular day and time. If they guess right, they are successful - if not, not so much.
One thing I learned over two days is its not just about catching fish - they can all do that. Its about catching the biggest fish, which is a lot harder to do. The two fisherman I was with had no problem finding fish, but they struggled with trying to get the big one.
Over the 16 hours I sat in the back of the boat, I thought about several things (other than wishing it would warm up and I would get some feeling in my fingers). Lawyers just think we have it hard; we at least get to work in the comfort of a controlled space. If we lose, we don't lose everything - although we have expenses, we don't have to put up our own money each time we take a case. Even though we have to deal with a lot of issues, we can predict most of them. While prosecutors and jurors are hard to predict, its easier than trying to guess what a fish is going to do. And most importantly for me, I don't have to be away from my family for most of the year - I get to home each evening, and enjoy my family and my home.
I like to fish, and someday I would like to be able to do more of it. However, I would never want to be a professional fisherman. I'm thankful I have the privilege to practice law - and I'm thankful I had the opportunity to recognize what a privilege it is.
