Completely hooked

Tuesday, April 12, 2005 | 9:45 a.m.

While his friends daydreamed about hitting home runs in the major leagues, visions of bass danced in Aaron Coleman's mind. They were thinking mainstream when he was thinking upstream.

"This has been a dream of mine since 1978," Coleman said last week after a day of tournament fishing on Lake Mead. "I was 8, born and raised in Oakland, running around with an Afro saying, 'I'm going to be a bass pro.'

"(Friends were) like, 'Wow!' See, a bass you have to pursue. It's the apex predator in most waterways. You have to give him something that will be tantalizing to lure him in. There's always this big uncertainty."

In this sport, it also helps to have friends.

Thanh Le owns such a banged-up boat that friends have lent him theirs half a dozen times over the past couple of years. In a craft that pro Jim Wickham loaned Le over the weekend, Le beat Tim Klinger of Boulder City by an ounce.

That earned Le an $8,400 check and a new, fully loaded 519VX Ranger boat. With 564 points, he also held the top spot in the EverStart Series Western Division standings by a point over Scott Mascadri.

"That's not bad at all," Le said Saturday on a Wal-Mart parking-lot stage in Henderson.

Lewis Milligan needed help from a friend, too, on the final day. After Klinger caught his five-catch limit, he gave Milligan, his boatmate, an enticing 3/4-ounce brown and purple jig.

Milligan then caught four bass on that one lure, powering him to a co-angler victory with a two-day total weight of 15 pounds, 7 ounces, half a pound better than Charlie Crawford.

"That was it," Milligan said of the prized jig. "I didn't have the bait. When it was raining, I was sweating."

Milligan won $4,400, but he did not get a 519VX Ranger because he does not own one. Yet.

"The worst part is, I've already ordered my (Ranger) boat," he said, "and it comes in June."

Five Good Fish

In bass fishing, where fame -- and often food and lodging for the next tournament -- rides on the next cast, that was a major missed opportunity to jump-start a promising career.

However, at Lake Mead, in the third stop of four Western Division events, Milligan won almost as much prize money as Coleman has earned over his 10-year career.

"I wouldn't trade it in for the world," said Coleman, 34. "Most people can't leave their 9-to-5s in pursuit of a professional career. They can't take a chance. If I'm 50 years old and I'm still trying, I accept it.

"I have no wife and kids. So if I don't eat, it's on me."

An office with no walls is as much a lure to pro bass fishermen as competing against both aggressive adversaries below the water and smart, driven foes on the surface.

Le beat out 138 other professionals to win at Lake Mead. Those with the top 10 Wednesday and Thursday catches, in combined weight, advanced to the final round Friday and Saturday.

Le's 10 bass from those last two days weighed 19 pounds, 2 ounces. Klinger's catch tipped those scales at 19 pounds, 1 ounce.

"I can't believe that I lost the tournament," Klinger said. "Well, I can believe it. But I had some bites today that would have really ... I could have won. I'm not complaining. Second place is great."

Klinger, 31, has little to complain about since hitting a $201,800 jackpot at the Wal-Mart Open last season in Arkansas.

Until then, he had netted about $16,000 since fishing the pro circuits in 1995. According to the Web site Bassresource.com, of the 150 pros who recently competed in a recent BASS season, only 18 were able to cover expenses.

"That is probably accurate," said Tim Barrett, a resident of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. "What really helps the sport is corporate sponsorship, where guys are getting paid to go out and fish.

"They don't have the pressure like some of the other guys, who sleep in their cars and cook right there at a camp site to save money ... then, you have to perform."

Barrett, 39, finished 15th in the pro division, winning $1,350, at Lake Mead. He owns a floor-installation company, which enables him to pursue fishing.

"It sounds silly, but fishing is grueling," he said. "We're out here 8 to 10 hours, in the sun and wind. It can be raining an inch and you have to run 70 miles. Really, I'm 10 times more tired after a day of fishing than a day of work."

The Big Time

The BASS and FLW tours are considered the major leagues of bass fishing, and Wal-Mart is a major sponsor of the latter. Success in the EverStart, a Triple-A series comprised of five regional divisions, can launch an angler onto the six-event FLW Tour.

Increased exposure on Fox Sports Net, which started airing an hourlong FLW Outdoors show every Sunday morning this year, could lead to more sponsorship possibilities.

First place in each of those six events pays pros $100,000. The end-of-the-year points winner receives $500,000. The Wal-Mart Open is held in between the third and fourth events, and that's where Klinger made his mark a year ago.

He qualified for the 2004 FLW Tour by finishing 13th in the EverStart Western Division in '03, when the top 15 in each division advanced to the major tour. Now, only the top 10 in each division qualifies for the FLW.

"That's the elite," Klinger said.

Klinger finished 118th on the FLW points chart last year, but only the top 100 are invited back the following season. So he is back in the Western Division, and on Lake Mead.

The top 40 points leaders from the five EverStart regions will advance to that series' $1 million championship in November on Pickwick Lake in Florence, Ala. The top pro will bag $140,000, and the top co-angler gets $70,000.

Pros paid an entry fee of $750 at Lake Mead, and they provided the boat in which co-anglers, whose entry fee was $300, ride in the rear. Pros, in the front, guide their boats to their desires.

They dispense knowledge, even brown and purple jigs, at their own whims.

The two are paired by blind draw.

In his former career, Klinger installed fire-alarm, and sound and surveillance, systems. Since his big payday, though, fishing has been his main vocation.

"Winning that big one last year has allowed me to just fish," Klinger said. "When you're at home, it's not so bad. When you're on the road, a lot of times I'll drive for a day or two just to get to the lake I'm going to. Then I'm in a motel some nights.

"Some nights, I'm in the back of my truck. I don't have many friends on the road, so it's hard. I eat a lot of fast food. It's tough away from your friends for two weeks. But it's a lot of fun when you're up on a stage like this in front of a good crowd."

The Amateur

About 150 braved wind gusts, and a cold, nearly horizontal rain to watch the ceremonies late Saturday afternoon.

One of them was Milligan's wife, Jennifer, who had caught a flight from the couple's home in Roseville, Calif., to watch her husband win his first EverStart event as a co-angler.

She recorded her husband's biggest fishing triumph, so far, on a digital camera from the right of the stage. A day earlier, their son Colby's Little League game on Saturday was cancelled due to rain, so Jennifer scouted the Internet for a flight.

Lewis Milligan, 30, covers Northern California and Northern Nevada as a Red Bull energy drink field sales manager.

"I know this is just the beginning stages, but it's amazing," Jennifer said. "It's been his dream, and we're finally in a place with his job where he can take some time and do these types of tournaments. We've got to go with it.

"If he can make this work and it's his dream, then I'm going to back him up."

Lewis said he learned about "20 days' worth" of fishing over his four days on Lake Mead, and Gabe Bolivar (Friday) and Klinger (Saturday) provided him with valuable insight and advice.

Klinger's brown and purple lure was especially helpful.

"I always try to help my amateur partners," Klinger said. "The way I fish, a lot of the time it's hard for them to catch fish behind me. When I have an opportunity to help them out, I do. And he ended up winning. That's cool."

Ricky Shabazz, a pro from Rialto, Calif., and a friend of Milligan's, advised him not to fish his first EverStart season as a professional.

"It's different than your local tournament and regular, everyday stuff," Shabazz told Milligan, who had also never fished Western Division stops Lake Mead and Lake Havasu.

"He said it would be better for me to wait a year, to fish as a non-boater and learn from these guys," Milligan said. "The best decision I've ever made was to wait turning pro."

Bass in the Blood

Aaron Coleman, who grew up on the streets of Oakland, knows all about Joshua Dix, the 18-year-old Foothill High graduate who fished in his first tournament as a pro last week.

Actually, the two have never met, but bass make them both tick.

Dix, who learned all he knows about fishing from his father, Charlie, only revealed what he used Wednesday to catch five fish that checked in at 7 pounds, 9 ounces, when he was assured it wouldn't be publicized during the tournament.

"A five-inch, shad-colored grub," Dix said.

He did not make the final 10 when his four fish Thursday weighed in less than six pounds. At 50th, the assistant superintendent for a construction company finished 16 spots out of the money.

"It's something I've done all my life," he said. "I love it. It's just a passion. Hopefully, I'll keep going out each weekend and keep learning. Every time out is a new learning experience."

Coleman has fished since he was 2, getting weaned on crappie and blue gill from a long line of relatives on each side of his parents' families.

He describes the excitement of bass fishing as "the flash of it all."

"The speeds are addictive," Coleman said. "Our boats run fast. They're safe, but fast. You cast a lure out and, next thing you know, you have this huge explosion on the top water. This is numero uno."

Coleman has earned less than $10,000 in BASS and FLW events in his career. He retains some product sponsors and serves as a guide on Northern California lakes and reservoirs when he isn't taking part in a tournament.

"I've chosen this as a career," he said. "No matter what the circumstances are, I'm willing to accept failure for the chance to pursue my dream. As far as the fine line, the fine line is usually green."

Like Klinger and the majority of bass fishermen, Coleman is single.

"Let's say this," Coleman said, "I'm married to bass fishing and everything else is its mistress."

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