Y’all it’s that time of year. I mean it’s here ladies and gentlemen! Anglers and Anglerettes! Fall is officially here. Woke up this morning to a temp below 40 degrees. Man, does that make me happy! My neck starts to swell, I start pawing the ground! I am itching to fish! I love fall fishing. To me it’s simply the best we get most of the time here in the Lake Country.

Sunday afternoon I had the opportunity to be on the boat with two local anglers y’all might have heard of — Matt Henry and Connor Lopez. Now Matt and I work together over at Sinclair Marina, and if you follow the news Matt is an Elite Series Qualifier angler who spent most of the year in the Top-9 of Angler of the Year points. Matt is an elite angler no matter what trail or group you are talking about. Connor is a a young junior and high school angler who just won the Georgia Bass Nation High School event on Lake Oconee.

Connor was introduced to me by Jim Lumpkin of Lake Country Fishing. Now, I am on Jim’s prostaff and we work together on a lot of things both at the marina and through the year as fishing “professionals.” Jim simply texted me one day and said I needed to hook up with this young guy and that I wouldn’t regret it. Well, he was right. Connor is a standup young man, who has a passion for fishing along with a talent for it that most only dream of. From the moment Connor stepped out of his truck and shook my hand I had a lot of respect for this young man. From the fact that he shook my hand firmly and looked me in the eye to the fact that he was ready to go, riggedand jumped up every time the boat stopped. He could cast accurately, quickly, and with no wasted motion. He also like most of the tournament guys I know hit only the high percentage spots without wasting any time and without being told. To the rest of the world, that right there means he can analyze water on the fly and knows where his bait needs to be.

Matt and Connor had a conversation the whole afternoon about the tournament lifestyle, the challenges, the highs, the future of it and what to focus on. Matt opened up like few tournament pros will ever do for Connor, and with what I saw my deep respect for Matt as an angler and a man grew. This was also the first time Matt and I had fished together. I have fished with a few tournament anglers but not in a long time with someone as accomplished as Matt. As an observer on the boat this is something that stood out to me beyond all else in regard to his fishing. Matt doesn’t just stare at a screen. He never once stopped looking around. I mean everywhere and everything happening got a glance and if it was worth it or he thought it might be a clue to catching more fish it got investigated. Matt notices everything. That doesn’t mean he isn’t fishing. This is all done while that lure is sailing thru the air, being worked, lures are being changed, rods put down and picked up. No movement was wasted or missed. You see in the course of a day you can only make so many casts, you can only hit so many spots, you can only be in motion so much, so it all has to count. Watch any interview about this with Kevin Van Dam, Rick Clunn, Zell Roland, Shaw Grigsby, and numerous others. They all talk about this specific trait for successful tournament anglers.

Beyond the fishing these two guys are good men. These two are people you want to be around, you want to fish with, you want to work with, you want to see do well because it proves the point that quality men still succeed. They are good men above and beyond the tournament world.

Tight lines and following seas y’all!

—Outdoors columnist James Pressley can be reached at jameskpressley@gmail.com