Entry 76-1

Mark Davis - Do Or Die

Who's Mark Davis?

Editor's Note: Thirty-nine-year-old Mark Davis, who has fished in 12 Bassmasters Classics, won the title of Angler of the Year three times and won the Bassmasters Classic in 1995. Davis has had 34 top 10 finishes and ranked third on the BASS circuit in 2003. Thirteenth in all-time career winnings on the BASS circuit, having won more than $800,000 fishing, Davis is a quiet, gentle man who competes fiercely once a tournament starts.

Question: Mark, what did you do before you became a tournament fisherman?

Davis: I never did anything for a living except fish. I started off as a crappie-fishing guide at the age of 14. The only other money I ever earned, other than from fishing, was when Mom and Dad would give me money for doing chores around the house.

Question: How did you get started as a fishing guide at 14?

Davis: Back then, I fished every day I wasn't in school. The main guide around home knew that I spent an awful lot of time on the water and caught a lot of crappie. There's a thoroughbred racetrack near Hot Springs, my hometown. When tourists would come to attend the horse races, many of them would want to go fishing before they went to the races. So, Ron Wagers hired me to start taking some of his clients crappie fishing on the weekends during horse racing season.

I earned $20 a 2- to 4-hour trip. I had to produce a limit of 40 crappie during the time I had a party out fishing. Sometimes we could catch the crappie really quick, and other times, I might need all four hours to help those folks catch their limits of crappie. When we arrived back at the boat dock, I'd clean the crappie for my party and leave their fish there on ice for them to come back and pick up after the horse race.

Although I'd usually have anywhere from 4 to 5 hours invested in a guide trip, I was making $20, which was really big money for a 14-year-old. About this same time, a buddy of mine, Allan Ranson, who is now the CEO at Strike King, and I decided to fish our first bass tournament together. We kept fishing night tournaments on Lake Hamilton until Allan went off to college.

My dad bought our first bass boat when I was 14, so after Allan went off to college, I just kept on fishing in tournaments. When I was 17, I bought a brand-new bass boat and pulled it from tournament to tournament with an old 1966 white Chevy Impala. I had a brand new boat being pulled by a really old car. While I was in high school, I was guiding quite a bit. When I finished high school, I'd built up quite a good bass-guiding business as well as fishing in all the state and local tournaments I could. Then when I was about 20-years old, I met Ron Pearce of Bass Cat Boats. The second boat I bought was a Bass Cat, and the next year I turned pro at the age of 21.




 

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