Last week, I started to tell you about fishing my first-ever professional tournament. It was held on Grand Lake O' the Cherokees in northeastern Oklahoma. This is also the site of this year’s Bassmaster Classic, which is scheduled to take place next weekend.

I left off talking about how I felt my practice days went well. I had located some good fish and was confident that I could catch them. Then it was time for the partner pairings and pre-tournament meeting.

I had been dreading this meeting all week. Even though my television show had only been on the air a short while, many of these anglers recognized me and called me out by name. I swear that even some of them had a smirk on their face. They had to be thinking, "Here is another one of those hotshot TV guys. We’ll see how he does." Now, maybe they weren’t thinking that, but it’s how I felt.