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Somerset, Ky.
– Bill Smith of Somerset, Ky. Began fishing FLW Tour events in 1999 and by the year 2003, he had earned almost $80,000 and qualified for two FLW Tour Championships. In 2003, Smith took a step back from his tournament fishing career, his job as a Plant Manager for a manufacturing company, and started a job that would keep him in the fishing industry.
Smith started a company called Backwaters, and they took a truck and trailer, loaded it with tackle and took it on the road to follow the Bassmaster Tour and provide an opportunity for tour anglers, co-anglers and fans to purchase tackle at the tournament site.
In 2003, Smith turned Backwaters into an online tackle shop and a couple of months later he opened a brick and mortar store and the foundation for
www.backwatersonline.com
was in place. Smith is the owner of a website that averages around $800,000 in sales, along with Backwaters, Smith just completed his second season on the Bassmaster Elite Series.
The 36-year-old pro admittedly had a tough year in the 2007 Bassmaster Elite Series. He finished the season tied for 84th place in the Toyota Tundra Bassmaster Angler of the Year Points race. He only managed to cash three paychecks in the season, but he wound up the 2007 campaign with a second place finish at the final event at Lake Toho.
Smith took a few minutes to talk to The BASS ZONE while he was returning from Toho; the site of his highest finish as a pro, with his family. He talked about his patterns at Toho, his business, and his plans for the future; as a businessman, and an angler.
Toho
“I know that most of the guys were saying that the bite at Toho was tough,” Smith said. “But I’ve found that a lot of guys are really sandbagging when they say that, so I didn’t know that I was on this caliber of fish.” Smith’s four day total of 52 pounds, 7 ounces was not enough to hold off winner Ben Matsubu, but was enough for a $31,000 payday.
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Like so many tournaments do, Smith’s success was due to finding good water, and adjusting to the fish as the tournament wore on. “I had three areas after practice,” Smith told The BASS ZONE. “I was able to catch between 10 to 20 keepers during practice, but found one area that ended up being my primary spot; but when practice ended, it was third on my priority list.” |
Smith said that he found what would become his primary area in practice when he got two quality bites and a local angler tried to keep him off of it. “I told Sara (Smith’s wife) that I had found some decent fish, and that a local had tried to keep me off of it,” Smith said. “But, I only thought of it as my third best area for the tournament.”
Smith had a late blastoff number for the first day of the tournament, and made the run to his first stop only to find at least nine boats fishing it. “I knew I had found a good area,” Smith quipped. He turned and went to his second spot; there he found four boats fishing. “I then went to my third spot, and found it empty,” Smith said. “I told my Co-angler that it was a good sign, or an extremely bad one, and when I caught a seven pounder in my first 10 minutes, I realized it was a good sign.”
Smith caught the majority of his day one weight; 18 pounds, 6 ounces by 8:30 AM on that first morning, and by the end of day one, was able to take the top spot on the leader board. He used a Bass Assassin soft jerkbait in a discontinued blue pearl color Texas rigged with a 3/16 ounce Tru-Tungsten bullet weight on 16-pound test Sunline FC Sniper line spooled onto a Shimano Chronarch and a GLoomis GLX BCR855 rod. He followed the same pattern on the second day, but it only resulted in a 10 pound limit, and he relinquished the lead to Brent Chapman.
Smith returned to his honey hole on the third day, but only managed to get four fish for 6 pounds, 10 ounces, and he fell to fourth overall. “I didn’t adjust well that day,” Smith said. “My Co-angler that day was using a June Bug Zoom Trick Worm on light line and a 1/8-ounce bullet sinker, and he did well.” He continued; “I tried to match the presentation, but the lightest line I had was the 16-pound Sniper I was using, so I didn’t get the bites.”
After the weigh-in, Smith re-tooled and came back armed with 10-pound Sniper and a pair of Carolina rigs to his area. “I used the Texas Rig to throw around targets, but the Carolina Rig was used off the edges and little breaks,” he did most of the damage on the final day with the Carolina rig.
His GLoomis BCR874 Carolina Rig Rods were set up with a ˝- ounce sinker on 20-pound main line, with a 12-pound test leader, a Gamakatsu hook, and the Zoom Trick Worm. “I used the Tru-Tungsten Flippin’ Weight around the grass, but around the shell beds I used a Top Brass Sinker because the larger size didn’t get hung up as easily in the shell beds.
The combination produced his final day limit of 16 pounds, 11 ounces and moved him into second place for the tournament.
Backwaters
Smith said that his business is growing, and like any devoted business owner, he is working to keep it on that path. “I love Backwaters,” Smith said. “It started out as a way to keep me in the fishing industry, and to earn a little extra income, but has grown to a point where we have between five and ten employees, depending on the season.”
| His right hand at the shop is a man named Moses
Frasure, who has been with him from the beginning. “I couldn’t do this without him,” Smith said. “He allows me to fish these events without the fear of this thing running into the ground.” Smith said Mo, as his customers call him, is well known, and liked by locals, and tournament anglers alike. |
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“Mo gets a call from a pro, and scurries around the shop pulling the order,” Smith said. “I tell him to calm down, but he says, ‘nope, if I don’t get this out today, they’ll be upset.’ He understands the needs of the angler, and works real hard at taking care of them; he invaluable.”
He said that one of the things he loves about his job is that he gets to use his knowledge gained on the water to teach people to be better anglers, and he is working to give his online shop features that will help him do that for his customers not in his backyard.
“I have a very good friend who has been instrumental in Backwaters’ online development. Tony Payne is a long time friend, and an employee of IBM,” Smith said. “He is responsible for the way Backwaters looks, feels and operates.”
It is Payne who has helped Smith figure out the next phase of Backwaters’ development. “We will be launching a new site, www.tackleexpert.com soon,” Smith said. “The focus will be to make ourselves available to the public in an educational manner.” He said. “Tony has been instrumental in all of our web growth, and has been with this project as well.”
The plan is to eventually blend backwaters.com
into tackleexpert.com as people get used to the new website.
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Smith’s Future
His high finish at Toho put him into position to requalify for the Bassmaster Elite
Series through the wildcard; Smith has decided to not return in 2008, he has decided to focus on his family, his business and seeking sponsorships to return in 2009. “This was a tough year for me,” Smith exclaimed. “Being away when Brandon was born, the travel was long, and I didn’t fish very well,” he said. “I told Sara that if I did
requalify, I would not be going back next year.”
Smith will instead focus his efforts on the 2008 Southern Opens and the FLW Stren Series events in his area. Along with working to build his business, he will also work towards establishing new sponsorships to help him return in 2009. “I’m going to keep fishing so I don’t get rusty,” Smith said. “But I want to have things in order more when I go back. |
Find out more about Bill Smith, and his business at
www.backwatersonline.com.
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