“My wife is not doing too well,” he said. “She broke her foot and spent five months in a wheelchair. And she has fibromyalgia, which doesn’t ever get better. I probably did more grocery shopping this year than I did in the whole rest of my life combined. I know where everything’s at Wal-Mart.”

He added that the travel demands imposed even by an eight-tournament Elite Series schedule are daunting as well. He said that the drive from North Carolina to California, where the season begins, takes four straight days of 15 hours behind the wheel. He’s asked a close friend to take his boat out, and he’ll pay to fly the friend back, but even with that under control he doesn’t enjoy the all of the seat time en route to the tournaments.

One factor that was not a consideration in his decision was his fishing ability. While Eaker hasn’t finished higher than 81st in the Angler of the Year race since 2005, he says he can still be competitive. More importantly, he still loves to compete.

“I’m not Rick Clunn or Kevin VanDam, but by gosh I bet they haven’t enjoyed their careers as much as I have,” he said.

A Who’s Who of Bass History
In addition to missing the competition and the time on the water, Eaker knows that when he gives up his tour card he’ll miss the camaraderie that he’s built with his fellow pros. 

“I’ll miss my friends more than anything else,” he said. “It’s like family. I’ve watched them grow up and now I’ve watched their kids grow up.” A primary example of that is Roland Martin, an early influence whose son Scott has gone on to experience success on both the FLW Tour and on television. Eaker had experienced some success in North Carolina events in the 1960s while still working as a supervisor for Carolina Freight when he first came across a young Roland.

“I had three days on and three days off in those days, so Roland encouraged me to come down and guide at Santee Cooper,” he recalled. When Eaker grew tired of making the 200 mile drive every week and decided to give up the guiding income, it was Martin who encouraged him to take a stab at the nascent tournament scene, first at American Bass (where Eaker won an AOY award and never finished lower than 5th) and subsequently with BASS.

Along the way, he built friendships and partnerships with legends like Jim Bagley and Charles Spence, but no industry figure has played a larger role in Eaker’s career over the last 30 plus years than Earl Bentz.

“In 1973, Earl called my dealer and asked ‘Who in the hell is this Guy Eaker?’” Eaker said. “He told him that he had a stack of letters about me and said they should give me a boat. I’ve been with him 35 years.”

In that time, Eaker and Bentz worked closely together on various projects. When they were with HydraSports, Bentz designed a 15 foot boat made of Kevlar – it was rated for a 150 and weighed only 525 pounds – and Eaker ran it on the tournament circuit. Later, when they were with Stratos, Eaker recommended that Bentz add a raised flipping deck to the boats, against Bentz’s better judgment. When the disbelieving Bentz returned from the Nashville boat show with a stack of orders, he admitted that he’d been wrong. “I can’t make enough of them,” he exclaimed.

“Earl is the guy who made it possible for me to go full time,” Eaker added. “I didn’t want to lose my insurance (from the job with Carolina Freight) so Earl stepped in with Mercury and they took care of it. I never had a contract with him in my life. It was always a handshake deal. I wouldn’t have been able to quit my job without Earl.”

Even in “retirement,” Eaker intends to remain an important part of the Triton team, testing boats, making suggestions and supporting the brand.

Achievements and More Friends
In addition to his wealth of industry contacts, Eaker’s reputation has been buoyed by a resume which includes 10 Bassmaster Classic appearances and a win in the 1994 Texas Invitational on Sam Rayburn. While those memories will stick with him, the ones that he’s most proud of involve the efforts to help Ray Scott fund and build a church in Pintlala, Alabama. In furtherance of that effort, he got to fish with Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. 

“I’m probably the only person in the world who has taken a hook out of a President’s finger who wasn’t a surgeon,” he said, referring to a day on the water with the elder President Bush. “(The doctor) was standing right behind me when I did it, but I knew that if I let her look at it we’d have to come off the water so she could take him to the hospital. 

Subsequently, he attended the party at the Grand Ole Opry when the George and Barbara Bush celebrated their 50th anniversary.

Then he channeled his inner Brett Favre: “You never know. I might have a good year and forget about these plans to quit and go out and fish another season.”