Photos by Mark Jeffreys & Matt Pangrac

Not bad for a teenager.

Young But Not Born Yesterday
Roy stated that he expected there might be some harrassment from the grizzled veterans on tour – if not outright hostility, then at least some mental games – but nothing of that sort happened.

“I never had any problems like that,” he said. “I was kind of surprised.”

On the contrary, he was able to depend on veteran Mark Menendez and second-year rising star Greg Vinson for encouragement if not outright mentoring. They didn’t necessarily instruct him on the less-obvious points of being a professional angler. Instead, they nudged him in the right direction when he needed it.

“We helped each other out a lot,” he recalled. “Just being able to watch them taught me a lot. They were encouraging to me. I’d have tough practices and come in down and they’d pick me back up.”

He repaid the favor to Vinson at the final event of the year on Ft. Gibson by providing a few hints that may have contributed to the second year man securing his first Classic berth. 

Strong Start
Roy’s season started off with a middle of the pack 50th place finish at the California Delta, but the next week at Clear Lake he jumped into the limelight, ultimately finishing 8th among a who’s who of superstars. That gave him a much-needed boost.

“I was in the top five for two days in a row,” he said. “That was a turning point for me. I realized that I can compete at this level. It gave me a little bit of confidence.”

Clear played to his abilities, he added. “It has a lot of boat docks, which I like and the time of year we were there you could catch a lot of fish on a jerkbait and that’s one of my strengths. I found my fish with it during practice even though I used a swimbait to catch them during the tournament.”

For much of the rest of the year, with only one exception (a 78th at Smith Mountain), he hovered around the cutoff for a check, making it inside three more times and missing it three times. He never earned more than two in a row, but he never missed the cut more than twice in a row, either. But despite the inconsistency, he feels that he grew substantially as a tournament angler, particularly with respect to preparation.

“The biggest adjustment was only having two and a half days of practice,” he said. “In the Opens, you can spend two weeks down there if you want. These guys are just able to find fish so fast on tough bodies of water and I would struggle. Often I was stil practicing when the tournament started.”

He added that as the season went on, he learned to cover water faster but more efficiently. 

“You’ve got to be able to look at everything. I was spending less time in an area and then refining what I found once the tournament started.”

Sophomore Year Prep
Prior to the start of his rookie season, Roy endeavored to learn as much as he could about the bodies of water the Elite Series would visit, and that included pre-practice in California. This upcoming offseason he intends to repeat that process, and perhaps even build upon it.

“I’m going to do a lot more homework,” he said. “I’ll start the process a little bit earlier and hit some bodies of water twice so when I get there for the official practice I can be more productive.”

“It exceeded my expectations,” he said. “Being around the best anglers in the world, it’s unbelievable how high the level of competition is, but I’m ten times better than I was a year ago.”