Bryan Kerchal made no attempt to disguise his admiration for four-time BASSMASTERS Classic winner, Rick Clunn. In an interview shortly before he won the Classic himself last year, I asked Bryan what guided and drove him in becoming so successful, so quickly. "I've loved to fish, especially to fish for largemouth bass, for about as long as I can remember," he told me, "but my first real exposure to professional bass fishing was when I saw Rick Clunn win the Classic on TV. He talked about dedication and observation, about the ability to make the most of your situation and the need to follow your dreams. I just thought it was neat. I started to follow Rick's career, and tried to emulate his mental approach to fishing.

  "Once I made a commitment to try to become a professional fisherman, Rick Clunn's inspiration carried me through a lot of tough days on the water. When I couldn't catch fish, I'd always ask myself what Rick Clunn would do in that situation. Not what bait he'd throw next, or where he'd cast, but how he would mentally refocus himself. Over time, I developed my own style and approach. It may not seem all that similar to his, but his mental approach to fishing is what helped me develop it.

   "Mostly though, what I learned from studying Rick's philosophy is that even though determination and desire couldn't be a substitute for experience, it could make it easier help you learn more, and improve more with each thing you learned. If it wasn't for that, I'm sure I wouldn't be getting ready to fish my second Classic right now."

   When I asked how he felt his chances in Classic '94 were, Bryan gave me a hesitant grin. "Most of my pre-fishing at High Rock was pretty poor," he replied, "and I was feeling pretty lousy. But I recharged myself, and came up with something that I really think will hold up. I don't know if I'm ready to win a Classic, but I feel really good about my chances to do well."

   Bryan didn't want to let any of the details of his Classic gameplan out of the bag beforehand, so it wasn't until I was his press observer on the 2nd day of competition nearly a month later, that I learned the rest of the story that has now become legend. "It was a real Zen kind of thing," Bryan said, "I wasn't getting bit, and I was really down on myself and didn't feel too well. I decided that I couldn't make the best use of the limited prefishing time I had left feeling as lousy and disconnected as I did, so I pulled into the back of a little cove, tied off to a willow tree, and took a nap in the boat. When I woke up an hour or so later, I felt a renewed sense of vigor and confidence. I looked around, and decided to start at the first dock on the point coming out of that same cove.

   "When I eased over toward the dock, there was this red shad worm floating next to it. I don't know whether a bass spit it out, or maybe somebody who wasn't getting bit any more than I was had gotten disgusted with it and tossed it overboard when they were changing to something else. But I fished it out of the water, rigged it up, and on my next pitch, I caught a five pounder. I just kept hitting docks with that worm ... well, with one just like it, you know, after that one got chewed up ... and narrowing down a pattern. I could have culled ... maybe 18 pounds ... with the fish I caught over the next couple hours.

   "I'm not saying that I think bass in this lake will always hit a small, red shad worm, but I think the dock patterns that it helped me develop are important here ... I really believe that most every bass in the lake uses docks like these at some point in time. The bite was hot on that particular worm the day I started working out how the fish here use the docks. If I hadn't stumbled across that worm, I might have continued to fish with a jig, or a spinnerbait, or something else they weren't biting as well, and I wouldn't have made contact with enough fish to learn much about which docks they seemed to prefer and why. The worm sure isn't magic, but finding it at that particular time might have been. Then again, every bass I've caught so far in the Classic has bit that red shad worm, so who knows?"

   Of course we all know that Bryan went on to electrify the Greensboro Convention Center crowd and the entire bass fishing community, by becoming the first Wrangler Angler to win the Classic. And we're all aware of the terrible turn the course of events took less than five months later. But the "connection" between Bryan Kerchal and Rick Clunn had already been established.

   After the press conference at the end of the Classic, I spoke briefly with Clunn about the week's events. "It wasn't really a shock," he replied, referring to the fact that an amateur had won the Classic. "It was only a matter of time before an amateur won this thing, and I'm just really happy that it happened now, with someone who will carry the Classic title with as much class as Bryan will. Bryan had been on the invitational circuit for a year already, [Ed. Note: from qualifying the previous year as a 'Wrangler Angler'] and you could tell he had the qualities that make for success, and that he just needed more experience on different waters. It was pretty apparent that it was only a matter of time before it would all come together for him."

   A few days after Bryan's career and his life were cut so tragically short when he and 14 other passengers perished in the crash of American Eagle flight 3379, I again spoke to Rick Clunn about Bryan Kerchal.

   "I'm beginning to realize today," Clunn said, "that Bryan's tragedy has had a much stronger effect on me than I had realized it had or thought it would. I had a commitment to fulfill today, taking some people out on Rayburn, and I had hoped that being on the water, tuning in with nature, it would help lift the sadness. But I couldn't think about anything else all day.

"Was Bryan a friend? Of course. We're so busy on the road in this business, we never get to develop any real social friendships except with each other, and Bryan had such a presence about him, everyone on the circuit considered him a friend. He'd already made so much of an impact on this industry. The biggest loss the fishing community has suffered is the loss of the gift that he brought to us. That gift was in his demeanor. His almost childlike enthusiasm for his chosen profession and everything about it. His success ... and especially the way he accepted it ... almost reluctantly ... was a reminder to all of us of how fortunate we are to be living our dreams.

   "He was such a strong role model and inspiration for all the hopeful fishermen out there. His continued success would keep proving and illustrating that the impossible dream, isn't impossible, and you don't have to have 20 years of experience and all the fishing knowledge in the world to realize even the most lofty goals and ambitions.

  "I was asked at a speaking engagement recently, if Bryan was that good of a fisherman, or did he just get lucky. I had to think about it a minute, because it's not the usual kind of question you prepare for going into a seminar. But the answer was neither. He had achieved a level of success that was beyond what his experience and his level of knowledge could justify on their own. But he wasn't lucky. A combination of preparation, dedication, drive and intangibles combined to put him into that magical position where for those three important days, every decision he made was the right one and everything just came together. He said it himself, at the press conference. He didn't know why or how he had done so well, but he always performed best when the pressure was most intense and the most was at stake.

   "I didn't know until he told me at the Classic," Clunn added, "about him modeling his efforts after my career. I don't usually deal with that fan admiration aspect this business very well. Too often, it's more an idolization kind of thing, where someone puts you up on a pedestal, and credits your accomplishments to some kind of superiority instead of determination and dedication. By idolizing you, they make it easier to accept mediocrity in their own success or they impose an artificial limit their goals and dreams.

   "But with Bryan, it was different. He saw the real message ... that the only limits to how much you can learn and how well you can do are those that you create or accept. I'm proud that he was able to garner that from my example, and that he used it to prove that each of us can accomplish our goals and our dreams. I'm just so disappointed that the realization of his dreams was so short. We all have to go when it's our time, and for whatever reason, it was his time. But even in his short life and short reign as champion, he touched a lot of lives."