By RAY SASSER The Dallas Morning News
Posted Sunday, December 5, 2004
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DALLAS - Shorty Powers believes this is finally his year, and he could be right.
The wheelchair-bound advocate for physically challenged outdoorsmen is celebrating a variety of anniversaries.
This is the 25th year for Turning POINT, the organization that started as P.O.I.N.T. - an acronym for Paraplegics On Independent Nature Trips.
This is the 20th year for the bass tournament that Powers founded at Caddo Lake - the National Bass Championship for the Physically Challenged.
No physically challenged angler has qualified for the Classic, and Powers would love to be the first wheelchair angler to tell his story under the bright lights of ESPN. They still hold that tournament at Crip's Camp, Uncertain, Texas, one of the great ironies engineered by Powers. In May, the grizzled wheelchair angler was inducted into the Texas Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame.
In October, Powers won his first PVA bass tournament in 15 years of fishing the PVA circuit.
PVA stands for Paralyzed Veteran's Association.
Powers thinks there was divine intervention in his tournament victory at Clark's Hill Lake near Augusta, Ga.
Entering the Georgia tournament, the last event of the season, Powers was in 32nd place on the PVA circuit.
He needed a good showing to finish among the top 25 anglers and earn a berth in the PVA Grand National Tournament, set for January.
Powers' tournament win earned him a $19,000 bass boat and, more important, qualified Powers for the PVA Grand National Championship.
The winner of that event competes in the southern division of the B.A.S.S. Federation Championship tournament for a bid to the Bassmasters Classic, considered the Super Bowl of bass tournaments.
No physically challenged angler has qualified for the Classic, and Powers would love to be the first wheelchair angler to tell his story under the bright lights of ESPN.
Powers wound up with 15.05 pounds, nearly four pounds more than the second-place angler.
In a practice round at Clark's Hill, Powers and his fishing partner, Joe Ludwig, only found some small school bass that showed up at midday. Powers figured he could easily catch a limit of the small fish, but he needed at least one big bass to add stringer weight.
"Somebody said they'd seen a fisherman catch a 4-pounder from the cove where our cabin was," Powers said. "It was probably not true, but we didn't have any other plan, so we tried it. We made two circles around the cove and never got a bite."
As they were leaving the cove, headed for another spot, Powers suggested to Ludwig that they try the point protruding into the main lake. Ludwig said he'd fished it several times without success, but he remembered a ditch on the far side of the point.
Powers cast a floating worm and quickly caught a 4 1/2-pounder. He was very excited. Forty yards down the bank, his worm fooled a 2-pounder. Around the point, he added a 3 1/2-pounder.
"It was only 9:30 a.m. and I had three good fish," Powers said. "When the sun got up, I could see that the cove was loaded with hydrilla. I was catching fish from pockets in the hydrilla. If I had seen all that hydrilla, I never would have fished that cove in the first place."
Powers and his partner found a couple of similar coves and caught two more good fish.
Powers wound up with 15.05 pounds, nearly four pounds more than the second-place angler.
Powers fished again with his partner the next day, and this time both fished. They fished the same areas with the same lure and caught three fish, all small.
Powers' tournament win earned him a $19,000 bass boat and, more important, qualified Powers for the PVA Grand National Championship. The winner of that event competes in the southern division of the B.A.S.S. Federation Championship tournament for a bid to the Bassmasters Classic, considered the Super Bowl of bass tournaments.
No physically challenged angler has qualified for the Classic, and Powers would love to be the first wheelchair angler to tell his story under the bright lights of ESPN.
Powers possesses the marketing savvy that fishing promoters love. An example is an ad campaign Powers is putting together to promote the reliability of his fishing team's outboard sponsor. The ad shows all the anglers with their various physical problems gathered around their boat.
The caption reads: "We don't need any more problems."
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