Life on the road : FLW crews make tourneys go smoothly
Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/61876/
ROGERS — Anyone who wandered into the parking lot at the Prairie Creek Marina at Beaver Lake on Friday morning may very well have become momentarily confused. And for good reason.
It’s nothing to see the marina parking lot packed on a warm, sunny day. But it’s the license plates that stood out on Friday.
Indiana, Minnesota, Kentucky, Florida, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Michigan, Washington, Oregon. You had to really search to find the Arkansas plates hidden among the sea of vehicles that made the trek from far and wide to Beaver Lake.
But for Perry Oakley, Duval Sims, Johnny Douglas, Drane Powell and a cast of about 40 other FLW Outdoors employees, it would be strange to walk through a parking lot and have it any other way. They arrived in Rogers on Tuesday to begin setting up for the annual Wal-Mart Open, one of the largest annual tournaments on the FLW Outdoors fishing tour.
This week, 400 anglers from across the United States and six other countries are putting their experience and expertise to the test on Beaver Lake. Next week, the FLW Outdoors crew will move its semitrailers full of party tents, stages, sound systems and other gear to Hot Springs. From there, the crew will continue to make its way around the country, week after week, as one of the fastest-growing professional fishing tours plays on.
The tour kicks off in Texas the first week of January and continues through November. All the while, members of the FLW Outdoors crew are responsible for setting up, breaking down, organizing daily boat checks, erecting tents and stages for weigh-ins and more. They are normally the first ones to the tournament site — this week Beaver Lake — in the morning and the last ones to leave after everything has been cleaned and reorganized at night.
When the hundreds of boats and professional anglers are on the water during the day, Oakley, Sims, Douglas, Powell and crew are normally still working behind the scenes to make sure everything is just right.
“ We’re on tour, too; it’s just that we’re the ones doing all the stuff people don’t see, ” said Oakley, 58, a retired coal miner from western Kentucky. “ When everyone shows up for the weigh-ins, everything is already set up and ready to go. We’re the ones that get it that way. ”
And while there are plenty of opportunities to sit back and take in the action of the tournament, FLW Outdoors crew members do make their share of sacrifices en route to the peaceful surroundings they find themselves in almost weekly.
“ We do a lot of living out of hotels and trucks, ” said Oakley, who joined the FLW Outdoors tournament crew three years ago. “ We hit the road at the beginning of January and haven’t been home but a total of three weeks since then. This is our fifth week in a row, and we’re headed to Hot Springs after this. ”
But you’re not going to find Oakley complaining about it. The positives, he said, far outweigh the drawbacks.
“ Heck, I was a coal miner for 30 years, ” Oakley said. “ I was underground all the time. With this, I actually get to see sunlight. I get to see the country. This crew is together so much of the time, we’re like family. We’re like family with a lot of the guys in the tournament because we see them every weekend, no matter where the tour goes. There was one place in Texas where the townspeople came out and cooked for us every day. We had never seen those people in our lives. ”
Ask any of the FLW Outdoors crew members, and they’ll tell you it’s the communities they travel to that make what they do fun day in and day out.
“ There are some places with bigger fish or more fish, but there are a few places I look forward to going more than any other — and Beaver Lake is one of them, ” said Sims, a Kentucky resident who’s worked the Wal-Mart Open for the past 11 years. “ This part of Arkansas is incredible. We go to some bigger towns, but the people just aren’t as nice. Here, we walk in a restaurant and it’s like we’re part of their family.
“ We’re rooming at the Embassy (Suites ) in Rogers, but I remember this place when none of that was there. We see a lot of the country every year, but this is the fastestgrowing place I’ve ever seen. But even with all that growth and change, it’s still such a beautiful place with nice people. ”
On Friday, Sims and crew spent the late morning and early afternoon getting everything just right for the second weigh-in under the big tent at Prairie Creek Marina. When the boats started coming in, they unloaded fish, carried gear, worked the various booths and did anything else to keep the Wal-Mart Open running smoothly for the participants and fans. On Saturday and Sunday, the crew will spend its time setting up and breaking down at both Prairie Creek Marina and the John Q. Hammons Center, where the remainder of the weigh-ins will be conducted.
“ The alarm clock normally goes off at 3: 30 a. m., and whoever draws the early boat checks is out there by 5: 30 a. m., ” Oakley said. “ It’s pretty busy until all the boats are out, but we’re to the point where the field is getting narrowed (to 10 ), so it’ll be a little quieter. The big job will be when everything needs to get packed up into the trailers to be moved to the next stop. ”
When crew members finish their evening responsibilities, they’ve normally worked up pretty good appetites. So strapping on the feed bag is their favorite time of day.
“ We eat very, very well, ” Douglas said. “ Our crew brings a lot of money to town just with our eating habits alone. That’s what restaurants tell us, anyway. ”