Mark Taylor

Mark Taylor's Outdoors column and notebook appears regularly in The Roanoke Times.

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HUDDLESTON -- One season.

Kevin VanDam was going to give it that much.

And if he couldn't make it that year as a professional bass angler, he'd go back to working for his dad in the construction business.

"I had $20,000 in the bank," he said. "I figured that could get me through a season."

That was 18 seasons ago.

VanDam has done more than survive. He's thrived, establishing himself as one of the best, most consistent professional anglers in tournament bass fishing.

"He's the greatest of all time, no doubt," Dean Rojas said.

Some might argue that, but plenty would agree.

Statistics support that VanDam is the most successful pro angler of his generation.

So far VanDam has racked up 14 wins on Bass Anglers Sportsman Society tournaments, including two wins in the Bassmaster Classic.

"He doesn't do it all the time," Rojas said of his friend's wins. "But he does it more than anyone else."

Consistency has help VanDam earn BASS's Angler of the Year title four times, including last season. Only the legendary Roland Martin has more points titles.

This by a guy who was pretty sure he was going to spend his life in the general contracting business.

"I had no idea I was going to be doing this for a living," VanDam said between casts Thursday at Smith Mountain Lake on the opening day of the Bassmaster Elite Series Blue Ridge Brawl tournament.

VanDam was hard at work Thursday, opening day of the four-day event featuring 99 pro anglers. At the start signal, he gunned his 21-foot Triton boat from tournament headquarters at Parkway Marina to an area where he'd found some spawning bass in the shallows.

After a cool night, VanDam wasn't surprised to find that the lake's water temperatures had fallen a few degrees and some of the fish had moved out of the area.

Soon enough, he spotted a largemouth bass.

"There's one," he said. "I should be able to catch that one."

VanDam circled back and cast a plastic lure toward the area where the bass was holding. A second later, his fishing rod was bowed in a graceful arc framing the rising sun.

"A one-cast biter," he said, placing the pound-and-a-half fish in his boat's livewell. "A keeper is a keeper."

VanDam's hope was to catch enough fish to be able to cull out the small bass and replace it with a bigger one.

An hour later VanDam spotted another fish, this one obviously bigger than the first.

"That's a good fish," he said. "It's one we need."

This one wasn't a one-cast biter, though.

VanDam had to change lures several times before he found one that worked.

The 2-pounder went into the livewell.

VanDam, who is fifth in this season's Angler of the Year points race, focused on many areas where he had found fish during practice Monday through Wednesday. In some cases the fish were still there. Other times they were gone.

As the morning wore on the livewell filled up, with the best bass a stout 4-pound largemouth.

But the five fish didn't weigh 12 pounds, total, so VanDam knew the key would be to catch some larger fish so the 2-pounders could go back into the lake.

VanDam didn't slow down.

Other than munching on a granola bar and attempting to drink a Diet Coke while blasting at 65 mph between spots, he didn't even take a short break to eat.

"I've got a sandwich in there that I'm dying for," he said. "I just don't want to stop."

Pro anglers are legendary for their work ethic.

VanDam's was formed during a childhood growing up in a rural community near Kalamazoo, Mich.

"My first job was bailing hay," said VanDam, who is 41 and lives on a 120-acre spread just a couple of miles from where he grew up. "I picked asparagus.

"When I was 13 or 14, I started working for my dad."

And he fished.

A lot.

"My dad took me ice fishing when I was 3," VanDam said of his first trip.

When he turned 7, he was old enough to get invited along on the summer trip his dad hosted for employees of his construction business.

On that trip VanDam caught his first smallmouth bass.

"It was only 12-inches long, but I remember how hard it pulled and fought," said VanDam, who has a reputation as one of the tour's best smallmouth anglers.

When he was 16 and could drive, VanDam joined a bass club and started fishing weekend tournaments.

Other extracurricular activities fell by the wayside.

"I played baseball for a couple of years in high school, but I had issues with a coach over fishing," said VanDam, whose 12-year-old twin boys are both avid baseball players and fishermen too.

Having done well at lower level tournaments, VanDam wanted to take the next step.

"I came out here to see how good those guys I'd been watching on Bassmasters really were," he said.

He found out they were really good.

He found out he was really good, too.

"In my first tournament I finished third and won a boat," he said. "That bankrolled my season."

That $20,000 he had planned to spend on the season stayed in the bank.

He's since added more than $3.2 million in winnings from BASS tournaments, with that income supplemented by sponsorship deals with companies that want to be affiliated with one of the most visible anglers in the world of bass, the nation's most popular game fish.

VanDam may well add to his winnings this weekend.

Fishing hard through Thursday afternoon, he boated several 3-pound smallmouth bass to bulk up his total weight.

Pulling in to the dock he had no idea where that would put him. There was a chance everyone else had really ripped them.

But, just in case, he pulled the lures he'd been using off his hooks.

"You don't want to give these guys anything," he said with a smile.

VanDam's weight was 15 pounds, 7 ounces, putting him in a tie for 12th place.

He was well in the hunt.

As usual.