To be honest with you, I can’t even remember the first time I ever watched professional fishing on television when I was younger. However, I do know that my entire life has been fully engulfed and geared towards chasing that little green (and brown!) fish.

Fast forward 20 or so years, and I find myself just weeks outside of my first FLW Tour event as a professional. That’s right, the big “R” word….”Rookie.” I often to get the staple question of, “How did you manage to make it?” I usually give a little chuckle at the question because I hardly feel that I have made it, but rather feel like a freshman moving my stuff into the dorm for the first time. I haven’t made it by any means; I’m just lucky enough to get a chance that so many others would die for.

I can’t exactly put together a text book flow chart of how to move up through the ranks, but I can tell you how I went about it (and trust me there are much easier and harder ways). I didn’t actually fish my first official bass tournament until my first year of college. I knew that it was something that had interested me for quite some time, but never really took the plunge. I will never forget blasting off that very first morning. It was 22 degrees, sleeting, and the fish did NOT bite. From that tournament on I was hooked (sorry that pun just kinda crept in there). After that I had my eyes on getting a boat. I quickly got a job working at a Fred’s dollar store and used some money from high school graduation to buy my first bass boat. A Ranger 361v, complete with torn seats, ripped carpet, broken livewells, flats on the trailer, and gel coat that was so faded nobody was really sure what color it was supposed to be. None of that mattered though. That old boat was my first ticket to get on the water and chase my new found career dream.

With a little work and many days on the water, both the boat and I were ready to step up and begin fishing the local BFL circuit (or so I thought). That first year was very humbling. I got beat. Bad, really bad. But anyone who is super competitive knows, there is absolutely nothing that is more motivating than getting beat. That ember of desire to fish for a living had suddenly had gasoline thrown upon it. I fished non-stop. I read books, magazines, online articles, and anything else I could get my hands on. After a few more years in the BFL’s I finally managed to start cutting a few checks here and there along with just enough local sponsorship to make the move to the back of the boat on the now Rayovac Series.

That year was a great year. I learned a lot and built a ton of confidence in myself. I won a little bit more money than the year before and managed just a touch more in sponsorship dollars. The following year I had planned to compete in the Rayovac series as a boater, but my season was shipwrecked with a blown motor the first morning of the first event at Lake of the Ozarks. With only 3 total events, I dropped out of the following events because I didn’t think I had much of a chance of making the championship (and the whole boat thing…you need one of those for fishing these days). By sitting out for a season, I was able to retain some money, graduate from college, and finally make the decision to go all in trying to make it happen. Knowing that there was no way that I could fund myself to fish as a professional, my only real chance was to win what I needed fishing.

That $20,000 offered to the FLW Tour co-anglers suddenly started looking pretty good. I finally squeezed together enough money with local sponsors, past winnings, and personal income to compete in the Rayovacs as a boater and the Tour as a co-angler. I knew I had literally one season to win enough money to give myself a chance to move to the front of the boat in the FLW Tour and finally be where I had set out to be. That 2014 season was something incredible. I had a great year with the Rayovac series, made a few top 20 cuts on the tour, was fortunate enough to win an event at Kentucky Lake, and even stumbled into a 4^th place finish at the Forrest Wood Cup! I had done it. I had one year to make it happen and somehow did it. Now I have one more year to give it all I have once more. Just trying to live my dream of chasing fish and “making it.”

P.S.-I will post more about some my thoughts, rookie jitters, and the other stuff closer to the first event at Lake Toho!

FishAssist wishes Cody the best of luck.  We're sure there are many exciting hook sets in his future.  To learn more about Cody Kelley visit his webpage at www.codykelleyfishing.com or his twitter page at twitter.com/ckelleyfishing.