Lake Murray, S.C. will host the best and most talented professional bass anglers on the Wal-Mart FLW tour in search of the Forrest L. Wood Cup and the $1 million top prize in a four-day event beginning Thursday, August 14. This event happens every year and normally there would be no relevant reason for talking about it. But this year is anything but normal.

A native of West Monroe, Jim Dillard, is representing northeast Louisiana at the event and has a pretty good chance to win.
Fishing at this level takes more than entry fees and a little luck.
Dillard had to qualify by being within the top 50 anglers on the pro tour. He did more than that. According to the latest tabulation for the FLW Angler of the Year ratings, Dillard finished 15th out of 245 on a virtual who's who of bass fishing. Two near top 10 finishes and four other consistently fish-producing tournaments earned him the esteemed ranking.

On July 30, 2008, bassfan.com, a well-known professional bass angler media website, featured Dillard front and center.

“It was good to see a hometown boy get a little recognition,” said Bobby Phillips of the Honey Hole tackle store in West Monroe.

In that column, the author wrote: In his two previous full seasons on the FLW Tour, Jim Dillard finished 137th and 153rd in the Angler of the Year race. This year he was 15th.

He placed 104th or worse in the first five events of '07 and his best finish was 83rd. He didn't have a single triple-digit showing this year, though, and came within just a few ounces of making back-to-back Top 10s at Beaver and Ft. Loudoun-Tellico (where he was 14th and 11th, respectively).

So what was the key to his turnaround? There were two of them, actually - one was in his own head and the other was in the Tour rules.

The 36-year-old Louisiana native, who's now living in Bauxite, Ark., was able to focus a lot more on fishing this season than in 2007, when he learned that his mother was battling terminal cancer. Also, the Tour instituted an off-limits period for the first time, which allowed him to take advantage of his adaptability and prevented some of his competitors from camping out at a venue for a month straight and sparing no expense to learn all of its secrets.

"Last year wasn't a good year after finding out about my mom's cancer," he said. "Something like that is one of those things that takes its toll on you.

"My mental focus was off and I couldn't get things going. Even my wife (Crystal) said I didn't have the same attitude I'd had in the (Bassmaster) Opens and Strens in '04 and '05. When I went to those tournaments I knew I was going to catch them, and she saw that I'd lost that edge."

The new limited practice rule also had an effect on his psyche, and his claim that he fares better under such restrictions is borne out by his performance in the FLW Series Eastern Division. He was 48th in that race last year - 105 places higher than he finished on the Tour.

"That was pretty important. When you have an off-limits, it becomes a lot more about an angler's personal ability and not about everybody else's information. I felt very confident because of that."

His story is almost something out of a movie. Dillard says he inherited a lot of his competitiveness from his father, who died when Jim was only 15 years old. His mother is another of his present day heroes as she still battles cancer. He credits his mental strength to her.

Some of the more notable competitors volley back and forth between the two major professional fishing bodies, FLW and Bass Angler Sportsman's Society (BASS). The most coveted of championships is still the Bassmaster Classic within the BASS organization. Dillard is insistent that he can compete at that level and will move toward that as he attempts to qualify for the Bassmaster Elite Series through finishing well enough in the Bassmaster Open Series next season.

Although it sounds like a long, drawn-out and tedious process, it is necessary unless Dillard does well enough to capture the attention of a few sponsors to help with expenses and entry fees.

That's right. He's been competing, not without some help, but definitely without any monetary, lodging, fuel, vehicle or boat sponsors for his entire professional career.

So, here he goes, chasing a dream to be the best competitive angler he can be. Beginning Thursday, August 14, 2008 log in to www.flwoutdoors.com to watch the day's results and support a good ole Northeast Louisiana boy.