A brisk fall morning on the Ohio River feels a hell of a lot colder when you’re screaming along the water at — no kidding — 70 mph. The speedometer on Kevin Wirth’s 21-foot high-performance Triton doesn’t work, but the professional angler knows from experience what it’s like to run the river at speeds usually reserved for cigarette boats piloted by guys trying to impress girls or chase down cocaine smugglers.
The big Mercury outboard motor stops roaring behind Six Mile Island, where we’re hoping Wirth might catch a whopper despite his insistence that "there won’t be no big ones" in the river. After securing a silver metallic spinner lure to the /files/storyimages/of his line, he stands at the bow, operating the trolling motor with his foot and bringing the Early Times-sponsored boat within 10 feet of the Indiana shoreline.
This maneuver has been perfected in the 152 tournaments the Crestwood resident has competed in after beginning his professional career in the Tennessee River at the 1985 Chattanooga Invitational. Since placing 114th out of 262 in that tournament, the angler’s skills have grown almost as steadily as the Bassmaster Tour itself. Total cash prizes at Chattanooga totaled a little over $100,000, but that number has ballooned over the years, with total cash prizes in September’s Elite Series event at southwest Missouri’s Table Rock Lake totaling nearly $700,000.
The Elite Series is transforming professional bass fishing in the same way NASCAR’s Race for the Cup has made its events more competitive and exciting. For the 102 top fisherman vying for position in the series, which just completed its 2006 inaugural season, almost $11 million was at stake cumulatively in the 11 events, with Wirth finishing sixth in the Citgo Bassmaster Angler of the Year standings. In late February, he and 49 other qualifiers will compete in the Bassmaster Classic at Lay Lake outside Birmingham, Ala., where the winner will pocket $500,000 of a total $1.2 million prize purse.
A former jockey who rode in the 1981 Kentucky Derby, Wirth now rides a 21-foot high-performance Triton at his bass-fishing gigs.
On the water, the 44-year-old Wirth’s slight build and diminutive frame betray his former occupation as a professional jockey — good enough to ride in the 1981 Kentucky Derby aboard Mythical Ruler — and though the whip has been replaced by the rod, his hands still move reflexively and purposefully, with an ease of motion that comes from millions of casts over a stellar 21-year career. 
The son of a horse trainer, Wirth was taught to fish by his great uncle, who would take him to a tackle shop near his Okolona home before going on fishing trips. Over the years, the young man grew close to the shop owner, so after suffering an injury that caused doctors to urge him to /files/storyimages/his horse-racing career, Wirth got a call from the shop owner suggesting he get in on a local tournament. "I had two rods and a tackle box," he remembers. "I didn’t catch anything, but I loved it."
Despite participating in a sport as dangerous and grueling as horse racing, Wirth feels that fishing is the bigger challenge. "(Fishing) is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done because of the mental, physical and emotional demand for long periods of time," he says. The trick, it seems, is maximizing your time on the water by getting out as many casts as possible and learning from each one.
"Every day, it’s you against the fish, you against a particular body of water," he says. "You let each fish talk to you, let it tell you how to catch the next one." As we glide along the riverbank, Wirth uses a sidearm cast to accomplish what he calls target fishing. After shooting below some low overhanging tree branches, his lure lands delicately on the water only inches from the shore — a perfect cast — and the next few dozen are all the same.
Sending his line out over and over again, Wirth reveals some tips that he’s learned over his career. He explains the presentation of the bait, which is how lightly or aggressively it is dropped into the water, as well as the placement of the bait — whether it should be closer to the shore or closer to a nearby branch or current. He also explains the difference between fish that feed on sight, which live in clearer water, and fish that feed on sound and vibration, which live in dirtier water.
Meanwhile, Wirth is getting a few bites on his line, but nothing that wants to stay on the hook, which is actually quite normal. Though he’s finished in the money in 82 of 152 tournaments and has amassed almost $600,000 in winnings alone, which excludes his Early Times endorsement deal, he often goes all day without even a bite. Eventually, he’ll get that first bite and he’ll analyze it. "Then, I’ll get another bite," he says, "and now it starts to tell me something. Those fish will reveal a pattern so that all that water I fished before, I may have fished it wrong . . . so now I can go back and fish it the correct way, and boom — all of a sudden the puzzle becomes unlocked."
It’s this attention to detail and memorization of the water that separates Wirth and other professional fisherman from amateurs. A professional’s time on the water gives him or her more confidence to make quick decisions about adjustments that can make or break an entire week of tournament fishing, which, like a golf tournament, typically consists of a few practice days before getting on the water when it counts.
Wirth uses basketball as an analogical forum to explain the difference. "Anyone is susceptible to making one free throw," he says, "but in the longevity of a game, they can’t compete with the pros. Anybody can get lucky."
Luck obviously helps every angler, but it’s a high degree of skill that has kept Wirth in the upper echelon of professional fishing for more than a decade. Since 1997, he has had 35 top-20 finishes, including 20 top-10 finishes and four runner-ups. His lone win came in the Potomac River at the 1994 Maryland Invitational. By comparison, Dean Rojas, who finished ahead of Wirth in this year’s Angler of the Year standings, has only 18 top-20 finishes since 1997, coming in second twice.
The Bassmaster Tour takes Wirth, a married father of two, to places like Grand Lake, Okla.; Lake Tohopekaliga in Kissimmee, Fla.; and will take him in February to Lay Lake’s Bassmaster Classic, which kicks off the 2007 Elite Series. This morning’s trip up the Ohio, however — which was chosen strictly for its proximity to his son’s soccer game at Eva Bandman Park — is quite rare, because as far as water quality goes, the Ohio’s murky soup is prohibitively sub-par.
"My least favorite place to fish is in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio," notes Wirth. "Nobody wants to take care of our waters and make them pristine. It’s all about preserving and knowing what your natural resources are. . . . There’s a lot of things that could be done to this Ohio River that could bring up the water quality dramatically, but then you are getting into politics."
The Bass Anglers Sportsman Society, which governs the Bassmaster Tour and stresses conservation of natural resources, has a loyal soldier in Wirth, who is able to discuss using grass carp in Kentucky Lake to eradicate invasive watermilfoil plants as easily as he can discuss his nine-year-old son’s accomplishments in soccer.
After trolling into an Indiana marina, Wirth still has had no luck snagging a fish and his frustration is mounting. He explains that with Elite Series payouts varying from $10,000 for 50th place to $100,000 for first, the pressure of earning and gaining lucrative media exposure can cause anglers to snap from time to time. "When your whole livelihood depends on it and you go out and do everything right that you can think of, and ultimately one fish makes or breaks your tournament . . . (frustration) builds up," he says. For his part, Wirth has never broken a rod, but he admits, "There have been tournaments where I could have tore the trolling motor off."
Today is not a tournament day, so there are no spectators to hoot and holler, and after a couple of cigarettes and two hours, the trip is cut short. The ride back to the boat launch is calmer than expected, with the sun warming up the air and the choppier water forcing Wirth to motor along at a more reserved pace. The lack of a catch on this day is a far cry from some of the monsters he’s pulled while pleasure-fishing in more advantageous waters, like the 14-pound bass he caught as a kid in a Florida pond or the 100-pound tarpon that took hours to reel in and nearly exhausted him. Wirth’s target casting, expert trolling and vast general knowledge of angling speak to his credentials as a professional fisherman, but I can’t shake the thought — he can get skunked, just like you and me.
