Brent Ehrler: Fighting Through the Pain

Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2012 by Brent Ehrler

Brent Ehrler, of Redlands, California, is one of the FLW Tour’s most successful anglers. Ehrler stunned the field as he captured the title at Major League Fishing’s inaugural event, the Challenge Cup, at Lake Amistad. Since that event, Ehrler earned another title, at FLW’s first major tournament of 2012, at Hartwell Lake. In July, Ehrler was involved in a serious automobile accident in Forsyth County, Georgia, and he is still working to reach full recovery. In this blog, he talks about his injury and adds a glimpse into what the competition was like at his second Major League Fishing event, which was filmed recently at Chautauqua Lake in Western New York.

The second Major League Fishing event was a lot of fun. Obviously I can’t say anything about how the results went down, but I can tell you that it was a blast. It was another great experience.

It was nice to win the first one at Lake Amistad, but I know that every one of these is going to be a different challenge.

I don’t think I’m the only one that thought this event was a little easier, in a sense. It certainly wasn’t easier fishing against these guys, but from a stress standpoint, since we had one under our belts, we knew a little better what to expect.

This event was the complete opposite of the Amistad event. All you have to do is look at the size of the lake to know that the zones were smaller, and that created a whole different experience. It was easier to move around at Del Rio. At Chautauqua, we were fishing on top of each other. A lot of the time we were fishing the same banks, so you constantly had to choose whether to keep moving or just stay where you are.

That’s what I like about Major League Fishing. People are going to see us fishing in a lot of different environments. I’m looking forward to watching this event on TV. I think it’s going to be even better than the first one.

A lot of people know that I was involved in an accident in Georgia back in the summer, and I appreciate everyone’s concerns about how I’ve been doing.

I’m feeling a lot better. I’m definitely not 100 percent yet, but I’m at the point that when I start fishing, I can start to forget - at least for a while.

My injuries included a possible fracture of some ribs. There are some things that you just can’t pick up in an X-Ray. But I definitely have some cartilage issues. The problem with what happened to me is that you fix it by being in pain. The doctors told me that I could expect six weeks to six months of pain.

When I’m fishing, the pain comes at different times. It could be a hook set, it could be a cast, it could be just bouncing in the boat or lifting a box of tackle that gets me. When I’m casting, I might make 100 casts in a row and be fine, but then the 101st cast might be the one that gets me.

But, I’m happy I was able to fish this event. Even with the pain, it didn’t hurt all the time. So that left plenty of time to get in some good fishing.