Angler of the Week: Andy Montgomery
Major League Fishing wants you to get to know your favorite anglers! That’s why we’re putting together a new angler profile every week in 2018. Check our site regularly for the latest and send us your questions for the anglers.
This week we caught up with MLF Pro Andy Montgomery while he was on the road. He says fishing season has started and his schedule is about to get very busy. Montgomery has already competed in one tournament, and he’s preparing to work at the Bassmaster Classic.
“This time of year you just try to prepare all your tackle, try to get all your I’s dotted and your T’s crossed so when the season really starts rolling, you can just go with the flow,” Montgomery explained.
Montgomery is from South Carolina. He and his wife, Sharon, have a three-year-old daughter named Kinsley.
“She’s getting in that stage where she wants to back talk a little bit, just becoming her own little person,” he smiled.
“She did tell me she dumped her boyfriend, she did tell me that,” Montgomery laughed, “So I was proud of her for that. She said, ‘Daddy I dumped him.’ Three years old, now! So that’s good. I didn’t have to kill a three-year-old.”
Montgomery says Kinsley takes after him. She loves to be outside, and she’s already fishing.
“She’s already caught a few. She’s a daddy girl for sure,” she said.
Montgomery says you won’t see Kinsley in a dress often.
“She doesn’t like dresses. She likes to be outside. She’s got a lot of my traits. She really likes to be outside. Not scared of anything,” he says.
Montgomery is a proud father and says his toddler is unstoppable. Even though she’s only three, Montgomery says Kinsley has already had two broken arms.
“She has no fear. And you want your child to have no fear. But it’s pretty scary, she’s got no fear,” he laughed.
Montgomery says his faith leads him in all aspects of his life, including fatherhood and fishing.
“I have a strong Christian-based faith. I don’t outwardly show it or speak it as much as some other guys because I believe there’s several different ways to lead somebody to the Christian faith. And one is just being a great example so that’s what I try to do. Just live it everyday and be a great example,” Montgomery explained.
Montgomery’s faith keeps him calm in a high-pressure job. He says another one of the MLF anglers gave him good advice on faith and fishing that he still remembers to this day.
“It’s something Mark Rose taught me several years ago, and it’s something I go by: I give it all I got and leave nothing else out there and I’ll leave the results to God.”
Montgomery believes that everyone was born with a God-given talent, and clearly, his is fishing.
“I do feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing,” Montgomery explained, “You know, I grew up very middle class. Very middle class. Mom and dad gave me everything that I needed but didn’t have the means to support a fishing career that wasn’t successful, if that makes any sense.”
It makes perfect sense because professional fishing is a highly competitive industry, and it’s expensive to compete if you’re not a sponsored angler. Montgomery says when he started out, he had to either win tournaments to earn money, or get out of the game altogether and pursue a different career.
“There’s been several times in my career where, if I didn’t get a check, I probably couldn’t of kept going,” he said, “Every time I would get to that breaking point in my career, you know, I’d have a good tournament. And that’s the reason I know this is what I’m supposed to do.”
That’s no longer the case. Montgomery says he built his my career to where he can survive the downturns and he doesn’t have to worry about getting a check to go to the next tournament. He says he has God to thank for that. Of course, becoming an MLF angler in 2014 didn’t hurt either.
“My career has grown over the last several years because of Major League Fishing, 100% because of Major League Fishing,” he said, “And I’m thankful for that.”
When you see Montgomery on MLF, he’s always calm and collected. But that may be because of all the work he does behind the scenes. He says preparation is key for pro anglers.
“I think an angler spends probably three to four hours off of the water for every hour that they spend on the water, managing tackle. That’s something people don’t see. We spend an extreme amount of time trying to organize tackle and be ready,” he said.
Right now, Montgomery says he’s all about the Strike King Rage Bug. But he always stocks his truck up with every bait that he may need in a competition.
“Sometimes my truck leaves the house and it don’t come home for six weeks. There’s not always a tackle store I can just run and get it from so, you know, I have to pack my boat with a couple packs, but also have to pack my truck, you know, with some backups.”
The next episode of MLF that features Montgomery is Sudden Death Round 2 of the 2018 Summit Cup from Alpena, Michigan. That will air on March 10 from 2-4pm EST on Outdoor Channel.