MLF Select Rookie Cody Meyer: ‘SCORETRACKER is the Reason I Have More Gray Hairs on my Head’
After eight years fishing the FLW Tour and B.A.S.S. Opens, three Top-10 finishes in the Forrest Wood Cup, and a near-miss for FLW Tour Angler of the Year honors, Major League Fishing Select rookie Cody Meyer is accustomed to the grind of professional bass fishing.
Not, however, to the frenetic pace of the MLF format.
Meyer experienced the anxiety of an Elimination day for the first time during the Summit Select event in Hot Springs, Arkansas. To say it made an impression on the Northern California pro is an understatement.
“Bro, I have never fished anything like that!” Meyer said after finishing second to Fletcher Shryock in Elimination Round 1 on Lake Ouachita. “I can fish a regular event and go from daylight to dark for three or four days in a row and be pretty tired, as you might expect; but I’m more tired after 7 ½ hours of fishing one day of MLF than three full days of a regular tournament! The mental strain is unbelievable, I honestly wasn’t prepared for that.”
Meyer has proven to be a quick study in his professional career, finishing in the Top 5 in his first two FWCs in 2009 and 2010, and earning an FLW Tour Angler of the Year Top 5 in his third season. He’s now a veteran of over 100 Tour-level events and regarded as an AOY and FWC threat every year, but readily admits that he faced a strong case of the jitters heading into his first MLF competition.
“I don’t get nervous often, but I was really anxious coming into this first event,” Meyer said. “It’s the fear of the unknown, and being completely unsure of what to expect. This format is just so intense: you have the possibility of penalties, I’m used to having three full days of practice to figure out how to catch five fish, you have this crazy Scoretracker element to deal with. You just have so many different things to think about in this format, it gets into your head a little bit.”
Learning to live with Scoretracker
Meyer is learning to live with Scoretracker – “Live with, not love,” he jokes – after a panicky start to his Elimination competition. Although he eventually caught eight fish for 13 pounds, 4 ounces and easily advanced to Sudden Death, Meyer was briefly spun out in the first hour as he searched for his first keeper while Scoretracker updates started to come through.
“I picked a spot where I thought I’d catch a bunch of fish first thing, but right off the bat, my official tells me ‘Chris Lane has a fish’ and ‘Dave Lefebre has a fish’,” Meyer said. “I immediately started thinking ‘Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, what am I doing wrong? Have I picked the worst part of this whole lake?’ I can see where you can let it get to you mentally, where you take yourself out of it. Yeah, Scoretracker is the reason why I have more gray hairs on my head.”