A perfect place to call home
When Jeremy Lawyer was a teenager, he got some advice from bass-fishing legend Guido Hibdon that inspired him to follow his dreams.
“I went to listen to Guido give a seminar and I stuck around to get his autograph,” Lawyer said. “I’ll never forget what he told me.
"He said if I could learn to fish four lakes near me – Truman, Table Rock, Lake of the Ozarks and Stockton–I would be off to a great start.
"He told me those four lakes would teach me to catch bass in conditions just like I would find in other places on the pro circuit–fishing deep, fishing docks, fishing murky water, fishing a lake with three species of bass…
"It was a good way to learn to be versatile. And that stuck with me.”
Hibdon has since passed away, but his advice lives on. Lawyer learned to fish those famous bass lakes and applied what he learned to other bodies of water on the tournament circuit.
He started off on the FLW’s BFL circuit for weekend anglers and found success there. But his career soon hit a crossroads.
It costs money–big money–to fish the bigs. And Lawyer simply didn’t have the finances to do it.
“I worked as a city administrator and my wife worked in a bank, and we were pinching pennies just to live the way we wanted to,” he said. “The only way I was going to be afford to go pro was to win a major tournament like the All-American (FLW’s championship event).”
That dream almost faded when Lawyer came close several times but just missed out on a big paycheck. Finally in 2016, on his fifth try, Lawyer won it and took home $120,000.
That allowed him to compete on the FLW Tour against the sport’s top anglers. He has three titles on the FLW circuit to his credit, and has finished in the money in a number of others.
Now he’s back in Major League Fishing’s top circuit, the Bass Pro Tour, and he credits his wife, Stacey, for standing alongside him “100 percent” as he pursued his dream.
“She was willing to give up having a new house and a new vehicle just so I could afford to compete,” Lawyer said. “But things worked out. We have those things now and we’re excited about the future.”
He found out in late August that he qualified for the Bass Pro Tour based on his showing in the 2021 Major League Fishing Tackle Warehouse Circuit.
“Without the stepping stones FLW (now under the Major League Fishing umbrella) had in place, I never would have been able to do it,” he said. “I definitely had to work my way up, but it all worked out.”