Cochran learning new pattern

Thursday, February 14, 2013

— The FLW Tour began its season last week at Lake Okeechobee, but one marquee name wasn’t in the field.

George Cochran, the three-time world champion from Hot Springs, retired from professional bass fishing in October and said he hasn’t looked back. Well, mostly he hasn’t. He said he felt the pangs of competition when his longtime friend Larry Nixon won an FLW tournament late last year, but mostly Cochran said he has moved on. His body told him it was time.

“I was 62, and that’s the time frame I set,” Cochran said. “I didn’t want to stay too long, and the few years I wasn’t up to the standard I wanted to be. My arms and thumbs were wore out. I had it in my heart, and the know how was all there, but I had lost the intensity I had. Physically, I couldn’t perform eight to 10 hours straight like I used to. I wanted to retire without my sponsors and other people telling me to retire. I felt like I went out on top.”

Since retiring, Cochran said he has spent most of his time tending to the affairs of his in-laws. With that squared away, he spent the entire duck season at his beloved cabin at Bayou MetoWildlife Management Area. He said he never got to hunt much in January because that was when he always had to get ready for tournament season. He is also going to start turkey hunting and traveling with his wife, Debbie.

“The biggest problem I have being retired is learning how to slow down,” Cochran said. “I still eat in a hurry. I’m still hurrying in everything I do. You’re always intense, trying not to waste a minute of the day. You don’t quit. You just keep going and going and going.”

For years, Cochran was one of the top names on the Bassmaster circuit. In the 1990s, few were as good and even fewer were better. He turned pro full time in 1987 after winning his first Bassmaster Classic on the Ohio River at Louisville, Ky. Coincidentally, that was the first bass tournament story I ever wrote.

He quit his job with Missouri Pacific Railroad, with its retirement plan and benefits, and put all his bets on a still-fledgling sport that only hinted at the potential it would someday realize. Even now, he can look at a diesel locomotive and spit out its model number.

He won the Classic again in 1996 at Lay Lake in Alabama. That put him in company with Kevin VanDam, Rick Clunn, Bobby Murray and Hank Parker as the only anglers to ever win more than one Classic. In 2005, he won the Forrest Wood Cup on Lake Hamilton, making him one of only four anglers to win a Classic and a Forrest Wood Cup. The others are Luke Clausen, Davy Hite, Jay Yelas and David Fritts.

In between Cochran won a ton of other tournaments, but he doesn’t remember how many. He said the only ones that ever mattered to him were the championships.

“I never have figured it up, how many I won,” Cochran said. “My sole focus was winning the world championship, and that’s what the Classic and the FLW Championship are. I won at Buggs Island, and I had two at Guntersville. I could go on and on and on. That’s a huge highand a lot of money, but I was so focused on making it to the Bassmaster Classic so I could win another one.

“That’s what pro football players and pro basketball players say, too. They all want to win a championship.”

Cochran still recalls with lingering regret the two Classics he believes he should have won, including the 1994 edition at High Rock Lake where he finished second to Fritts. He shared his water for the final two days with Randy Blaukat, who finished third.

“We split our fish up,” Cochran said. “It’s hard to beat somebody when they’ve got their whole area to themselves. To win a Classic or an FLW championship, everything has to go perfect.”

It went perfect for Cochran more than it does for most.

“Once you win a world championship, it puts you in a different league as far as sponsorships are concerned,” Cochran said. “When I won in ’87, I knew to have incentives in all my contracts with other companies in case it ever happened again.

“Most people would die just to win one world championship. Winning three? What can you say? I had a wonderful life fishing for a living.”

Sports, Pages 24 on 02/14/2013