Anybody Can Catch One Big, Dumb Fish

Blogging on Pit Road

By LINDSAY CZARNIAK

Updated 9:33 AM EST, Mon, Jun 8, 2009

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"Anybody can catch one big, dumb fish."

Those words were spoken by Ryan Newman’s crew chief, Tony Gibson. The deal is, Tony and Ryan have a bit of a fishing rivalry -- both of them love the sport and the joke is that while Ryan catches the biggest fish, Tony is able to catch a mass quantity and believes, therefore, it makes him a better sportsman.

This weekend I had a day that easily ranks in the top 10. First of all, I was at Pocono prepping for Sunday's race. Our practice and qualifying show were rained out, but I had a feature to shoot for Sunday's show with Newman (5th in points headed into the race).

He loves fishing like I love country music. He is addicted and the feature we were shooting was to go fishing with him and his dad, Greg. They organized the location and took us to a watering hole/lake about seven hours from the track. Ryan is hilarious -- a dry sense of humor that is very entertaining. Anyway, we got to the small lake and my crew (Skip the shooter and Dan the soundtech who had to wade in the water) met us there. Ryan busted out roughly five bags of lures and we got into a three-piece boat painted olive green.

Ryan Newman shows off his bass.

Now, I grew up fishing with my dad at Burke Lake in Virginia and surf fishing at the Outer Banks, where my brother still has a "one up" because he has caught a sandshark. We used to fish for sunnys and blue gill -- nothing huge, but truly fishing is an activity high on my list. For me, its like golf. I completely get my mind off of everything else when I’m focusing on reeling something in or watching that bobbin in the water.

I digress ...

So Ryan brought about five bags of lures, gave me and his father a pole and we were off. We trolled all around the lake (about eight acres) and they pulled up to shore so I could do the interview with him and his Dad. But then, we got to fishing. Can you believe it, each of us caught four fish!!! Large mouth bass!!! It was so cool -- I took lots of pictures. Ryan did catch the largest one, but I was just thankful I didn’t go home empty handed.

At any rate, it was so cool. We all had success and then I had to go leave for our team TNT dinner. I sat with my crew and Kyle Petty was at my table. Listening to his stories and picking his brain is irreplaceable. He has been riding his motorcycle from track to track. I think he and Jim Vance would really hit it off.