Bass anglers often refer to not catching anything as “getting skunked”. Unfortunately, Alabama rookie pro Matt Lee had already crossed paths with one of the smelly black and white mammals before ever making a cast on day one of the Evan Williams Bassmaster Elite Series tournament in Waddington, N.Y..
“Jordan and I are staying about 30 minutes from launch and I saw a small black creature run out in front of my Tundra on our way here this morning,” Lee said. “Sure enough, when I got to the ramp, people started telling me I had blood on the driver’s side of my boat, and even the windshield of my console—and man, you can still smell it.”
“I mean c’mon man, our dad is a veterinarian and I’m out here running over skunks,” he joked. “Of course, if Jordan had been the one to hit it, it’d be no big deal, because his boat smells bad most of the time anyway.”
However, the difficulty of the fishing has been no laughing matter for the Lee brothers this week.
“I’m guessing you’ll need to average 18 pounds a day to make the Top 12 cut on Sunday, but my practice has been a “D” if I had to give it a letter grade,” said the Auburn University grad who holds a degree in Engineering.
The front deck of Matt’s boat contained none of the more traditional baitcasting equipment familiar to his southern bass fishing roots, and instead four Quantum Smoke spinning reels.
“I rig four nearly identical just because the current is so strong here that it’s always drifting your weight into the rocks on the bottom that these fish relate to,” Lee said. “You get snagged a lot and break off a ton of drop shot weights.”
And as for the windshield on his console? Well, it still smelled like a skunk just prior to his boat number being called for takeoff, promising a uniquely odorous ride down the St. Lawrence to begin day one of competition.
Amid a fishing trip on the bass-starved Ohio River in the summer of 1987, Alan McGuckin’s Dad told a then 16-year-old “Guck” — “I don’t care what you do for a living, just promise me you’ll do something you love.”
Originally from Pittsburgh, McGuckin considers himself a blue-collar kid, who has been richly blessed to live-out the best piece of advice his dad ever gave him for many years now in the Tulsa area.
After earning a degree in ecology at Juniata College in Pennsylvania, where he placed radio transmitters in largemouth bass to track their habitat preferences, he moved his life to Oklahoma in 1992, where he earned a Masters in Zoology and Fisheries under the direction of Gene Gilliland at the University of Oklahoma, before then embarking on what’s now a nearly three decade long career as a marketing and media veteran in the fishing industry.
His career spans 28 years of wisdom-rich marketing experience working to strengthen brands and increase sales for Lowrance, Terminator Lures, Toyota, Yamaha Outboards, Boat U.S., Carhartt, Costa, Quantum, Vexus Boats, and Zebco.
- Member of the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame voting committee, as well as a Board of Directors member for Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful
- Co-piloted the Terminator brand of premium lures from its birth to more than 10 Million pieces sold between 1997-2006.
- Has authored and published more than 800 stories on Bassmaster.com, along with several other popular bass fishing websites.
- He has generated $3 Million dollars’ worth of branded digital media since 2020, as a content creator.
- Serves as emcee for hundreds of guests at the annual Toyota Bonus Bucks Owners event.
- Avid angler, who fishes nearly every weekend when not on the road working.
- 13,000 followers on Instagram @GuckFishing.
“Guck” lives just north of Tulsa, OK at Lake Skiatook with wife Sherrie, an elementary school principal who also loves her job, and has a genuine passion for slinging a Rapala Brat crankbait on shallow points and habitat-laden flats.
