Big Fred: Road Warrior (The Year in Review)
August 12, 2007
Big Fred Contaoi, Orange County Choppers‘ pro basser left his Northern California home shortly after Christmas and has been on the road, fishing ever since. The experience has had its share of highs and, of course, the occasional low, but it’s been a great ride so far.
For all of us who would love to fish our way across the country for a living and are vicariously living through Big Fred, here are some of the high points of the 2007 season (in his own words):
December: Filmed with Orange County Choppers and inked deals with all sponsors.
January: Took delivery of the new Ranger bass boat in Florida. Had two radio interviews just before the first FLW Series tournament.
Feb: Fished first tour event in Austin Texas. Upon leaving the tour
event, I drove southwest in Texas and kicked off the program with Airgas called “Fishing with Fred”. I fished the Airgas group on Lake Amistad located on the Mexican border. I also had an interview by a regional Texas magazine called Pride that focuses on the communities of southwest Texas.
March: I spent the first two weeks of the month Fishing Lake Dardanelle
and Beaver Lake in Arkansas in preparation for upcoming tournaments. I also spent a few days at the Ranger Factory gaining product knowledge to become a better company spokesman. The remainder of the month was spent in Knoxville, TN.
I prefished Loudin/Tellico and then met up with the OCC crew for filming. Paulie, the crew and I attended a function for FLW Outdooors called “Chevy Nights”. The event was the best “Chevy
Nights” they ever had from an attendance standpoint. I gave a radio interview during the Chevy event. The end of the month included fishing the second tour stop with Paulie and filming for the American Chopper show.
April: I spent the month of April focused on the third tour stop in
Concord NC.. During my stay I had the opportunity to fish with Slick Rick who came to me through Ryan Newman. I finished off the month fishing the Lake Norman tournament.
May: The month of May was busy. I started the month off by fishing
the second Series stop at Lake Dardanelle in Arkansas. From there I drove to Rogers, Ar. and prepared for the fourth Tour stop at Beaver Lake. Beaver proved to be the busiest stops of the year for me. During the stay I had a documentary filmed with me, was a guest on a morning
sports radio show, and did an appearance for Go Fast Energy drinks at a WalMart Super Center.
The documentary was filmed throughout the tournament. After the tournament I fished a 125 boat charity tournament for the Children’s Miracle Network. I spent the next three days hosting
groups for Airgas.
June: Most of the month was spent in Washington DC fishing and
preparing for the Tour stop at the Potomac River.
July: I had a great month preparing for the final tour stop in Detroit, MI. The water, weather and smallmouth bass fishing makes this stop the most exciting for the year. During the tournament Charlie Evans announced a fantasy fishing league that will bring our sport of bass
fishing to all new levels of popularity. In 2008 the fantasy fishing league
will pay 100k to each winner at each tour stop. The overall winner will collect one million dollars at the Forrest Wood Cup in August.
August: I spent a Week in August at the Forrest Wood cup in Hot Springs, AR. This was the best event of the year and one of the best opportunities for Marketing that I have ever seen. Jim Murphy attended the event with me. I worked the event all week representing our Team OCC, Ranger, Evinrude, and Minn Kota. I was fortunate enough to be the
spokesperson each day on stage for Evinrude. The week was highlighted by Scoot Suggs winning the Forrest Wood cup and collecting his Million dollar check for first place.
I will be in Lake Champlain for the remainder of the month getting ready for the third Series event.
September-December: I have three FLW Series tournaments left and will
prepare for the 2008 Tour and Series.
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