Life has a way of sneaking up on you. Just when you think that you have everything together- a good career, a family brewing at home and some free time to enjoy things that make the daily grind bearable- life sucker punches you right in the face. Suddenly, either due to an acci
dent or sudden illness, all of your plans for the future are dashed to the ground and stomped on. Everything that you’ve worked so hard all of your life to acquire and achieve are as worthless as the junk mail that clogs your mailbox every day. Life delivers up to your doorstep a heaping basket of sour lemons. This isn’t as much a story about a basket of lemons as it is about some really great lemonade.
Angie Everitt, a bass fisher and participant in the Women’s Bassmaster Tour, began her birthday in April of 2005 just as anyone else would. She was enjoying life as much as the next person and pretty much had everything going for her. But it was on this day, her birthday, 
that she received news in the form of three of the most horrible words one will ever hear –“It’s a tumor”.
Angie grew up in a rural Alabama community called Slapout, graduated high school and set out on her own to make a life for herself. She eventually landed in Livingston, Texas, where she resides today with her husband of fourteen years. Being a self-described country girl, she knew what fishing and hunting was all about, but it wasn’t until her husband introduced her to bass fishing that the smoldering fire buried deep within caught some air, flickered, then grew into an inferno.
Such is the case with Angie that the bass fishing fever grew in her and she began honing her skills. Those finely tuned skills paid off recently at a Women’s Bassmaster Tournament in Birmingham, Alabama –she placed second. Some might argue that second place is for the first loser, but given the circumstances surrounding her journey into women’s angling, well, it’s nothing short of miraculous.
On April 11th, 2005, Angie found herself in her doctor’s office for what was believed to be nothing more than a simple strep infection. As she was leaving, her doc asked if she needed anything else. It was an after-thought, a brief
mentioning of some neurological symptoms she’d experienced some time earlier. While the symptoms quickly passed and there was no lingering effect to suggest a major illness, her doctor saw red flags. He immediately sat her down and began asking a barrage of questions and, before she left, an MRI had been scheduled.
At the recent tournament in Birmingham, Alabama, she was lucky enough to meet a young fellow, 14 year old Payton Bertarelli, from Wetumpka, a small town near where she grew up. Payton is a bass fisher too and apparently has enough success that he carries sponsorship from companies like Ranger Boats and Yamaha. Young Mister Bertarelli invited Angie to fish with him in the near future in Alabama. Alabama law requires that boat operators be at least sixteen years of age, so Angie accepted his invitation to fish a tournament on April 28th, 2007, and operate his boat- two years and seventeen days after her life altering illness.
At Methodist Hospital in Ho
uston, Texas, Angie was scheduled for brain surgery to remove the tumor in September 2005. Unfortunately, her surgical appointment was overshadowed by an Atlantic storm that is said to be the fourth-most intense hurricane to strike the region, hurricane Rita. Rita stormed into east Texas, making landfall on September 24th as a category 3 storm, so it goes without saying that Angie’s surgery was postponed until October.
As the Women’s Bassmaster Tour was conducting it’s inaugural preview-fishing event on Lake Lewisville, Angie was in surgery for eight hours. More lemons came to light when it was discovered that the tumor was larger than initially thought. She feared the worst going into
surgery, knowing that brain damage was a clear and distinct possibility. It was a situation where risks and benefits were weighed and her decision was to go through with the surgery anyway.
The Women’s Bassmaster Tour (WBT) is in its infancy, having only officially begun in 2006. While Angie owns her own boat and usually tows it with her to tournaments, she opts to fish in the ‘non-boater’ or ‘co-angler’ division. The boaters and non-boaters are paired and fish together, each competing equally against other teams of boaters and non-boaters. “I pull my boat and use the time during official practice to locate fish just as I would if I were a boater”, says Angie. Initially, Angie rationalized that participating as a co-angler was more of a safety issue, since she was post operative by less than a year.
“The good thing about WBT,” says Angie, “is they treat boaters and non-boaters on a pretty equal footing –we all get stage time and each division is invited to the Classic (if you qualified). It’s not that way with the men’s [divisions].”
When asked about her future, she says “I’d like for that [fishing] to be my living, full time, but it will have to wait a few years until I can retire …unless I secure major sponsorship and they hire me [to advertise]” Angie says that she harbors no ill feelings at all toward the young Mr. Bertarelli’s success in garnering sponsorships and openly acknowledges that he and his father have both worked very hard to get to where they are in the bass fishing world and is, in fact, thrilled to have the chance to fish with him. A successful 14 year old boy is no more of an enigma on the lakes, rivers and streams of America than a woman is, but Angie laughingly adds, “Hey!
If a 14 year old boy can get it, why can’t I?” It’s doubtful that anyone would argue with her skill and experience.
According to her, Methodist Hospital is “one of the best neurological hospitals in the world”. True to her optimistic character and ability to overcome obstacles, Angie came through the risky surgery with flying colors, making some of the best lemonade imaginable out of a heaping basket of lemons. Despite the looming eclipse of a larger than anticipated tumor, good fortune smiled on her and it was soon discovered that the tumor was benign. The neurosurgeon was able to remove all but one percent of it, and that one percent was simply too close –dangerously close- to a major artery.
Today Angie is burning up the Women’s Bassmaster Tour as an up-and-coming star on the circuit. While she’s enjoyed bass fishing for several years now, she’s come to appreciate life on a different level, as one who survives a potentially life altering (or life ending) event can testify to. And she does all of this with absolutely no neurological after-effects. Her mind is sharp and her eyes are clear and one thing’s for certain…. the lady can fish!
It is the sole opinion of this writer that women anglers competing in a professional tour should be sought after billboards for the bass fishing industry. Angie Everitt’s success story may be non-typical, given the extreme trauma (both physical and psychological) she’s endured in an effort to continue living such a wonderful life, but sponsors should step back and take notice of what an inspiration she is to not only the women’s angling society, but to angler’s around the world. This particular story is but one, a mere needle in the proverbial haystack of great stories and experiences that women anglers (and hunters) have on a daily basis. In spite of the lack of corporate recognition, they continue to enjoy fishing on an equal level as their male counterparts. Isn’t a young woman who survived brain surgery and who continues to this day to reap the joys of fishing entitled to the same treatment?
