AS FISH stories go, the one about Zack Thompson, Fred Roumbanis, Jason Cordiale and Beau Joudrey hooks like a whopper.
They grew up in the same Orinda neighborhood along Rheem Boulevard in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They attended Miramonte High and played football and other varsity sports.
Mostly they could be found at nearby Lafayette Reservoir or some other East Bay fishing hideaway honing their angling skills.
Thompson, Roumbanis, Cordiale and Joudrey now are closer than ever even though they live farther apart. They have become successful professional bass fishermen, competing on national and regional circuits for cash, sponsorships and angling acclaim.
Roumbanis, 31, is the most accomplished, having participated in the Bassmaster Elite Series for the past five years. He has amassed more than $750,000 in earnings and has competed in two Bassmaster Classics, the Super Bowl of bass fishing. He recently relocated to Bixby, Okla.
Thompson, 35, competed on the BASS national tour early in his pro career but has switched to the rival FLW Tour, where he was Angler Of The Year in 2009 in the National Guard Western Series and made nearly $80,000 on that tour's
Cordiale, 30, finished fourth on the same FLW western circuit last year and recently landed a sponsorship that will enable the Orinda resident to compete on the FLW National Tour for the first time. Both Cordiale and Thompson also qualified for the 2010 Forrest Wood Cup in Atlanta in August. It offers the richest individual first prize in bass fishing: $1 million.
Joudrey, 30, lives in Oakley and has made strong showings in smaller California regional tours. He hopes to join his three peers with a larger tour agenda in the future, but for now his job in elevator construction keeps him too busy to chase a full-time fishing career.
All four keep in touch on a regular basis, sharing tips and offering encouragement and advice.
"All of us watched the fishing shows on TV growing up and wanted to be those guys as far back as I can remember," Thompson said. "As our fishing progressed, we were always talking about fishing big tournaments. Maybe if we all loved to play basketball, we would have become basketball stars. Who knows? It just happened to be fishing for us."
Cordiale believes that the area's fishing options are excellent breeding grounds for young, developing bass fishermen.
"They offer all different types of challenges," Cordiale said. "And all we did as kids was fish ... at least five days a week."
Joudrey said he and Cordiale were so nuts about fishing, they'd try to squeeze in 30-45 minutes at a nearby pond between the end of school and the start of baseball practice at Miramonte.
"It just so happened that baseball season was during the spawn," he said. "Nothing was going to stop us from fishing then."
Thompson went to Humboldt State after graduation from Miramonte and didn't fish much for a few years. When he returned, Roumbanis and Cordiale had graduated from high school and were heavily into tournament fishing. It was his turn to learn from them.
Roumbanis and Thompson debuted on the BASS national tour in 2004 and got clobbered, finishing 133rd and 136th, respectively. Thompson decided he didn't want to take on any more financial risk while Roumbanis elected to gamble on the revamped Bassmaster Elite Series. In his first tournament, he finished second and hasn't looked back. In 2007, one win netted him $253,000.
It helps that the sport of bass fishing keeps growing. It's become a billion-dollar industry that supports two televised pro tours — the BASS circuit on ESPN and the FLW on Versus. Top fishermen routinely make six figures annually, and they're decked out like NASCAR drivers with myriad endorsement deals from boats to bait. There are even big-money bass fishing fantasy leagues now.
"You have to be determined, and you have to commit to it," Roumbanis said. "You also have to take the lumps with the good times, because it's definitely an up-and-down career. But as long as you love doing it, I don't think there's anything better."
Fishing for a living? Who can argue?
