Who would have thought that Darlene Maples, a 54-year-old secretary who doesn’t ride in boats much and likes to fish with worms and crickets, would be fishing in a bass tournament on Lay Lake with Skeet Reese, fishing pro. Well that’s exactly what happened.

I signed up for a chance to go fishing with a pro at Mark’s Outdoors, while buying a Christmas present. I thought why not—I might win. Then I got a call that I had won.

I met everyone at Lay Lake on Friday night. We took a test ride and then went to a home on the lake to have dinner. The next day at 4:30 a.m. we met at the lake to sign up, get our boat number and instructions. After having to wait awhile for the fog to lift, we took off. Skeet had told me where two handholds were and if that wasn’t enough I could grab his knee and he would know to slow down.

I decided that he does this all the time so he must know how to drive his boat, so I just smiled and held on and didn’t say anything. Mark gave everybody fishing that day a bag of fingerlings to turn loose to help replenish the lake. We did this when we stopped in our first slough to fish. Skeet caught the first fish and I caught the second one. I was having the time of my life. Skeet was very patient, kind and caring even when he was helping me get untangled and retying my line. He didn’t get mad or huff and puff because he had to quit fishing and help me.

When we left that morning we were give a Styrofoam cooler with lunch in it. Later I decided to take a picture of Skeet fishing. I reached for my camera, stood up and set back on the cooler and broke it all to pieces. I looked at Skeet and started laughing. I thought he was going to fall off the boat laughing. He said he was sorry he laughed but it was the finniest thing he had ever seen. I told him he made me feel right at home because my kids would have done the same thing.

Skeet continued to catch fish and I watched. I tried but I just didn’t catch anything else. We went back to the doc k and weighed in. We had 11 lb. 13 oz. That put us in 43rd place out of 550 boats. I thought “WOW”, we did good. Then we found out we won first in the mixed couples. I couldn’t believe it. When we got our checks, Skeet gave me the largest one and he took the smallest one. What a gentleman! I had a ball fishing with a pro—especially such a good-looking one as Skeet Reese. Oh, by the way, when we were riding back to the dock I didn’t even hold on, imagine that.