False T alk to Alton Jones and you’ll learn something important about the man: he’s every bit as thoughtful and nice as you’d hoped he would be. Talk to him a while longer and you’ll soon come to realize he’s humble, too. Perhaps that’s not what you’d have expected since Jones recently won the 2008 Bassmaster Clas-sic at South Carolina’s Lake Hartwell by more than five pounds over Cliff Pace, the runner- up. Or of someone who, like Jones, recently traveled with his family to the White House, in Washing-ton, D. C., to meet with President George W. Bush who, as it turns out, had previously fished with the Classic champ back when Mr. Bush was still a co- owner of the Texas Rangers major league baseball team. Jones no longer has any trouble attracting the fishing indus-try’s finest sponsors, either, yet he’s the type of man each and every one of us would be proud to have as a neighbor and fishing buddy. And one gets the distinct feeling, just talk-ing with Jones, that he’d be equally happy with the arrangement were he to live next door to one of us. That’s just the kind of guy he is. Somehow, it’s sort of nice to know that one of the world’s best anglers is just a regular guy, one who still gets excited about sharing the water with anglers whom Jones admires. “ I have so much re-spect for Denny Brauer, Rick Clunn, Kevin VanDam and so many others,” Jones said. “ I really look up to them.” Alton! You just won the 2008 Bassmaster Classic! You’re sitting pretty in seventh place in the 2008 B. A. S. S. Angler of the Year standings, well within striking dis-tance of that honor, as well. But Jones isn’t pretending to admire those anglers just because doing so sounds good. He really does admire them. He’s just that kind of guy. Jones has never forgotten his roots, nor does he take for granted his wife, Jimmye Sue, the woman who unselfishly helped make Jones’ dream of becoming a profes-sional bass angler a reality. Who is Alton Jones? “ Ever since I was a small child I wanted to Young Alton is home schooled in more ways that one, and furthermore Alton Jones and ‘ Little’ Alton Jones, 16, the chip- off- the- old- Jones’ side as a co- angler. Legends are not made, 2008 was a very good year for Alton and the family, thanks to his skills, his spirit and his sponsors.

False be a bass pro,” Jones recalled. “ My granddad, Fred Sheppard, lived about six or eight blocks from me as I was growing up. Every weekend we’d spend together fishing.” Although Fred Sheppard died in 1988, before his grandson made it big as a pro, the older man never strays far from Jones’ thoughts. Sheppard bought Jones the youngster’s first subscription to Bassmaster magazine. “ I’d read articles about Bobby Murray, Bill Dance and Rowland Martin and think how cool it would be to have a life ( as a bass pro),” Jones recently recalled. After graduating from high school Jones enrolled at Baylor University, located in Jones’ hometown of Waco, Tex. “ When I wasn’t out fishing somewhere, I studied computer science,” Jones said. Jones enjoyed college, even though his professors insisted on scheduling final exams during the bass spawn. Jones had gravitated to computer studies because, as he said, he’s ‘ a gadget guy.’ “ Knowing how comput-ers work has really helped me ( understand my fishing electronics),” he said. “ I have to know what every button ( on the fish finder or GPS) does.” Once he’d finished his education, Jones opened his own small com-puter store. “ It was about this time when I bought my first bass boat, an amazing little boat with a 90 hp. engine,” Jones said, still sounding nostalgic even though his ride today could run circles around that first boat With a new boat to stoke his confidence, Jones and a fishing buddy joined a local bass club and agreed to be partners during a tournament scheduled for nearby Lake Belton. “ Fishing private lakes had taught me how to catch fish,” Jones ex-plained. “ But it didn’t teach me how to find fish.” Fishing public water for the first time came as a real shock to the angler. “ The two of us didn’t catch a fish during that tourna-ment,” Jones noted. “ At the weigh- in, every other angler had caught a limit. Big bass were be-ing weighed left and right. Failing so early in my fishing career truly furthermore who could possibly make a better teacher than Alton? was eye- opening.” Jones’ block who has recently been fishing with his father on the amateur angler. For sure living the dream... Photos Courtesy of ESPN/ B. A. S. S. Communications made, they are formed.