Instead of competing in the Bassmaster Elite Series tournament at Winyah Bay recently in his home state of South Carolina, Davy Hite was in Little Rock, Ark., working as a commentator on the Bassmaster LIVE video production team.
It marked the completed cycle of a career change, the seed of which was planted in the pluff mud off the Carolina coast three years ago. When the two-time B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year and Bassmaster Classic champion plowed his boat into the pluff mud on his way to the Day 2 check-in on April 8, 2016, it appeared to be a disaster. It would prove to be a blessing.
Hite had been told about a shortcut to his fishing destination that day at Winyah Bay. It was smooth sailing on the way down; not so much at a lower tide on the way back. If you’re not familiar with the “Carolina quicksand” known as pluff mud, it’s a silty ooze of decaying plant and animal life, grayish brown in color, with a distinctive smell. Step off into the pluff, and you can go poof, but more likely sink up to your knees or hips. High tide is the only remedy for a bass boat banked in the pluff.
Hite called B.A.S.S. tournament director Trip Weldon to let him know he would not return anywhere near his check-in time that day. After finishing in 60thplace on Day 1 and catching a limit on Day 2, Hite had a chance to make the top 50 cut before he got stuck in the mud. Instead, he “zeroed” that day and finished 104th. He couldn’t overcome that disaster, and failed to qualify for the Bassmaster Classic that season.
“When it happened, I was like, ‘Why me, Lord?’” Hite recalled. “I was really saying that.”
Like so many things in all our lives, time has given Hite the perspective to realize what seemed to be a disaster was actually a blessing. He had been working a bit with the tournament coverage crew, interviewing anglers as they came off the water. So JM Associates Media Content Vice-President Mike McKinnis asked Hite to join the on-camera crew of Tommy Sanders and Mark Zona for Bassmaster Classic coverage the following year.
“I thought it would be a couple of minutes of on-the-water stuff,” Hite said, “but I worked with Mark Zona and Tommy Sanders. That opened my eyes to, hey, I kind of like this. And maybe it opened their eyes to, hey, he could do this – with a lot of remedial training.”
The 53-year-old Hite has been a hit on Bassmaster Elite Series coverage, providing the insight that only a veteran tournament angler can offer. In the “been-there, done-that” crew, he’s like former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman on Fox’s NFL coverage.
“I enjoy what I do now,” Hite said. “Had I not achieved more than I ever dreamed as a child, it might not have been as easy to make the career change. I dreamed about just making a Classic when I was a kid. It was too big a dream to dream about winning a Classic. I just wanted to make one. And it was too big a dream to dream about being Angler of the Year.”
Hite won the 1999 Classic at the Louisiana Delta in New Orleans. He was the B.A.S.S. Angler of the Year in 1997 and 2002.
“But after 23 years of doing that, achieving more than I ever dreamed, I’m fine with what I’m doing now,” he said. “It wasn’t a hasty decision. The people I work with helped me make that decision. This is like family, or I wouldn’t be doing this.
“I wasn’t necessarily ready to retire when I did, but I didn’t want to be that guy who was unhappy where he was at. I wasn’t unhappy, but I could see myself being in my 60s and being unhappy doing what I was doing.”
Maybe Hite’s future employers got a glimpse of his on-air talent the day Hite was stuck in the pluff mud. Despite the disaster, Hite put a happy face on it. He shot a short video of his “mud feet” and the vast pluff mud surrounding his boat, noting, “I’d have a picnic, if I hadn’t already eaten my sandwich.”
The video was viewed over 150,000 times. It can truthfully be said that Davy Hite’s television career was born in the pluff mud that day at Winyah Bay.