Published: May 30, 2008 10:17 pm            

Angler turns pastime into professional career

Most people would envy someone who could spend time on a $40,000 bass boat and fish the day away.

That may be fine for the weekend angler, but 31-year-old Jason Ober of Richland Township has launched a second career as a professional bass fisherman. He is starting to make a name for himself as his earnings in 2008 are nudging the $40,000 mark.

“When you leave the dock and someone says, ‘Have a nice day,’ they generally don’t understand the time and effort that is needed to succeed in the competitive world of bass fishing,” he said during an interview at the Richland Township Volunteer Fire Company. He’s the company’s business manager and assistant fire chief.

Ober’s biggest success this year came in April on the mammoth 156,000-acre Santee Cooper Reservoir in South Carolina.

After four days of fishing in the co-angler division of the Stren Series event, he pocketed $5,000 cash and a new Ranger bass boat valued at $30,000.

“It was absolutely awesome, but I don’t think it has really hit me yet,” Ober said.

“Everyone around here knows the size of Raystown Lake. I fished one creek in this impoundment that was every bit as large as Raystown. That should give people an idea of how huge it is.”

That was his first FLW Outdoors win.

He has fished up and down the East Coast and has a wallet full of fishing licenses from Florida to Vermont and most states in between.

Ober has been a fisherman since he and his father, Frank Ober of Benshoff Hill, would travel to a family camp along the Little Juniata River in Bedford County.

But now fishing is becoming a way of life that takes countless hours of conditioning, practice and traveling up to 30,000 miles a year to attain the notoriety in a sport he loves.

“I used to fish four months a year but now it’s turned into a 12-month endeavor,” he said.

“When not fishing, I’m in the gym working my upper body and cardio. I also do a lot of walking to maintain leg strength.”

He started taking his fishing seriously in 1999 and has been honing his skills on waterways such as Raystown, the Potomac River and New York’s Lake Champlain, which stretches 100 miles from end to end.

But Ober has been a firefighter for about as long as he has fished.

“I joined the fire company at 17 and was living in the fire hall,” he said.

Ober was one of 27 firemen who called the station home in 1994. Now, only a handful reside there.

“I was only 17 years old when I moved in,” Ober said. “The live-ins have responsibility for the upkeep (and) preventative maintenance on equipment, such as oil changes on trucks.”

Ober is a member of Standing Stone Bassmasters of Huntingdon County.

“I was always fascinated by the fishing tournaments I watched on TV,” he said. “In the South, there are many youth bass clubs, and it’s finally starting to spread throughout the country. I have fished with such notable professionals as George Cochran and Scott Martin, son of legendary fisherman Roland Martin.”

Ober said his quest to become a tour professional wouldn’t be possible without the understanding of his wife, Adrienne, 31, who is a contract manager at DRS Technologies in Richland Township. They have no children.

While not a tournament angler, she and her husband often share days on the water.

“I’m a recreational angler and enjoy being on the boat with him,” Adrienne Ober said. “But we made a financial commitment as a couple for him to pursue his dream.”

Ober may be the business manager for the fire company, but Adrienne Ober is the bookkeeper at home.

“This is a business, and I hound Jason to keep all his receipts and log his expenses,” she said. “I have seen him compete and he is focused – and good at what he does.”

Ober has become friends with FLW tour pro Koby Krieger.

“We travel together or room together to help cut expenses,” Ober said.

Given the rising price of gasoline and other travel-related expenditures, the costs of entering tournaments is out of reach for many.

“Entrance fees for a co-angler can range from $200 to $800,” Ober said. “The pro is paying as much as $3,500 just to get on the water.”

Winning in North Carolina, Ober caught a three-day total of 13 bass weighing 39-07, winning by more than 5 pounds over his closest competitor.

Ober plans to use the $5,000 purse to “keep fishing.”

National sponsors such as Toyota, ESPN and Wal-Mart have led to bigger purses and stronger competition.

“I only need to make five casts,” he said, laughing at the notion of catching a five-fish limit that quickly. “On average, it takes 1,000 casts during one day of fishing.”

In addition to the new boat he just won, Ober owns a 2008 Ranger boat.

It takes thousands of dollars’ worth of rods, reels and lures to compete. Without a sponsor, these are expenses the Obers must bear.

And he’s still not guaranteed a check at the end of a tournament.

“We have a lot of money invested, and if I’m sick or it’s cold, rainy or the wind is blowing 40 mph, the bank doesn’t care if I win,” he said. “They have to be paid each month. It’s just as much mental as it is physical.”

No matter where his fishing may take Ober, he stressed that this is not the recreational fishing enjoyed by most anglers.

“It’s work, plain and simple,” he said. “With practice days prior to tournaments starting before dawn and lasting until sundown, it’s a constant effort to get better.

“Tournament days are easy because we can only fish from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.,” he said.

“There’s no such thing as a lunch break either, because you don’t know if the next cast will be the one to win you a tournament. Between casts, I eat power bars or crackers, something easy to handle while holding a rod.”

It may be work, but for anyone who sees the fire to succeed in Ober’s eyes, they know it’s a labor of love.

        

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