Any angler’s season would be derailed if they were involved in a rollover traffic accident and lost both their boat and truck.
Apart from that incident, Alton Jones’s 2023 MLF Bass Pro Tour season was a huge success.
The Texas native, 60, put up strong results during the program and earned a spot in this year’s REDCREST Championship by placing 33rd in the Angler of the Year (AOY) points competition.
Seeing Alton Jr. advance in his quest to become one of the top competitors in the game was probably even more fulfilling.
“Every tournament I always want to finish ahead of him, and it’s the same with the end-of-year standings—we’ve got our own family competition,” Jones stated.
However, I must admit that I am his biggest supporter, and it has been a lot of fun for me to watch him succeed as a father.
“I go into every event feeling like I have two chances to win.”
Throughout the season, the 31-year-old “Little Alton” was a strong contender for the AOY title and finished fourth, trailing only winner Matt Becker by five points in a very close four-angler contest.
In order to win his second tour-level match, he also dominated Heavy Hitters, a non-points derby, at three locations in Louisiana.
The father is more motivated to stay competitive against a plethora of outstanding fishermen who are roughly half his age as a result of his son’s achievement.
The elder Jones remarked, “He definitely drives me to work harder than I might be working.”
“Having him out there and being able to ping ideas off of him is a benefit, and the success he’s had makes me want it more.”
Although their fishing techniques are naturally somewhat similar, the former Bassmaster Classic champion claims that his son has surpassed him in one important area of the sport.
“He’s such a good strategist, and he’s probably better at game-planning than I ever was,” he stated.
“I consider myself really lucky to be able to spend time brainstorming with him.
Right now, I think I’m getting a lot more out of him than he is from me.
“I think all of the choices he took (in Heavy Hitters) make sense, but I’m not sure if I could have made them and carried them out the way he did in the moment.
I was kind of taken aback by that.”
The previous year, the elder Jones did not do much better than a pair of 15th places in Lake Murray in April and Cayuga Lake in June.
On the other hand, he completely avoided bombs, with his poorest performance of the season (51st) occurring at Florida’s Kissimmee Chain in the season opener.
Before the second-to-last tournament in Lake St. Clair, he and his spouse, Jimmye Sue, had taken a pre-practice trip to Saginaw Bay, which is the location of the season finale.
This is when the tragedy happened.
In a Michigan hospital, the wife received more injuries in addition to a cracked sternum, while the husband just received minor wounds.
He was fishing out of a rented boat and missed the cut in the last two events, although only by a little margin (47th and 49th, respectively).
His performances were more than sufficient to get him into REDCREST, which will be held at Alabama’s Lay Lake in March.
“Fortunately, I had enough points before that I could kind of coast in,” he stated.
“It would’ve really been an uphill battle if I’d needed two Top-20 finishes or something like that.”
His son will play a significant role in the situation he intends to encounter in terms of his aspirations for 2024.
“It will happen eventually—on the last day, we will both be fishing with the top two weights and competing for the win in the last hour.
By then, I’ll have to be less of a father and more of a competitor, though I’m not sure how it will work out emotionally.
The speaker wants to see him continue to succeed because she has seen him win several times.
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