Meet Latimers 

I think it’s worth dispelling the myth that you need to be a single guy who roams around the country like a nomad. I know everyone isn’t in the same situation, but personally, I wouldn’t want to try to be a pro angler and not have kids or a family. I got married in 2008, and I fished the EverStart FLW Series the first year I got married. There was nearly as much travel for that as there is for the FLW Tour, and it was full-field competition for three days. It was probably a little easier for my wife to get into, because it wasn’t like we got married and then I popped up with this goal of fishing. I was always working toward that, even when we were dating. I fished the FLW Series off and on until 2012, and then I fished them pretty solid in 2013 until I started on Tour in 2016.

 

We had Brevyn in 2012, and I’ve been fishing at least a full division of the FLW Series or the Tour every year since. There’s a lot of conversation about responsibility where it has a negative connotation, but having kids and a family has been the best thing for me. I can go so hard on fishing that it’s not good, so having somebody else I can talk to about things that aren’t fishing — or go do other things with for fun that aren’t fishing – it’s a good thing for me. Personally, I don’t know how you could do it and not have a wife and family. I spend a lot of time on the road, and I’ve only had a few tournaments that aren’t a lot of stress.

 

Having somebody to bear that with you is a huge plus. It’s possible to have a family and fish, but our plans are that our family is as big as it’s going to get. Especially with traveling for fishing and so forth, it was pretty calculated on our end. I think it is smart to plan your family. It’s a lot easier to be on the road so much. My brother is 10 years younger than me, so I kind of grew up as an only child. That wasn’t that much fun, so I definitely wanted to have two kids, but we needed to have them a distance apart. I didn’t want my wife to have two in diapers and me be halfway across the country – that’s not fair to anyone.