Helen Gordon

A little about me: I am the wife of Scott Gordon, and the mother for Amanda, Skeeter, Wylie, Dallas, Sully, Bandit, Bonnie, Clyde and Cody. That equates to 1 daughter, 3 blue heelers, 2 ferrets and 3 sugar gliders. We all live in the beautiful city of Flower Mound, Texas.

How I got started: I have to give many thanks to my Dad. It was he who planted the seed for me to catch the passion for fishing and the outdoors, and it was my Dad, who was not afraid to take his little girl, me...fishing. I grew up on a 7 mile island in the San Francisco Bay Area. Fishing was a big part of my life. I would fish the East Bay, Crown Memorial Beach, Rock Wall and Ballena Bay. I was blessed to not only live in one of the most beautiful areas of Northern California but to have the opportunity to fish Lake Shasta, Clearlake, California Delta and several others on many occasions. I must preface this by telling you I was the only girl in my family, and at a very young age had to learn to survive. My Mom always wanted a little girl to dress up, but I would have no part in that. I remember I would promptly remove the frilly little dresses she put on me, and then I would run around in my diapers chasing my brothers. I endured several years of this craziness.

I was also responsible for many frog invasions at my house. I'd walk down to the local pond and catch tadpoles and turtles. I would release the turtles upon examination, and then proceeded to bring the tadpoles home and place them in my aquariums. It was really cool to watch them develop. Once they were fully grown I would let them go in my back yard. I don't mean just 2 or 3 frogs, I'm talking about 100s of them. It was amazing to see how big the frogs had grown. Needless to say this is what brought me to my favorite way of fishing for bass. In my opinion there is nothing better then seeing a bass erupting from the lily pads after the frog you are throwing. Nothing! It's....perpetual bliss!!!

I did not compete in tournaments until I was 25. That is when I met my husband Scott who was a police officer in the City of Pittsburg, California. It was Scott who introduced me into tournament fishing. We only competed on local level. We always dreamed about taking it further, but life had a different path for us to take first. Scott was injured in the line of duty which required his retirement. We moved from Pittsburg California to Yelm, Washington. Scott's job kept him traveling. So, I would fish the salmon and steelhead runs, and on weekends we would fish together. If you travel to Western Washington, pop your head into some local tackle and bait stores in the Olympia area, and you will see pictures of some of my prize catches.

In 2000 Scott's employer moved us to Texas, where we still reside today. I'm really happy we survived that summer because there were 33 consecutive days of 100+ degrees. When I left Washington it was in the 50s and rainy and when we arrived in Texas in was 103 and big blue skies. HOT! HOT! Thank God for air conditioning.

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