I\u2019VE FISHED WITH<\/span><\/strong> Oliver Ngy on my home waters twice, and I walked away from both trips so inspired I was giddy, yet hopelessly frustrated at the same time. It\u2019s rare for me to meet a fisherman who bucks the mindset of the average angler so hard it makes me feel as though I\u2019m a novice on the water\u2014despite my having been utterly devoted to, and infatuated with, the sport for more than 30 years.\u00a0<\/p>\nBut no matter how dialed in you think you are, no matter how well you believe you know your home turf, Ngy has a way of making you rethink everything. And it\u2019s all because he marches to his own beat and runs his own program no matter where he\u2019s fishing. Your program is, at best, a starting clue in the mystery he\u2019s forever trying to unravel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The last time I saw Ngy, we found ourselves on my boat tucked into a piece of South Jersey tidal swamp. Snakeheads were the target, and one of the few fish he\u2019d yet to catch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou been getting them on frogs and flukes?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYup,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOK, I guess I\u2019ll just tie on a little topwater,\u201d Ngy replied.<\/p>\n
When I looked up from rigging my own rod, I wasn\u2019t shocked to see that his version of a \u201clittle topwater\u201d was an 8-inch duckling. It was a crawler-style bait that waddled and splashed across the surface and, upon touchdown, hit the water like thunder.<\/p>\nThese SoCal largemouths\u2014a total weight of 56 pounds 6 ounces\u2014marked Ngy\u2019s largest five-fish limit. Courtesy of Oliver Ngy<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n I\u2019d been through this with him before. Two years earlier, while chasing wild brown trout, Ngy refused to tie on the jerkbait I\u2019d been crushing with for weeks, opting instead for a rubber swimbait half as big as the average trout in the system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Back in the Jersey swamp, as I watched that duckling splat down over and over, I was caught somewhere between wanting to see a giant snakehead obliterate it in the worst way and wanting him to put on a damned normal-size frog and maybe actually catch his first-ever snakehead on my boat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Street Smarts<\/h2>\n His reluctance to play by my rules is, at least partially, a product of Nintendo and the streets. At 41, Ngy still maintains his hip-hop style and flair. He fishes in Air Jordans, blasts A Tribe Called Quest, loves to shoot hoops when he\u2019s not on the water, and carries himself with a swagger picked up on the streets of Los Angeles in the late \u201980s and early \u201990s.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His dad wasn\u2019t in the picture. Ngy\u2019s mother worked as a bookkeeper in his California hometown of La Puente and, as he puts it, they had \u201clittle to no money.\u201d It would have been very easy, given the situation, for Ngy to fall in with the wrong crowd or follow the wrong path. But he was ultimately saved by Puddingstone Lake, a 250-acre reservoir just east of La Puente in the city of San Dimas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI literally started fishing with a stick and discarded line I found at the lake,\u201d Ngy says. \u201cI was using crappy, used, pre-snelled hooks I\u2019d find lying around. And I didn\u2019t do this because I had this passion for fishing. I was just that bored as a 10-year-old.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t catching a fish that flipped his switch, either. Quite the opposite. It was when a bluegill snapped that crusty, sunbaked monofilament that he became enamored.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was that moment of \u2018almost,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cFrom then on, I was fascinated.\u201d<\/p>\nAn 11-pounder Ngy caught on a topwater in Texas this spring. He was fishing with his dog and his girlfriend, Riley Kolich, who is also an accomplished angler. Courtesy of Oliver Ngy<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Early on, it may have seemed like the L.A. suburbs wouldn\u2019t be much help in fueling a passion for fishing. Ngy remembers spending his formative years reading and re-reading the few fishing books he could find at the West Covina Library. Most were focused on fly fishing, though even those taught him the importance of matching the hatch. Ngy simply fished wherever and whenever he could, from charter boats on the coast to local lakes through his teens, when he got serious about bass.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to fish local club tournaments and things like that, but usually I wouldn\u2019t get in,\u201d Ngy says. \u201cComing from a single-mother family didn\u2019t really set me up for success there. We didn\u2019t have much money, and nobody wanted to take some random kid fishing. Or the tournament directors would say their insurance wouldn\u2019t allow me to fish.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\u201cIf you\u2019re playing Zelda or Mario, you poke every brick. You jab every stone. That\u2019s how you unlock codes, get new weapons, find all kinds of things. I fish the same way. I want to get a lure in as many places as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014Oliver Ngy<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\nBut timing is everything. Although the greater Los Angeles area was historically the farthest thing from a freshwater fishing destination, Castaic Lake and Lake Casitas just north of the city limits would put the region on the map as pioneers of the giant swimbait scene began catching goliath largemouth bass on these huge custom lures in the 1990s.<\/p>\n
Eventually, what was an underground scene would explode globally. Ngy just happened to be finding his groove in the fishing game right before swimbaits would be mass-produced, sold in big-box retailers, and land in hundreds of thousands of tackle boxes throughout the world. It also didn\u2019t hurt that Ngy discovered it on the early side of the Instagram boom.<\/p>\n
Winning Streak<\/h2>\n \u201cTurner\u2019s Outdoorsman in West Covina was my local tackle shop when I was a kid,\u201d says Ngy. \u201cI remember walking in there when I was 10 and looking at all these custom bass plugs and lures from California builders. They\u2019d have $50 price tags and be packaged in these dope boxes, and I was just blown away even though I couldn\u2019t afford them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\nA Lake Champlain smallmouth caught on one of the lures\u2014the Down Under Diving Popper in Big Bass Dreams Spotted Bass\u2014Ngy collaborated on with Cast Fishing. Courtesy of Oliver Ngy<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Little by little though, Ngy began building a swimbait arsenal. By the time he graduated from high school, he was fully committed to his \u201cthrow big or go home\u201d attitude. But while his prowess as a big-bass catcher was only strengthening, fishing wasn\u2019t paying the bills. Ngy worked construction and fished in his free time, eventually burning out after too many layoffs and inconsistent work following the housing crash of 2008. He found solace in bass fishing, and in 2012 a streak of big fish changed everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI started fishing in January and skunked for a month straight,\u201d he says. \u201cThen I caught a 7.5- and 11-pound bass in the same day. That kicked off the wildest seven weeks of my life. I would go on to catch 17 bass over 10 pounds, and I couldn\u2019t even tell you how many 7-, 8-, and 9-pounders.\u201d<\/p>\n
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