Lunkerland

Matty Wong and I are shuffling around an empty commercial parking lot on a spring morning in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The sky is the color of iron, and the air is hovering around 40, though the bite of the prairie wind makes it feel closer to freezing. We are 500 miles from the nearest coastline, in Galveston, Texas, and nearly 4,000 miles from Wong’s home on Oahu. 

Born in 1988 and raised in Palolo on the South Shore, Wong grew up making the most of his island’s resources. He surfed at a competitive level. He freedived. And he fished—freshwater on Lake Wilson, offshore in the Pacific. He also developed a knack for performing, playing a mean saxophone and acting in voice and on-screen roles. 

At 24 and with 10 grand in his pocket, Wong shipped a car and then himself to Los Angeles to give show business a real go. He made the best out of Malibu, El Porto, and other spots up and down the West Coast, but mostly he hustled. He gave surf lessons to the offspring of A-listers, worked the floor at the Burton store, and wailed on the sax in jazz clubs into the early hours. He eventually found his way to the photo industry, snapping frames and assisting on shoots for clients like Nike, Louis Vuitton, MGM, and Spike TV. 

It was around that time that a friend invited Wong to go fly-fishing for carp on the LA River. He was—pardon the cliché and the pun—hooked. His focus shifted to black bass, “America’s sportfish,” using more conventional tackle. He started out working the banks of the city’s ponds and small lakes. Eventually, he bought his late Uncle Bob’s 1990 Ranger 364V Comanche and, in a borrowed truck, hit the road for California’s abundance of fisheries. 

Tournaments came soon after. He did well at the club level. Then at the state. Then at the regional. He capped it with a win at the 2021 BASS Nation Championship on the Ouachita River in Louisiana, qualifying him for spots in the Bassmaster Classic (the Super Bowl of fishing) and on the Bassmaster Elite Series. In short order, he’d become a professional angler in bassing’s big leagues—fishing’s equivalent to the WSL—and he cut out across the country chasing largemouth, smallmouth, and spots. 

That brings us pretty much to the present. 

Now based out of northeast Texas, Wong’s in the middle of his fourth season on tour, a nine-event jaunt that will take him from reservoirs in the Deep South to river systems in the Midwest to the vastness of the Great Lakes. He’s made a brief stop here in Green Country on this not-so-green morning to talk fishing and surfing and, oddly, where they overlap. As it turns out, there are lots of similarities. A big one? There’s much more to it than competition. That’s why, as Wong will explain, this year will be his last as a full-time tournament angler. 

But first, Wong’s walking me around his rig, a Bass Cat Puma STS, 20 feet and 7 inches of masterfully engineered and crafted fiberglass, loaded with every bell and whistle. That includes a tackle shop’s worth of baits, a rod box stuffed with Megabass sticks, and a Yamaha SHO 250 mounted to the transom. And it’s the four-stroke that provides the obvious starting topic: speed.

WB Straightaway up ahead, on plane, wide-open throttle—how fast are you running? 

MW I’ve pushed it to 76. I was on the Sabine River and had some downcurrent working in my favor. Narrow field of vision, wind cutting into your face, but a lot of fun. It’s like flying. 

WB Back when you were picking off sets at Kaiser’s, did you ever think you’d be ripping around flyover country in a bass boat, fishing for oversize checks? 

MW You know, when I left Oahu, I was 24 and at a crossroads. I knew one person in LA. I showed up with my saxophone and a suitcase. I had no clear plan—just a dream. At the time, I thought that dream was acting or music. But the cold plunge of reality hit quickly—literally. It was record-low temperatures in LA when I landed—30 degrees or something. [Laughs.] My friend got us a place in East Hollywood next to a trap house. It was tough, trying to pay next month’s rent. But I’ve always believed that when you struggle, there’s growth. Part of that growth, for me, was coming back to fishing. I started going every single day. There were all these urban ponds that were holding some good bass. It was super challenging to catch one, but I found this really niche community of anglers that were ate up with it as much as I was. I just dove into it, and everything fell into place from there. So that’s the long way of answering that never in a million years did I think I’d be an Elite Series angler. But when I was playing music before I left for LA, I remember thinking to myself, It would be so cool to go on tour and see the country. Through fishing, I got to do that. 

WB The same draw and drive to get there, just a different avenue. 

MW Yup. It’s funny, thinking about it now, because that feeling I got from fishing that set me down this path was similar to surfing when I was a kid, going every single day, no matter what, 1 foot or 15. Surfing was all I wanted to do. Once I got back into fishing, it was the same kind of obsession. 

WB Among the many parallels between surfing and fishing is keeping quiet about spots. But as a professional angler, whether you’re in a tournament on TV or filming for your own channels, a big part of the job is showing what’s happening and, often, where. How do you navigate that? 

MW It’s an interesting dance. Whenever you go somewhere as a visitor, being sensitive to the people and the land is really crucial. Sure, there’s lakes where you’re not fooling anyone. Like certain waves, they’re well-known and crowded, and you’re going to have to earn what you get. But there’s places where if you let something slip, it can ruin the resource. You have to show respect to the local community, and if you do get permission to film, you don’t film any noticeable landmarks. And definitely don’t name names. When I’m filming, I try to get just enough to get the point across of what I’m doing. It’s similar to what I grew up with in Hawaii, where if it was a certain spot, you just don’t take photos and you don’t talk about it. That was something that always cemented in me, and I don’t want to break those rules when I’m traveling. 

WB That has to be tough when you have a great day somewhere, but you have to keep it under wraps. 

MW Totally. Earlier this season, I was breaking in my boat and went out to west Texas. I got on a couple smaller, lesser-known lakes and absolutely blasted fish. I got some clips, but I kept my mouth shut. I had people ask me, like, “Oh, are you here? Are you there?” I had to tell them, “Nope. Sorry. I made a promise.” That’s the code you have to keep. 

WB You’ve put in a lot of miles over the past few years getting to know some of the best fisheries in the country. As far as the ones you can talk about, are there any that particularly stand out? 

MW Lake Murray in South Carolina comes immediately to mind—good striper fishing, great largemouth fishing, numbers and size. Florida can be amazing when it’s on. I love the smallmouth events up north—Lake Ontario and Lake Saint Clair. There’s something so surreal about being out on a lake that looks and even feels like an ocean. There’s legit waves, which can make some of the guys on tour a little nervous. [Laughs.] Plus, it’s typically warm when we go up, and the water’s crystal clear. And, being based near Lake Fork, it’s really become a special place for me. It feels like a second home, especially with the community there. Plus, the fishing is world-class. 

You might fall on the wave of your life, or you might get barreled
and spit out. You might hook a giant and lose it, or you might land it.
And no matter which way it goes, you shake it off and get on to
the next one.

WB Much like surf spots, every fishery is different. What’s the process been like for you in terms of figuring out these unique places to get fish in the boat? 

MW It’s been an extremely intense and humbling experience. Every time I roll into a fishery, whether I’ve been there before or not, there’s a new puzzle to solve. Part of it’s what the fish are doing—what stage of the spawn they’re in, what structure and cover they’re relating to. There’s the season, the weather, the conditions. Then there’s what baits and techniques are working. Some I’ve never utilized before I show up, so I have to learn them on the fly. Then there’s others I need to get sharp with. But that’s the challenge, right? 

WB On land, have there been moments of, I guess, culture shock? Waikiki is a lot different than, like, Decatur, Alabama. 

MW Oh, it’s been wild. I’ll drive into these small towns pulling my boat, and people just look at me sideways. Then I’ll talk to them a little bit about my background, and I can tell it’s crossing their wires. [Laughs.] But it’s almost always positive. And with a lot of people I meet, we have something in common: fishing. So I’ve made a lot of interesting friendships in a lot of unlikely places. 

WB Let’s talk big bass. You recently caught your biggest ever—over 10 pounds. How’d it go down? 

MW I was fishing with a friend on Fork. We were on a community hole [a known spot that holds fish] and had caught a couple, but nothing substantial. I picked up a glide bait, which is a large, segmented bait that looks like a baitfish that you can drive with your reel. A few casts in, I drew two fish off the bottom by puppetting them with the glide. As they got closer and closer, I started implementing faster reel twitches to give the bait a quicker action, and they both surged at it. When I set the hook and started working it back, I was like, “Oh, this feels like a good one.” But you never know for sure until it breaks the surface. When it did, though, I knew it was a 10 right away. I’ve caught multiple nines and a ton of eights. But this was different—the length, size of its head, width. It had full-on golf-ball eyes. It was a couple ounces shy of 11 pounds. I’d been searching so long for a 10-pounder, and when I picked the fish up, I was like, “Now I get it.” And for it to happen on a glide, too? Insane. 

WB Big baits, big bites… 

MW Trophy-size bass are rare, but they’re out there. That’s what keeps me after it. You never know what’s going to happen on any given day. It’s a lot like surfing in that way—see, there’s another one. [Laughs.] You might fall on the wave of your life, or you might get barreled and spit out. You might hook a giant and lose it, or you might land it. And no matter which way it goes, you shake it off and get on to the next one. Now that I’m stepping off tour, I’m really excited to spend more time targeting big bass, which is tough when you’re focused on tournament fishing and don’t have the time to really lock in on a lake, waiting for the right conditions and the right bite. 

WB Beyond hunting bigs, what’s the future program look like? 

MW I’m in the process of developing a pilot for a TV show, an outdoor docuseries bridging fishing, hunting, freediving, and the cultures around them. As a kid in the ’90s, I used to watch the Bill Dance, Roland Martin, and Jimmy Houston fishing shows on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and it’s cool that I have a chance to do something like that but from my perspective. It’s nice I can say that I was an Elite angler and competed at that level, but there’s so much more on offer in fishing, and I want to show what’s out there. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll also be doing a little bit of guiding in Texas. I bought 2 acres right on Lake Fork, like, 300 yards from a public boat ramp that I’m working on getting set up. I cleared a bunch of brush so I have a footprint. I have electricity and water running. I just need to figure out the septic system, and then maybe put a double-wide on it. It’ll be my own slice of redneck heaven. [Laughs.] I want to spend time on the East Coast. I haven’t really fished the Atlantic, and I’d love to catch a tarpon. I have friends in South Africa that want me to come bass fish with them. There’s absolute giants there—and great surf. And I’m planning on spending a lot of time back in Hawaii. I’m excited to have that as a home base and finally be able to unpack—I haven’t unpacked my bags in four years. The more time I’ve spent on the road, the more I’ve come to appreciate my home. I’ve really missed the community, the culture, the food, my parents, my friends. And surfing—I’ve missed it so bad. 

WB I was going to ask if you had to choose one or the other—surfing or fishing—which would it be. But it seems like you’ve found a way to have both. 

MW That’s the new dream. Being away from surfing and the ocean for so long, I’ve realized that they’re such a big part of who I am. That ability to reset my spirit or my energy or my ions—just being able to be in the water and catch a wave. That was a piece of the puzzle that’s been missing. So to be able to have that and have fishing—still chasing adventures during times of the year when certain bites are going off, and then telling the stories of the places I’ve been and the people I’ve met—I can’t wait.

[Feature image by Eric Wehner]