Great Lakes Bass Fishing Forum

You've heard them before, as you watched an FLW tournament weigh-in being streamed on the website - anglers invited by a weighmaster to say something to loved ones back home. If they're not too nervous, most anglers who are asked take advantage of the opportunity. Almost invariably, they look into the camera's lens, and the first words they utter go something like this: "I want to say hello to my wife and thank her for her support all these years. I wouldn't be here without her."

Mike Gabel would give just about anything to be able to say that, knowing that his wife, Richay, was out there watching and listening. The last time he spoke of her, at a Walmart Bass Fishing League weigh-in, he also spoke of his wife's battle with brain cancer, and how a surgeon had removed a malignant tumor two years previously and that Richay was finally going to get better. Except she didn't, or at least not for long. In early January of this year Richay succumbed to pneumonia after being stricken with another brain tumor that wasn't operable.