The world, even.
The Hamilton, Ala., native’s eyes widen with excitement while talking about the sport he took up when he was 12 and won 30 tournaments since.
He has yet to win, nationally. The closest he came to making the cut was by three pounds on a developmental series. Now, he’s on the FLW Bass Fishing Tour chasing his dream.
A dream Dyer feels can become reality. Limitations are just a frame of mind.
No legs? No left arm, and just half a right arm?
Dyer is too stubborn and determined to let that stop him.
His motto is, “If I can, you can.”
“I think too many times in life we’re either expecting help or we’re
over-wiling in accepting it,” said Dyer, who was the Easter Seals Southern Georgia Inc.’s guest speaker at its annual dinner Monday night at the Hilton Garden Inn. “I’ve always been independent. There’s nothing wrong with people assisting others, but I want to show people that you can be independent whether you have a loss of limbs or something else. You don’t have to have all the appendages in order to get through life and be successful.”
Dyer uses no special equipment and manages the base of the rod under his jaw and casts onto the water. With pliers in his mouth, he ties a fishing knot with his lips, tongue and teeth as part of changing lures.
When he catches a fish, the pliers come in handy again.
“That way, I get ahold of the hook with the pliers and that way, if the fish starts flopping, I don’t have to worry about the hook going into me,” Dyer said.
Easter Seals Southern Georgia development coordinator Rosalyn Harris knew when she first heard him speak he would be ideal for Monday’s event.
“He impacted my life right there,” she said. “There were like 500 people in the building and the majority of them were children and when the children were silent and he had their undivided attention, that’s who I had to have for our guest speaker.”
Dyer spoke to the crowd about his “Living the Dream” program, which focuses on passion, focusing on the resources available to reach that dream, the value of effort, a positive attitude, motivation and the knowledge that if one is living his or her dream, the venture is a success regardless of the outcome.
For him, this is a dream on more levels than on just a fishing boat.
“I think this is my main call in life, trying to reach people for the better good,” Dyer said. “I want to make an impact, and I’ve realized how big an impact that can be. I take that very seriously. I might only have one chance, so I want to make as big an impact as I can.”
The next goal for Dyer is making an impact on the FLW Tour.
“I have very lofty goals as a professional angler,” Dyer said. “I’m working very hard to accomplish those goals. I won’t give up or retire until I accomplish those. I want to be a world champions, I want to be Angler of the year. I want to work for those titles, I don’t want them given to me. I want to earn it.”
Dyer could not be happier for the time being.
As the title of a book he wrote says, “The View from Down Here is just fine.”
One kid did ask him what he would do when he retires.
“I said, ‘retire?’ ”Dyer jokes. “I’m already in retirement. I guess I’ll just fish more.”
