“Am I Gonna Help You If You Holler Out? Yes” – Legendary Bass Angler, Gerald Swindle, Shares Wild Story Behind Nasty Black Eye

The G-Man got into a little bit of a tussle recently… and has a nasty shiner to prove it.

The 55-year-old bass angler from Alabama, who has twice been named Bassmaster Angler of the Year (2004, 2016), decided to get out in front of a story with a message of his own. Swindle found himself in the middle of a fight while he was in Key West, and suffered one of worst black eyes you’ll ever see because of it.

The angler knew that people would take notice of his injury, so he set out to tell what really happened before anyone else started running with a false narrative:

“Before anybody sees the black eye and thinks something crazy happened, I thought I’d go ahead and address it. Because unfortunately this day and time, something happens, people can sensationalize it. They can make things out to be worse than it is, and there are some crazy people out there that just want to make videos to get clicks or something. And they might make up some wild story about what happened to my eye.”

As Swindle tells it, he and his wife, and fellow angler James Watson and his wife, were in Key West doing some regular, beach-related activities. They had rode their mopeds to the public beach to see the sights and hang out at the pier, and little did they know, they were walking themselves into quite the hostile confrontation:

“As we enter the beach, we see a confrontation breaking (out) between a woman and a man. I’m not going to go through every step. This crazy woman was basically on this innocent man and woman and another couple on the sand. This crazy woman and her crazy husband had been drinking and (were) on drugs and had been accusing everybody of stealing their stuff.”

According to the angler, the innocent man kept pushing off the crazy husband and wife, telling them to stay away and that he didn’t want to fight. He even told them to get out of the area, but nothing was working. James and Gerald were obviously standing nearby, and didn’t want to get involved… that is until they felt like they had no other choice:

“We thought it was dying down. As we went to walk off, crazy man went back to attack the man again, and this is where things changed. The man (being attacked) asked, and kind of yelled out, ‘Is nobody going to help me?’ You damn right I am, and guess who was with me? James Watson.”

After trying to avoid getting into the fight, Swindle and Watson found themselves right in the middle of it. The angler says he spent several minutes pushing the crazy man off, begging him to let it go, and even said that the cops were on the way (because they were) to try and get the man to calm down.

That’s when the crazy man started focusing on Gerald, directing anger, punches and curse words at him instead of his original target. The famous angler didn’t want things to turn even uglier, but he felt as though he had no choice:

“What do you do? You know? Things escalated, and as he turned to me and wanted to fight me, it got to the point where it’s a self defense (thing) and I had to take care of business. In the meantime, he hit me with my sunglasses on and the lens cut all the way around my eye. Cut my eyelid open and all that. It looks a lot worse than it is.”

And let me tell you… it really looks bad.

The good news? The cops arrived shortly after Swindle and Watson got involved, and they arrested the crazy man and his wife. Gerald insists that there was no drinking involved (on his end), and that he hates to get involved in altercations like the one he found himself in. He also says the man “laid softly on the sand” after the G-Man handled the business… we all know what that means.

It really just came down to someone asking for help, and Swindle feeling as though it was the least he could do:

“Am I gonna help you if you holler out? Yes. Sometimes when you help, it ain’t easy. That’s all I know to tell you.”

Respect. The man he helped out also turned out to be a firefighter from Georgia.

Swindle also took a moment to clap back at anyone who thought his fishing sponsors would drop him for standing up for what’s right. He listed out most, if not all, of his sponsors, and suggested that they wouldn’t hold his involvement in this fight against him. Rightfully so… because the angler was just stepping in to help someone that asked for it. In a world of cowards who would rather film something to put on TikTok instead of helping people out, be a Gerald Swindle.

You can view Gerald Swindle’s full message – and nasty, super-glued black eye – in the video below:

The post “Am I Gonna Help You If You Holler Out? Yes” – Legendary Bass Angler, Gerald Swindle, Shares Wild Story Behind Nasty Black Eye first appeared on Whiskey Riff.