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Coming Home: On fishing, football, and how both brought Pat Jones to Carolina

And perhaps just as important, even if only relative to them, they have fishing stories together.

Wonnum has been out to the Wingate house and pond a few times, but they really established their bond in Minnesota.

"So me and Pat, we used to fish at all times; morning, daytime, nighttime," Wonnum begins, sitting back against the locker room wall, his hands hanging languidly from his knees as he settles into a story about the duo's adventures in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes.

"One day we was out Lake Minnetonka—that's like one of the big lakes—and the plan was to go out there for maybe a couple of hours. We ended up being out there through the entire night.

"I'm not gonna blame nobody," Wonnum trails off, cutting his eyes in jest to make his point, "but it wasn't my fault."

The boat was outfitted to make it across Minnesota's ninth-largest lake, and at around 20-feet long, it was to heavy to be rowed back to shore.

"It was terrifying," Wonnum exclaims. "It was terrifying because it was dark, so all you hear was water, waves crashing and stuff.

"Thank God (Pat) had like this little, it's like a trolling motor on the boat, so it kind of controls and navigates the boat (in) like a slow motion. We were moving like two miles per hour in the middle of the lake trying to get back," he throws his hands out with a laugh.

"We didn't even catch anything. It wasn't even worth the trip."

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