Fishin' - the big one

Took a trip out to a part of the Everglades I hadn't been to in a very long time with the hopes of finding some wildlife. Nothing particularly interesting until I stumbled upon this 380 lb. gentleman fishing from an old airboat dock...

The second looks overexposed, the third looks well exposed on the highlights, but there are also some crushed shadows. The gradient on the sides and bottom of the third look uneven and they aren't very graduated, Id apply the filter across a wider area to make for smoother graduations.

I like his expression in the first, but the image is not anchored by anything, the angle makes him sort of a floating subject. I much prefer the angle of the second and third, though would like to see it a little less of a profile and more angled in.

I edited the second pic, brought the highlights down a bit, and applied a graduated filter across the 4 corners. The red dots show where I applied them, from the start to the tip. I also did one with evenly placed graduated filters.

*edit - actually, the black across the edges of your edit dont look quite like graduated filters, was this with a black paintbrush on a low opacity overlay?

The B&W were done in lightroom instead of my usual PSP X2 and that's part of the reason I posted them for critique. I've had about 5 hours to learn the program, so I'm still trying to get the hang of it. The clipped highs and to a lesser extent- lows are probably more a result of my fumbling the conversion, than bad exposure. The effect on the edges of the third came from a third party preset, and while it seemed cool at the time, looking it over again, maybe it needs to be either tweeked or scrapped. I was hoping the reflected light in the eye would carry the first shot (it was the subject) but maybe not. Just seemed to be an exclamation point to the overall look of concentration.

I do like your 4 corner treatment, now if I can get the conversion nailed down, I'll be all set LOL

I prefer the second as it gives a LOT of perspective.
Lots of light problems but worth getting the shot.

Took another crack at #2 with some different settings, adjustments, and a different crop, which I think I prefer. Better?

The last one is the best. IMO.