Backwaters

My fishing background started in the backwaters of Florida’s Panhandle. As a kid I dreamed about fish, laughed over them and cried over them. I’ve plotted, planned and schemed against them. I’ve chased them and they have chased me. I’ve photographed thousands of them and written a million words about them. And, yes, I’ve even caught a few along the way. I have obsessed over fish until they somehow became my living.

After graduating from Auburn University in 1993 with a degree in communication, I moved back to Tallahassee, Florida and started a lawn care business with one goal in mind: to fish as much as possible. 

Initially, my fishing passion centered on professional bass fishing. I spent the better part of my 20’s competing in BASS and FLW events as a co-angler. While traveling the pro circuits, I discovered several things that would define my future. One, landscaping and bass fishing don’t mix: planting petunias while bass are on beds is the epitome of frustration. Two, I simply did not have the natural ability, nor financial means, to excel at the top levels of professional bass fishing. Three, pro fishing circuits were brimming with dozens of untold stories about man and fish. Fishing tournaments blend two of man’s basic inclinations: the desire to fish and the desire to compete. These elements intertwined have rendered some of the most awe-inspiring stories of sacrifice, determination, risk, loss, heartbreak, humor and heroics that would rival any storyline in mainstream sports. In addition, pro fishing circuits provide a rare front row seat to anglers’ obsessive quest to better understand fish and the evolution of better ways to catch them.

For some reason I felt these fishing stories needed to be told. I was convinced if people better understood exactly what fishing pros go through to pursue their passion, it would help grow the sport of professional fishing – a rather ambitious assumption on my part. Fueled by that notion, I sold the lawn equipment in 2000 and purchased a camera, computer, plenty of notepads and hit the pro circuits to write and photograph the side of pro fishing few ever see. 

While mining those unique stories I have been fortunate to share a boat with most of the top bass pros in the world: from greats like Rick Clunn and Gary Klein, who pioneered a more transcendental approach to the sport, to instinctive closers like Kevin VanDam and David Dudley, to the electronics wizards like Aaron Martens and Brent Ehrler. 

Eventually, my freelance work found its way onto the pages of BASS Times, Bassmaster, FLW Outdoors Magazine and many other magazines and websites, including popular Japanese publications, Basser and Tacklebox. 

By 2003 I was covering numerous fishing tournaments, mostly for FLW Outdoors. In time I became their top freelancer, eager to cover any type of fishing tournament they conducted, including redfish tournaments, which lead me to the realm of inshore and nearshore coastal fishing.

By 2006 tournament fishing of all types reached a feverish pitch and I traversed the country many times a season documenting the feats of the latest and greatest in fresh and salt water.

In 2008 I ventured into the world of Web-based video production in an attempt to bring tournament coverage and cutting-edge fishing techniques to viewers in a more real-time way. The results were daily video reports from the field in FLW Tour events, including preview videos before the tournaments and daily “Reeltime Reports” during the events to give viewers an idea of what storylines were developing on the water. 

In 2011, I had a unique opportunity to work as a field producer at the very first Major League Fishing Cup filmed on Lake Amistad in Texas. At the time, little did I know, MLF would expand by leaps and bounds in such a short time. In 2019, MLF launched the Bass Pro Tour and with that I was offered the unique position to be a live on-the-water reporter for the BPT.

I am fortunate to have been immersed in tournament fishing’s golden age over the last 20 years. The fishing education has been both invaluable and irreplaceable. I have learned a tremendous amount about the act of fishing, the people of fishing and the business of fishing, especially in terms of the role that original content production plays in outdoor media. Engaging an audience with stories of fish and the anglers that pursue them never gets old.