My favorite memory of the year is a little different than some of the others you’ll read here. You see, my job is to fill Bassmaster.com and our social media channels with stories. Many of those stories involve Elite champions and advice on how to catch more bass. However, I also love reading, watching and listening to stories about the human experience — struggles, lessons learned, passion pursued, success achieved, and our connection to the sport of fishing. So, with that in mind, here are my two favorite projects of 2017:
The Inside Bassmaster podcast
About a year ago, Bassmaster.com senior editor, Thomas Allen, started talking to me about doing a podcast. Honestly, I sort of half listened and assumed that if I ignored him the subject would go away. But Allen is a guy who doesn’t give up easily. After about the fifth conversation, he wore me down. I do believe that when an editor is really passionate about a topic, that’s when he’ll do his best work. So we launched a podcast.
If you’re not familiar with podcasts, they are similar to radio. Except a podcast isn’t live, it’s recorded, and you can listen to one any time you want. Podcasts don’t have a time limit. Some of ours have been 30 minutes, and others have gone as long as an hour and a half. The popularity of podcasts has grown rapidly in the past two years.
At first, we kept Inside Bassmaster focused on Fantasy Fishing, but after the season ended, we invited Elite anglers into our little studio for extended interviews. Allen and I worked as co-hosts and after a few podcasts developed a format we both liked. I’d interview the angler about his season and delve into his stats. Allen would get our subject to tell his life story as it relates to fishing. This fall, we interviewed Justin Lucas, Matt Herren, Randy Howell, Matt Lee, Russ Lane, Randall Tharp and Brandon Lester. Their stories of how they became Elite anglers are fascinating, filled with emotion, risks taken, successes and failures. I love every one of their stories, and I think you will too. You can find them here.
Thanks to Bruce Akin and Carol Stone for believing in us and funding this project. I’m quite sure these two would be willing for one of our fine partners to come in and sponsor Inside Bassmaster. Elites, please make a trip to Birmingham, and we’ll do a podcast with you.
Fans of B.A.S.S.
Some of you may have seen posts on Facebook called “Humans of New York.” They are small stories about random people met on the streets of New York City. Every one of these posts teases out something interesting about the person. I’m convinced every person alive has an interesting story to tell, so we took that as inspiration and ran with it, calling our series, Fans of B.A.S.S. Our plan was to write short pieces about the fans who come to Bassmaster weigh-ins all over the country. We’d post them on Instagram and at the end of the season put them all on Bassmaster.com in a photo gallery.
Over the course of the season we profiled 20 people from every walk of life you could imagine: two chefs, a teacher, an Army Sergeant, a retired Marine who is now a firefighter, a college baseball player, two college students on their way to med school, a mom/auto repair shop owner, a lineman, two salesmen, guys working in construction and a fire protection engineer. Their stories give you a window into why each and every one of them care deeply about fishing. You can find them here.
Thank you Mountain Dew for sponsoring this project. Thanks to Sara Frye for making these stories look so good on Instagram. And thanks to the writers and photographers who brought the Fans of B.A.S.S. to life, including Don Barone, James Overstreet, Chris Mitchell, Phil Lawless, Steve Bowman, Mike Suchan and Steve Wright. For Bassmaster’s 50th anniversary in 2018, we’re planning to tell the stories of 50 fans.