It’s the Mercer Podcast Festive Special with a 17 year old kid that just became the youngest angler to ever qualify for the Bassmaster Classic and the voice of Bassmaster TV, the one and only Tommy Sanders. His smooth delivery and honest charm make him everyone’s friend. Just like Boxing had Howard Cosell, football had John Madden, golf has Jim Nantz, BASS Fishing has Tommy Sanders! This week he sits down for a very rare on-camera conversation that ends with a SURPRISE!
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It is the festive season. So I thought, why not double down on dynamite? Guess we have the satiny smooth sounds of Bassmaster host Tommy Sanders, as well as the youngest Bassmaster Classic qualifier in history, 17 year old Aaron Savorsky both joining me this week on. I’m Bob Cobb from The Bassmasters.
Welcome to Mercer. Welcome one. Welcome all friends, family, freeloaders, Phish and freaks. You guys know the drill. You’re all welcome. Here at the Awkwardly Honest Fishing podcast that goes by my last name, which is Mercer. Welcome into episode 141 of this particular podcast, and I welcome all of my humpers
That listen week after week and hopefully once again, we put a little hump back in your hump day. Welcome in all of you. And if I seem a little bit more jovial and excited this week, it’s because I am I’m literally I’m having a good week. I mean, not only is it Christmas
And we’re going to talk a lot about that, but it’s my birthday and I got to thank all of you that took the time to send messages, whether it be through DMS, whether it be through social posts, whether it be through texts, whether it be through phone calls. I thank all of you
For celebrating my birthday. It was a big one. There it was. I am 50. I don’t know how that happened. I mean, I honestly feel like I’m I’m about a 22 year old that’s just very likely challenged. The I mean, I’ll be honest, I think I’m probably mentally
Or mentally I might be less, but I think I’m kind of just so you know, I feel like I’m 25. I literally do. I mean, I look in the mirror and I can tell that I am older, but I really just that’s I’m holding at 25, basically. But I’m proud to be 50.
I’m just starting to figure out some things. I mean, when I was a little kid, I remember thinking, one day I’m going to grow up and I’m going to be an adult like my parents. And now that I’ve grown up and have kids of my own, I realize
There’s no such thing as adults. It’s all just big kids that act like adults in front of their kids. And I mean, fart jokes are still funny to me. They were funny when I was nine and they’re funny when I’m 50. So anyways, thank you all for making it so special.
Outside of posts and everything. My wife and family and friends had a surprise party for me and I cannot thank them enough for that. It was. It’s an experience that I hope everybody gets to feel in their lifetime, you know, be surrounded by that many people that that you love and care for.
It was just very, very cool, very shocking. It’s hard to pull something off on me because I’m allegedly, I guess, gifts and I’m not good. But they they got me. I mean, as if it wasn’t shocking enough. I mean, it was Banger, Banger Party. I mean, thank you, all of you that hung
Tight till the wee hours of the morning. The VanDam’s showed up from Michigan. If that isn’t the greatest flex, the greatest surprise ever or the greatest friendship ever, I mean, I thank them for that. I thank everybody that took the time to make this old guy feel special. So thank you all.
I don’t often talk about personal stuff like that, but I just thought I would publicly thank everybody because it was freaking awesome. Obviously, everybody celebrating many things this week. It is Christmas Eve. Well, what do you celebrate? Christmas, Hanukkah, whatever it is you celebrate, I wish you happiness. And a bountiful festive season
And a great new year ahead. This show is going to be a fun one. We’ve we’ve got two guests this week. We’re going to kick it off with a short interview with Aaron Yavorsky, who is the youngest Bassmaster Classic qualifier ever, 17 years old. And he beat, I think, about 500 adults,
Mainly adult, to make it to the Bassmaster Classic. So we talked to him for a little while, and it’s fun to get to know him. And then I am joined by somebody who is one of the people. Like I said in last week’s show, I kind of teased this week’s show and said,
He is somebody who I like to talk to. One of the people who I cherish every moment I talk to with him. He is truly a legend in our sport. He’s a bass fishing hall of Famer. He is so, so good at his job. His voice takes you places.
I always say that to him. You know, I hear him talk and and last time he was on the show, I actually had him do some Dr. Seuss. Well, we have a very special ending to this show that you need to stick around for. It is a festive ending
To this show that I think you’ll all enjoy and cherish for years and years to come. And it is none other than Tommy Sanders. Tommy doesn’t do a lot of interviews. He doesn’t do a lot of this kind of thing. I mean, Tommy’s a very kind of
Kind of a private guy, I guess. You know, he’s he’s so humble, but he is so skilled, so talented. And bass would not be what it is without Tommy Sanders. Trust me. Tommy Sanders, There’s a bunch of boneheads like myself, Zona Davy Hite, Ronnie suits all of us. Tommy Sanders
Takes all of that and pulls us together and makes it a somewhat cohesive unit. And if it wasn’t for Tommy, none of that would happen. So I thank Tommy Sanders. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. But before we talk to Tommy, we’re going to talk to this 17 year old kid
That just made the Bassmaster Classic when I was 17 years old. Well, I was a lot like I am now. I was just a big fish bum. But I had I mean, I’d never been to a classic. I mean, this kid’s going to fish the Bassmaster Classic,
And it’s got a lot of people in the fishing industry saying just too in the world is airing your voice. Well, let’s find out. Aaron Yavorsky. I’m saying it right? Right. Yes, sir. You’re the youngest person in history. Not in in bass master history to ever qualify for the Bassmaster Classic.
Has that sunk in yet? No, not yet. It was getting to me a little bit of reading up on some of the info and everything that bass sent me, but I don’t know if it’ll sink in until I’m actually there. I mean, everybody in the fishing world was was all excited
About the youth movement. I’m sure if you followed the opens, I mean, the youngest qualifying rookie class in in elite series history, but you just made all those dudes seem like old men. I mean, 17 years old. Do you even have a driver’s license? I only had it for about a year, but,
I mean, it’s just. It’s crazy. When did this dream start? I mean, any I think I think this dream, you know, the dream of being in the best motor classic and everything. I mean, I don’t even know if this is even realistic for you. Like, did you ever imagine that it 17 years?
Yeah. I’d like to fish one one day. But did you ever imagine you’d be the youngest ever? Yeah. I didn’t even. I mean, just with how hard it is just to make it there, you know, it’s always been a dream just to make it. But to do it, you know,
As the youngest person in history, it’s just really unreal. The classic is the best. Yeah. And I hear you’ve never been to a classic, right? Correct. Well, I mean, might as well win the first one. You go to. Right? We’re going to try. How did you pull off what you pulled off?
Because I think a lot of people see how young you are and maybe in a lot of their heads, you know, he was in a collegiate competition, a high school competition. I mean, you beat adults from all around the literally the world. I mean, there’s Canadians.
There are people from all over the place at the team championship to do this. How did you do that? Honestly, I don’t really know. But I mean, it’s we had it on the hair chain, obviously, and it’s somewhere where I fish, you know, pretty regularly just from being in Florida.
I get blown up in a phone car and I’m sorry. But, you know, we had it on the hair chain somewhere where I regularly fish. And it was just kind of kind of one of them deals where you just like, you know, we had qualified for the tournament
And were just like, man, it’d be crazy if we just if if we won and made the classic, you know, on a lake that we, we always usually fish. I mean, we, we were just thinking about before we even got to the tournament, and it’s crazy that it just happened, you know.
So what has the you know, it’s been about a week now, so going back to school and everything. Did it make any ripples or do people in school not even know what Bassmaster Classic is? Yeah, most of the people at my school, they don’t really understand the whole fishing thing.
But, you know, a lot of the bodies I have from around here in Florida, they were all congratulating me and showing a bunch of support. So appreciate that for them. Obviously, it is the Super Bowl of bass fishing. What what do you I mean, that I’ll be honest,
Even talking to you now, dude. I mean, when I went to set up this interview, I talked to Mandy at Bass and I’m like, do do I call him directly or do I have to go through his parents? How did. Tell me about your paternity experience previous to this. Have you fished tournaments
For a long time, or is this relatively new for you? Yeah. So, um, so I started fishing. When I started bass fishing, I started really just straight into tournaments when I was about 11, 12 years old. My dad, he kind of introduced me to the whole tournament thing.
He just fished a little local club here around Florida and his partner that he used to fish with, he had a son a little bit older than me, who was they just wanted to team up as a as a team. And he just asked me one day I remember
We were sitting down at a dinner table and he was like, Yeah. And like, you’d be interested in doing like this bass fishing thing that, you know, I always go do around Florida. And I was like, Yeah, we can try it out at that time I did, you know, Little League Baseball
And just didn’t really know anything about it, really. So yeah, he took me out there and we had a great time and then that’s just how it started, really. I started, um, fishing some high school tournaments after that when I got in high school and that really kicked off, you know,
Those were kind of the bigger tournaments I’d ever entered, around 100 plus boats that usually get. But, you know, the fish the high school program went through that. I’m I’m a senior now, still fish in the high school program. Florida Florida Bass Nation High School and just recently just finished my first year.
The vessels kind of got a feel for that. And you know, we did pretty decent and um, you know, just, just went through this team Federation thing and made it to the championship, qualified for the classic, you know, something that never really expected or, you know, always dreamed of.
And it’s just crazy that really happened. Did like the next morning when you woke up, I mean, when I was 17 years old, I used to dream of all sorts of stuff. I mean, part of my problem in life is I, I dream so vividly. I actually start to believe them.
But I would imagine that there had to be a part of you that, like, literally woke up the next day and was like, Wait a second, did that I mean, you you showed up at that tournament, a 17 year old high school kid, you know, and you’re leaving that tournament,
The youngest to qualify in history. Has there been times this past week where, like, you’re just doing regular things and you’re like, that really happened? Yeah, that that’s definitely come to my mind a couple of times. You know, just, you know, right after that tournament when I qualified, actually had another tournament,
A high school tournament. So we went down to Okeechobee right after right after way in. And, you know, fish that to you. And I had a lot of confidence, honestly, and we didn’t do too great. It was honestly a reality check. £10. And as it was after every once I got home, that
Everything kind of settled. And, you know, some some thought set and things like that. So a lot of people your age have probably this time of year pretty, pretty excited about Christmas. I mean, Christmas is a big deal. It did your Christmas just come early? Yeah, I honestly I was
Not not really sure if I might even be here for Christmas or or anything like that trying to plan a trip to to Grant Lake before the cutoff. Hopefully the the weather is decent for us, but I’m just so busy with trying to grind out all the tournaments
And just get better at fishing every day. It’s it’s hard to spend a lot of time with my family, even though I’m 70. Still. So so you are going to great and to preface before the cut up. Yeah. If the weather holds up. So tell me about you as an angler.
I mean, what what if you had to classify your yourself as what elite series pro would you say I fish similar to this person? Hmm. Um, it’s a good question. I’m a big, you know, life scope kind of guy. Even though I live from Florida, I just love fishing off shore. But
I’m not really sure. I mean, maybe, maybe Koya Fujita just because, you know, I like large scope in not really big with all the stuff that he throws and things like that. But I mean, just an offshore person in general, I guess. Talk to me about life scoping because I’m sure, you know,
I mean, before we went live, you told me you watch all these podcasts and you see the the disagreements and things that are going on in the world with with forward facing sonar, with live scope. What do you think that is doing to the youth? Because a lot of people
Will point fingers at it. You know, older people, they and they’ll say, hey, younger people have an advantage, this and that. But amongst your peers, amongst the people from the Florida Bass Nation that you keep hearing from people your age, what are the thoughts about about forward facing sonar?
Um, you know, most of the kids are, um, around with a couple live scopers themselves. So, you know, they really like it. They just we all think it’s a tool that’s here to stay. And, you know, it helps us learn about the activity of the fish and how they how they kind of
Go through their yearly transition. And, you know, it opens up like a whole new dimension almost of this fishing thing. Um, but I think I mean, it’s just a tool, honestly. It hopefully here the steak, but there’s a lot, a lot of controversy about it right now. I love,
I love using, um, I keep using it. Do you ever hear that kind of controversy amongst people in your age bracket? Like, is there high school competitors that are like, Yeah, I don’t like using it? Or have they all kind of they’re all in? Yeah, most, most of them now.
They’re all getting used to it. They kind of like it, you know. I mean, I’m sure a lot of these kids play video games and it’s kind of their thing, but the and for Florida, you still have some people that just, you know, fish without it. And, you know,
It’s it’s worked out pretty good for you. I mean, you know, obviously lots of people got a giggle out of your your Instagram handle the scope goat. Well, I mean, you’ve kind of put it out there. I mean, you clearly are, because you’re the youngest ever to qualify for the classic.
Do does this make you you’re just about to finish high school. Does this make you one of the most sought after collegiate recruits, or is that even the direction you’ve chosen to go? I’ve had a couple people kind of reach out to me, but
I just I don’t think I’m going to go down that path. I’m pretty sure going to happen opens in 2025. Once I finish finish this high school season off, I’m just going to really use this next year as, you know, getting better and trying to just work on everything
That I need to need to work on and just become a better angler all around. When did I mean, did did this accomplishment change any of that or did you was that your plan all along? I’m going to get done with high school and I’m going to become a pro angler.
Yeah, it’s it’s definitely opened up a couple more doors, I guess. Um, before before it happened, I was on edge with the college thing and going the other route. But I think I think after after we qualified, it kind of put me more in the direction of just not going to college.
So you’re all in, you’re pro angler now. We’re going to try. How do your parents feel about that? Um, they supported they think it’s good. Either my parents, they didn’t go to college either. My dad, um, owns a painting company and he supports me through my journey. He’s the one that’s
Always been there for me, you know, helping me pay entry fees and things like that. But, you know, this is what parents are there for. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, and he kind of extra supported you because you guys won the team championship together, and then he became the world’s biggest soccer dad,
Except it was pro fish. And he literally watched you. He was in the tournament but watched you compete, is what I heard, correct? Correct. Yeah. Those final two days, he was, you know, maybe a cast or two lengths away from me. He watched it all go down. So is that like for
The rest of your life, you’re going to be like, remember, you became the youngest because I didn’t cast. Like, is he going to hold that over you for the rest of your life? I don’t think so. He before the tournament even started, I mean, we were already kind of talking about that,
Like if we make that final day, you know, what are we going to do? And, you know, he just he really wants to see me succeed. And I just I can’t thank my dad enough, honestly. Do you have any concerns going into the classic like, I mean,
I feel like it would be normal, like that in your head. You’re like, Oh, I hope I don’t screw this up or something. Any of those kind of thoughts going through your head, or is it all just positive? Yeah, just try to stay positive. But, um, there’s a couple of thoughts
Roaming around about, man, we can’t suck it up, but just going to go there and soak it all in and just try and do our best. How do you do? Um, public speaking. How do you feel about going on the classic stage? Um, man, that’s. That’s it.
That’s a tough one for me. I’m. I’m not the best speaker or, you know, good talking to big audience, but we’re trying to work on it. Definitely got to improve on our social skills a little bit, but it’s going to be really nerve racking, I think. Well, I mean, most 17 year
Olds are great at communicating with adults, never mind a, you know, an arena full of of said adults. Have you figured out what song you’re weighing into yet? Um, no, I haven’t even figured that out. All right. Maybe we can get some comments from our viewers, and they’ll
They’ll give you a direction, maybe. Or I’m sure a lot of great choices you have ahead of you. But it’s incredible to me. It’s one of the most exciting things. It’s a record he did to do this at 17. I mean, I would have bet a lot that it would never happen.
And and if it were to happen, I always would have thought, okay, well, we’ll we’ll get a collegiate angler and that’s competing against people his age. But I mean, you went and worked a bunch of grown men and adults in this event. Is this just are you the next kid?
And we just haven’t figured it out yet or what? And I don’t I don’t really know. I hope so. I mean, we all got to find out here soon, but hopefully it’s looking good, I think. How much experience do you have fishing outside of Florida? Not much. Just
Going through the high school program. We’ve qualified for the national championship the first three years of fish. So we went to Tennessee State, fit the fish like Chickamauga. And then, um, went to heart. Well, the past two years have some experience there and recently been to Alabama to fish like Eufaula, but
Not much other than that, honestly, just a couple of tournaments. And, um, but we’re going to, we’re going to try to get out of state a little bit more and just work on working on improving. So when you say you’re, you’re, you’re going to go the open route
And not do the collegiate route, have you put a plan together on how you’re going to learn the other aspects of the sport? Because that is one of the advanced of college fishing. You look at a team like Bethel, they take anglers from Florida and put them with anglers
From the north or anglers from the West Coast and that’s what makes those anglers as versatile and as successful as they are. But you’re obviously going to have to do it kind of solo. How are you going to do that? Um, you know, just got kind of almost a full year here
Just to really get everything, you know, tweaked up and try and learn new techniques. But I’m really going to try and travel a lot. Um, you know, Monday is actually my last day of school. I do a early graduate thing, so the rest of this year started after January. We’re free from school.
We just got to go walk and graduate in May. Hopefully I’m there for that. But, um, you know, just going to travel around a lot, travel the new places, try and look at a tournament schedule, see where they’ve been to, you know, still a lot of research, honestly, and just try to learn
A thing or two here and there. All right. I want to learn about you outside of fishing. I mean, lots has been written about how you caught them and that sort of thing. But when you’re not fishing, what what do you do? What is a a good time for air and your ski?
Um, usually just going and hanging out with friends. Um, you know, just kind of. Well, I’m more introverted, I guess. Um, I don’t really have too many friends. It’s just trying to grind out. This fishing thing really is. I just spend a lot of time fishing. You. I never, ever really went
To any of those homecomings or proms in high school. Just always been fishing and waking up early, going on the bed early and things like that. And, you know, it’s just been I guess I could kind of say, I mean, little boring maybe, But, you know,
It’s it’s more of like trying to get get get to that success and, you know, grind it out. When did you I know you told me when you started fishing terms so but you seem pretty locked into like, hey, this is my life, this is my focus, which is remarkable. I mean, literally
Every other sport there is, you know, whether it doesn’t matter whether you’re listening to somebody talk about LeBron James in the past, whoever Patrick Mahomes, I mean, they all made huge sacrifices, missed things like you’re talking about proms and homecomings and things like that, because they were that committed
To making it in their sport. When did this drive start for you? Like because you know, to to most people it seems, you know unrealistic for a kid at 17 years old to be that locked in. Right. Yeah. So, um, you know, just going through the high school program helped me,
You know, learn a lot because we really traveled around a lot more than I. It used to just fish in that little, little club club tournament thing, but that, that opened up a lot of doors. And then really this year, jumping in those baffles, the second one of the year
It was on Harris chain, actually, I ended up placing third. And you know, that gave me like a lot of confidence after that. It was in March. And ever since March this year, it’s just been kind of like, you know, like grind, grind, grind and put your head down
And focus on this and, you know, you can do this kind of thing, but clearly, clearly you can do it. Does it concern you or do you even think about these kind of things that you’re you know, you hear people say things like, yeah, you got to pay your dues,
You got to put in your time. I mean, I don’t know that you can say at 17 years old that whatever that means, paying your dues, you haven’t spent a lot of time. Does it concern you that this is happening too quick in some ways? Um, maybe just a bit. But I mean,
You know, there’s no real pressure on me, I guess, which helps a little bit. Not to pay any bills or anything like that. So really stress free. So just going to try and just go out there and have fun. Yeah. Living at home and loving life, I mean that’s there’s
Nothing wrong with that. Yeah, it it’s going to be a lot of fun to watch this unfold. And I know you say you’ve missed some proms and home comings and things like that with the world’s biggest homecoming or prom is the Bassmaster Classic. And I can’t wait to have you on stage,
Dude. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And and the amazing thing is, I think you’re going to inspire so many more people. And and when people point fingers at like, the sport is getting younger, but every sport’s getting younger, it is amazing. Why do you think that is?
Do you have any idea why this outside of forward facing sonar? Obviously, that’s the the easy thing to go to. But why do you think professional fishing is getting younger? Yeah, I think really, you know, just with now nowadays in age, there’s so much technology and just there’s
So many more like available resources. There’s just kids nowadays, you know, just taking all that in and learning so fast. It’s crazy, you know, with how much Internet and, you know, information that’s that’s online. You can just go on there and really just learn whatever you want,
You know, obviously from a trusted source on whatever you need. And it’s just super easy to get information and it is so all that kind of stuff. What is your biggest weakness as an angler? What do you really need to learn? Um, probably need to learn a little bit
More how, uh, how the fish kind of spawn, I guess, in from Florida. It feels like every time we fish the tournament here in Florida around the spawn, it’s always been like a mix of like, you know, just like that wave pushing up and going to try this year
To get out there and just try and learn the spawn kind of deal and the standards. These tours are kind of, you know, just chasing that spawn. I feel like almost, but I don’t really know. I need to work on shallow fishing a little bit and, you know,
Just a little bit of everything. Do you realize how weird that sounds to people that the two things that you said you need to work on is is spawn and shallow, which is if you say to anybody, like if somebody lives in Florida, what are they really good at?
It’s probably those two things, right? Yeah, it’s definitely weird. I’m usually the one leaving the frogs and flipping jigs at home and just taking the current baits and things like that. So it’s, it’s kind of weird, but, um, you know, in Florida, not many people do it,
So I think that’s on that Now. A lot of people are starting to get out there. But, you know, it’s it’s definitely helped this with less pressure. Can you quickly take me through your process of learning things? Because I think that a lot what your point about the good
About the increase in technology, increase in information. So let’s just say this afternoon me and you are going to go fishing and and we’re going to fish, bedding, fish. How do you go? What is your process like? And I want you to tell me not just specifically going fishing, but
The process probably starts at a laptop, I would imagine. Yeah, definitely a you know, looking at the lake, especially if we’re going to go out there and just kind of fish for morning fish. Just look at what areas of the lake might be the best, those high percentage areas and you know,
Do a bunch of research on the lake and everything. And then once you once you get out there, just go get a feel for it. If if what you what you had planned was early work in and to do like maybe the whole opposite but really yeah just starting at the laptop
And then getting out there and get a feel for it. I mean once you get out there and, and you get, you know, one of the a clue or head, just take that and run with it. Honestly just trying to figure something out. After you won this event, obviously your dad was there
That beautiful moment I’m sure. Well, who were you most excited to tell, like outside of your family? Who was the person that you were most excited to? I can’t wait to tell who I stuff. Well, I’m really not sure because, you know, my mom my mom came to the way
In and my dad was there. And those are really the two that are really there for me. But probably really my my high school, my old high school partner, Judge Stanley here, he just recently went into the Coast Guard, is now stationed up in Georgia. So he actually
He actually drove down the first day when I had £30 from Georgia all the way to the weigh in and watched me weigh in. But probably probably him. Very cool. Very cool. Well, Aaron, I’m excited to see you at the Bassmaster Classic. Don’t worry about the states. Well, we’ll have fun.
It’ll it’s I’ll try to make it as simple and as easy as possible. And I think the thing that you’re going to find is, you know, you said I don’t I don’t have a lot of friends. You know, when you get to the classic, you won’t have a whole bunch of friends
And you’re going to inspire legions of anglers moving forward because you have set a record that, quite frankly, may never, ever get broken. But you know how that deal is. Somebody is always trying to break it. But congratulations. I appreciate it. Thank you, Dave. Thank you for having me on here today.
No problem. No problem. I will I will see you very, very soon. The youngest Bassmaster Classic qualifier in history. And he just hung up. So that’s all he had to say Tommy Sanders. We have loyal viewers that tune in here week after week. It is at least a dozen of them,
And I’m thankful for all of them. And I thought, what is better to do right before Christmas than have Tommy Sanders on? I mean, your voice. I know I tell you this and I know you deny it, but your voice takes people to a very, very special place.
It does it really Well, it’s it you know, it’s a familiar place. So I’ve been doing this for 40 years. I’m sure a lot of people are tired of it, you know, that. I just you know, I keep talking for some reason because I can’t really do anything else. Well, I mean,
I hear you there. Trust me. I believe you can do other things. Speaking of which, you’ve grown a phenomenal mustache. This is new, right? Yeah, my friend. What am I? Associates just referred to it as a trash stache, so I’m kind of crestfallen and disappointed.
I don’t even know what a trash to ashes, but it sounds terrible. So what? It is, it’s. It’s the result of cutting yourself two times in the last three weeks shaving, and you take your razor. You just, you know, get it out of here later for you. Well, trust me,
I look like the monopoly man. So everything. You know, if I had the little top hat and a waistcoat, you go down to Mr. Pennyworth. That’s his name. Yet His name? That is his actual name. Mr. Pennyworth. I believe you have the same. Do they have the same properties in Monopoly in Canada
As they have in the United States? Or is it is it always the same part place? And you know what. Well, you know, I mean, I’m sure there’s a special Canadian monopoly and stuff like that. But yeah, we still go to . Yeah exactly. . Oh, that’s very good. Young Street. Queen Street.
I mean, look at how educated me. You are very educated. You know, little bits about everything. I honestly believe that. Is that true? Useless Information? I got it. I got it for you, I guess. Well, nothing useless you’ve ever give me. And there’s nothing trashy about that stash. But thank you.
I feel better now. Whoever said that, I will tell me about it afterwards and I will open hand. Slap that person. All right. It’s all in. Tommy, You have been around for a long time and you have done some incredibly fabled bass master moments. I mean, so much incredible stuff.
And I know how you got the job. I mean, you’re a voiceover guy and somehow they called you. What was that first? I mean, you had an office just down the road from JM correct? Yes, I did. I did. Yeah. Just. Just right around the corner from JM like, like 200 feet
From where they were. But I was familiar with with Jerry, because at that time there were a couple of fishing TV shows produced in this area and in cahoots with some people from Memphis and everything like that. And and a fellow named Mark Delinda, who was at a TV studio
In town, had gone to work for Jerry, and I’d worked with him, you know, a lot of freelance stuff through the years. And I got to looking at Jerry Show and they all sudden it started looking like, you know, the movies because they were shooting it on film and doing this
Newfangled transfer process where it looked like a feature film and man, you know, and I’d watch Jerry for years, you know, coming in and a TV studio for 8 minutes, you know, after the after the sports way back in the day. And this was something else. But anyway, the folks at Jerry’s office
Called me to come and do a do a voiceover for a couple of things. And one thing led to another, and he wrangled me an audition and I got to be the guy on ESPN outdoors. Do you remember what that first edition was like, what the read was? Oh, well, it was.
It was just talk about some outdoor subject. Okay. Information subject for a little bit on camera. Kind of do it off the cuff if you can, and then throw to a specific show, whether it was Jimmy Houston or Hank Parker or, you know, whatever it was, Suzuki’s great outdoors or Larry Stark
Or all those shows from back in the day. Yeah. So this this job that you have done so well at this, this wasn’t wasn’t your childhood dream. I take it like when you were a kid, what did what did Tommy Sanders as a child, a 13 year old Tommy Sanders,
What did you envision yourself being? I wanted I actually wanted to be on TV. I wanted to be, you know, and not on TV. I wanted to produce television, you know, make programs, you know, and and live in a studio, you know, repeated shows all day. Congrats. Yeah, mission accomplished.
But, yeah, I actually I actually did entertain, you know, unrealistic fantasies like that. I considered it, well, not unrealistic. And you do live in a studio now. I mean, one of the things that is amazing that people don’t know about you, I think, is just I mean,
I talked to Mike McKinnis about it this morning, our mutual boss, Jim, and and I asked him about you and he was like, one of the things that still amazes me to this day is how much Tommy has done. You know, And if you look back at that time
When you were doing raps and you were doing weekly, 52 weeks a year, you were doing stuff for ESPN, you were also doing the Bassmaster Elite series, you were also doing the Bassmaster Majors. You were also doing the Red Fish Cup. Yeah. When you look back in Morning Dog Challenge.
All all of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How crazy was that time in your life? Well, that, that at one point we were doing not only ESPN outdoors on every Saturday for 52 weeks, we were doing it on Saturday and Sunday it would be on the newly christened ESPN two on Sunday
And for one about a year and a half it was on every day. There was a daily edition, which was an hour, an hour and a half on ESPN, too. So 365 days a year. We were doing that. And a close to that same time. There was a point
When we were doing a lot, not nine but 14. Bassmaster programs, you know, including, you know, the regular top 150 or the tour, the basketball at that time plus plus the elite fifties and things like that. College and college bass fishing as well came along in the mid to 2000.
So about six dog show dog shows a year and about seven steel timber sports shows a year and about eight Redfish Cup shows a year. It was there was one a lot of spare time to just kind of kick it around concept. You look at back in those times
As the good old days or is that like, Hell Yeah, it’s a little bit. But it was, you know, I’ve never thought of my job as it’s it has been stressful at times, but it’s never been a drudge. So I mean, yeah, I couldn’t complain. It’s like the greatest job on earth,
You know, No one, no one would take me seriously if I complained about it. So I. Well, what is your favorite part about your job? Like, if you had to pick a moment, I’m sure it’s a lot of things, but if you had to pick one moment, one thing that you just love
About your job, what is that? You know, what I love about my job is what we started doing. You and me and and Zona and Davey and such. And Ronnie ten years ago. Ten years ago, we started doing live bass fish on the air. That was the dream all along we were doing.
And we talked about this a little bit before we came on here. We were doing real good job on, you know, taking each tournament, condensing it down to an hour, or the classic convincing, it condensing it down to 3 hours, rolling that out as a very polished, what they call anecdotal
In the TV business, meaning it’s something that happens before not live show for people to enjoy. But then we made that jump to live bass fishing and. Oh, thanks. That’s pretty pro right there. Thank you. My phone just went just fine. Right? Okay. You could have grabbed it.
I mean, it would have added would not add it to the program at all. But yeah, that, that, that pointer which we started started doing that. I felt like I was part of a really not something that had been going on for years and years, but something that was brand new
And something that we’re all getting to invent. Our little part of it as it went along. And that, that, that to me was was a big thrill. It must have been incredibly frightening at the same time, I mean, because you you are you’re I mean, you’ve many people I’ve worked with, you’ve said
I mean, you’re the glue, like you’re the reason that keeps the wheels on when things go bad. You can ask people questions and they can answer them. But you’re still yielding the I mean, if somebody stops talking, everybody looks at you. Tommy Oh, right. Yeah, that’s true.
You know, it’s it’s it’s an old it’s an old trick, I guess, that TV people have been doing for for 75 years. It’s being able to disengage your brain and just keep talking, you know, just sort of sort of just sort of keep repeating the same information
In a different form over and over again till actually we have something to show somebody. And so that’s. Do you get panicked at all ever like, oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. Stressed out, Panicked, especially really even even today. Before we start a live a live broadcast, I get
I get a case of the butterflies. I’m you know, I’m it’s because it’s the fear of the unknown. You know, it’s like what is really going to happen? When am I going to actually, you know, make a horrible stumble that causes untold misery to the to a lot of people?
Hopefully that hasn’t happened yet, but that’s something I should think about. Do you get butterflies when you. You certainly don’t seem to. I, I don’t feel I feel an excitement. I feel like there’s an engage, like it’s almost like a heightened it’s weird. Like I don’t get butterflies. Like the traditional sense.
Like, I don’t think I really ever have. Like, I don’t think my mind is smart enough to figure out how stupid you are to go out in this state. You know what I mean? Like it. But I. I get an excitement and an intent, you know what I mean?
That is like to me that I love. I love it, I love it. And it’s different for me more on the stage than it is for at an event like doing play by play and stuff like that. To me, I mean, there’s an excitement with that, but I don’t know. I don’t know.
I don’t think it’s traditional excitement. It’s not nerve. Like I’m like, Oh, what’s going to go wrong? But there is an excitement, like, you need the lock in dummy, because they’re going to figure out that you shouldn’t have this job if you screwed up. That’s exactly how I feel,
What I think about you, and I think especially the classic when you’ve got, you know, 10,000 people out there in the audience all wanting everything to happen all at once, and you’ve got two boats coming back from the lake and you’ve got unknown gaps in your content,
You know, on the road ahead of you. You know that right around the corner that you can’t see. And that’s when I feel and I’ve I feel anxiety for you. Yeah. I mean, you don’t think big picture you just get if you if you I mean if you really start to think, hey,
The boats are stuck in traffic and I’ll hear that in my ear at times, Hey, you’re going to I mean, it’s almost the worst thing to tell me because, you know, you don’t want to even be thinking about it. But I just I mean, I just think, like you were lucky
To have a job where we were doing something we love. I don’t know that I could like, if you said, Hey, darts. Well, actually, that’s a bad example because I would love to be part of darts at some point in my life. I do want to yell 147 pretty good
Or bold or something like that. Yeah, but you know, another sport that I’m not into, I think that I would have a harder time doing that. You know what I mean? I love. Oh, yeah. Bass fishing. Like it amazes me people. And you’re very much like that.
People like Robbie Floyd. It’s like that. Like Robbie Floyd has literally spoken and been a commentator on everything from eating competitions to the Bassmaster Classic to the Olympics to Indy racing and everything in between. Oh yeah, yeah. He, he can do, he does his homework. It is exciting. And you know,
He’s, he’s got what an aptitude he has for that stuff he delivers. What’s the worst mistake you ever think you made? Like over the years, did you have one where you were like, I can’t believe I just did that? Oh, you know, the first time we worked on
The classic, I think was was pretty bad. It was like 2001 in New Orleans. And, you know, working with a bunch of people that I didn’t know very well and everything, and first time I’d I’d ever been live, somebody given me the traffic, you know, where we’re going because the classroom,
Just like you said, with the all the all the pieces don’t fall in as planned. And then in a time it just has to be, you know, lengthened and shortened and everything like that. And I actually threw to a commercial because I thought I heard them tell me in my
In my ear to throw to a commercial before right before something important was supposed to happen on the stage. And yeah, I think I pretty much saw the the whole, you know, walls of, of the city, you know, caving in on me at that point right there. But somehow,
Somehow time, time wounds, all heals. I mean, heals all wounds, as they say. Yeah. Yeah. No, that is a that’s a I mean my first classic, I remember almost knocking over the trophy and that to me stands out is like, like the trophy literally went to understand because I’m walking backwards or whatever,
And I hit it with my elbow and I remember just looking and seeing the go to do you know, it probably hard to even move. But in my mind, this thing was teeter tottering back and forth and you just hope people don’t see. But in today’s world of social media,
They remind you immediately, as soon as you stood up. And actually that sort of adds to your legend. I mean, that’s a physical gag that you can have fun with and everything like that. The people can have fun with it. It’s not just something, you know, awful and nervous making like what it
Was to you. I’ve told you for years and many people have told you this, and I know you’re going to again be like, No, I honestly believe that you’re one of the greatest commentators. I mean, you and Zona specifically. I mean, you and Davey are great. You I mean, it’s
No slight to anybody, but I just feel like you and Zona have an incredible long run together. Incredible chemistry. I would love to see you guys do everything, whether it be Monday Night Football, the Olympics. I would. I mean, if there was an additional bought in fee,
I would pay for it to see you guys. But who do you think in all of their sports is good? Is good at your job? Like who do you look at and be like, Oh, in all sports, you see? Yeah, in all sports, yeah. You know, and football season right now.
And of course, you know, NFL action is going on right now. To me, the play by play guy is is Tony Romo just barely ahead of Chris Collins. Romo is so quick and so fast. He’s real quarterback centric in his analysis and Colin’s work is good defense and wide receiver centric in his
And they both have, you know, great excitement and great in the moment you know, ability in the booth right there. Troy Aikman good to good also quarterback centric but I that’s the way I recommend that for baseball the guy I like right now is Ron darling
I don’t know if you ever listened to Ron Howard on TV sometimes former met you know, pitcher and he’s he’s really just well-spoken, really intelligent and and yet bright and funny. You know, when he when he needs to be. And let’s see, college football. Oh, gosh. You know, all my college football
Heroes, it’s Keith Jackson’s and Ron Franklin, our friends, you know, And those guys are not there anymore. But Todd Black Blackledge is pretty good, I think, in all the guy who did it with Musburger for so many years. And he does he does the time man. Well, is it cursory? STREET
Yeah, I like it much more in college than than an NFL. What do you think? I’m a big fan of his honestly, I find him I think he has such a unique quality and I think you have that same quality by owning the room without trying to own the room.
And what I mean like it to me it’s easy for a Romo to stand out. It’s easy for an Aikman to stand out because they come. It’s Troy Aikman, you know what I mean? He comes with that and that information. But I think, like what I love about Herbstreit Street
Is I find he stands out. But, you know, it’s not like you’re like, oh, that’s Herb Street. Like, to me, like, I feel like there’s just and I don’t even know how to explain. It’s the same with I know what you mean. Like when I’m watching you,
I’m like, Oh, I want to I’m You draw me into things, but you’re not drawing me in by waving your arms and being like, Hey, look at me. You’re you’re painting a picture. And I think Herb Street’s very good at that. Why don’t why do you like him better in college than NFL?
No, I just doesn’t, you know. And Al Michaels, thank email. Poor guy that just dropped him from the playoffs. Now, that’s terrible. You know, he’s ten years old. I mean, there’s only one in in the world, you know, he’s ten years old or nine. Not that I’m
Ever in his league, but my goodness. You know, but he is so great and he was so great with colleagues worth But it just I don’t know why, but it doesn’t seem quite as quite as meshed together to me. And I probably just listen at the wrong times or something like that.
What do you think? Do you like him on NFL stuff? Yeah, I mean, there might if you’re comparing that to I think I’m too big a fan of his to to like I just think he’s that good You know what I mean? Not like oh really. And I think commentators
Is such a personal thing. Like, I think we’re all going to get replaced eventually with a I, you know, oh, I’m going to be like, I’d like to listen to bass masters with an Australian female commentator. And it will it’s probably going to be delivered within the year. You know,
If I can, I can tell you who do you like? Who do you like in pro football? Who’s your favorite pro football? I’m see I’m I’m all over the place. But I think Al Michaels, as far as like a straight commentator, Al Michaels, there’s no better to me like to me,
He’s so good. I think as far as a color guy, the and he’s the newest, most popular thing in all of sports. And I’ve been a fan of his for a number of years is Pat McAfee. And I think his story is incredible because, you know, he was a kicker
That became a standup comic and whatever and tried to get on Monday Night Football and all of these things. And they said, no way, you are a risk. You are a bizarro a lot like a guy. We work with Mark Zona, not that he was turned away, but you know what I mean.
Like he brings that excitement with him. And so I think McAfee is incredible in all of that. But I also think that there’s great sports voices like a Dan Patrick. I think a Dan Powell. Yeah, really, really good. And he’s he’s he’s at his best now. What he’s been doing for the past
15 years, you know the the the show like you’re doing right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s not quite like what I’m doing, Tommy. I mean, I wish it was. Well, who’s the greatest hockey announcer? Who are the legends? Give me two legends who are still on top of their game. And I am. Well,
I get the greatest hockey announcer, in my opinion, is. But that’s because I’m. I’m from Canada and from Toronto. But Joe Bowen, who is is retired but he is. He is. I mean, some people would hate him because he’s a homer, you know what I mean? But he he
That’s what I love about him next. Now every announcer is a homer. You know what I mean? Doesn’t matter where you listen to the Chiefs. Guy’s a homer. They’re all. But at one time, that was frowned upon and he did a really good job of figuring out a way to to do it
And and. And make you cheer for him at the same time. But, yeah, no, I’d say he’s probably about the best. I mean, there’s Buster Hewitt and all these, you know, legendary names that have been around the other guy in Canada. There is incredible, this groundbreaker. But he lost his job.
Lost his job like a few months before COVID and literally all of can this been like from the moment you say you fired Don Cherry? It is never the world has never been the same, but he is like a Canadian, you know. You know he is he Yeah, he’s he’s the
You know, he’s the John Madden of of Oh, even do you know what I mean? Like he’s you know, the mean he’s a personality and everything but yeah I’d guess him but nobody tunes in the slightest of Yeah. I get in trouble every time I talk about other sports.
So let’s get back to fish. Okay. That’s fun. Why do you think you’ve been successful in your job? Oh, gosh, I don’t know. I really. I scratch my head. I’ve been very lucky to have gotten certain opportunities and, you know, recognize them for as things that I need to,
You know, prepare for pretty stringently and get ready to go and deliver something. I always try to have something ready to go. I always try to have something, you know, that a narrative, a story, a storyline is as far fetched as maybe it’s as sparse
As it may be that I can fill in. When I was when I opened my wrapper and start going, you know, that’s that’s that’s kind of what’s helped me. I think I’m a maybe should be in the moment more, but I’ll also scheme a little bit. I plan a little bit, Yeah.
So how early like when would you start that, that planning? You know, like, hey, we got a live show starting tomorrow at noon. Do you think about the day before? Is it hours before? Yeah, I guess before. I really do. I think about, you know and I know that sounds
I inherited this from my father. I go out and walk around of golf by myself the night before. We we do this and I do what the late Ron Franklin, who used to work on the Bassmaster Classic told me one day, says, Well, I was out on the parking lot,
You know, doing walking and working on my adlibs. I was working on my adlibs. We’re sitting by adlibs. And I figured it just every thing he says off the cuff, you know, it’s not off the cuff. He thinks about those things. He writes them in a way of speaking, you know?
And so that’s that’s kind of what I do. You know, I sort of just don’t think about anything like that. No pressure, no no time constraint. Just everything that occurs to me that might be worth mentioning in the course of a day, you know, a seven hour day
Being on the air and talking. So do you once you think of it, do you write it down or is it just something you kind of rehearse in your head? Yeah. What’s your process? I try to remember it, you know, I think of it. And of course, 11% of it I’ll remember.
And sometimes that’s enough. And oftentimes it’s not enough. Yeah, you’ve been through a lot with bass. When you look at how how many, you know, different ownerships, different directions, you know, you know, from being a ed show to now everything’s live all the time and increasingly more, you’ve seen some crazy ideas
And I don’t need you to put a name to any of these. But Tommy, would you share with me some of the craziest ideas that were ever pitched to you by nonfiction producers to do it, the bass? MASTERS Well, the first the first stabs at covering the classic giving coverage to the classic
Live coverage to the classic. One of the craziest ideas was Let’s have you on a set with an with with the play by play person and the occasional guest. And we won’t show any fishing, but you guys will talk about the classic or three or 4 hours, which is what happened.
You know, we’ll try to get some tapes in. We’ll try to. We’ll try. But it really never worked out very much. We’d get an occasional fish catch without context, you know, that They’d say, okay, now we’re going to get ready. We’re going to roll this catch that just came in from Lake Wylie
And you know, that’s you know, you guys talk about it and everything like that are from are from the Monongahela River. You know, we think that’s where the sketch was. And that’s like once every 2 hours you’d get something like that. And the rest of the time you just
You’re just tap dancing and, you know, and you’re with some very, really good people to talk to. But you carry the show. You know, guys like Marc Menendez, Ben Roethlisberger spent an hour with us on classic coverage one time. And he was terrific. He was great. You know, he fished as a kid
And he just left to rhapsodized about the the joy of fishing and things like that and talked a lot about the NFL and stuff. But it was it had very little to do with the class. You know, that was that was as far as individual silly things like, you know,
I don’t know sometimes there was there was some pressure on us to to hype up, you know, conflict where it’s just regular, ordinary, just differences of opinion, you know, sort of sort of turn that into a, you know, a life or death. You know, someone’s struggling just to survive this day.
You know, it’s, you know, just over dramatization, which is, you know, that’s a TV producer’s job. And if they they know the sport or they don’t know the sport, you know, sometimes they come in with the ultimatum that, you know, we’ve got to do stuff where people can’t switch away. Yeah.
Where they where they stay with it, you know, hey, what’s going to happen to this guy? Would some danger, you know, because it could be very could be very bad. I better I better stay with that. You understand. You know, you know why they do that. But still it’s it’s uncomfortable making
I but see, I don’t I don’t feel like we ever get any of that now. Or maybe, you know, tell me. But like, to me it’s just like talk about stuff and then like, I mean, I guess if you talk about the wrong stuff will get in trouble at some point.
But I mean, I’ve talked about a lot of wrong stuff and haven’t really got in trouble like we’ve all of us talk about the wrong stuff so many times we have a pretty good idea what to what to steer clear of and how to go ahead and talk about it without without raising
Anyone one’s attention in a bad way. You know, So is there when you look back at all the different ownerships and stuff like that, is there either you mean? I wouldn’t say is there a bet? What is the what are the what is the golden era of Bassmaster to you?
It seems like it’s something different to everybody. Is it now? Is it the past? Is it the future? Oh, I think it’s now. I mean, I think it’s now after the first three or four years of doing live till now, I think is the golden age of really
Being able to tell the story of what happened at the fishing tournament. I think, you know, before that the camera work camera, you know, situation and and connection situation was was often so it you know really not reliable that it interfered with the ability to tell a story and to and to know
Certain essential parts we’d lose guys multiple guys for an entire day and you know and they would come back and having done great things. But now I think it’s just it’s so well controlled. We have so many, you know, great people commenting. I think the anglers know how to play it
Better than they did back in the day. Absolutely. They they they know when to talk. They know what to explain to the viewer, how to say what just happened in a way that everyone can understand. I think now is the is the golden age right now. Do you remember what age would disagree
And say the golden age was 1985? Do you think that’s natural, though? Like as people age, they do. Or I mean, you know, like you get to a certain age, you’re like, I know what kind of music I like. I’m not wanting to listen to other ones. I don’t care how
Well you Well, you do it, you know. You know. Yeah, exactly. That’s right. That’s that’s the principle at hand here. Do you remember when you first met Mark Zona? Yeah, I do. I do. We were. I can’t remember. We were doing a preview of a some, a couple of tournaments
And they had us up to ESPN. Mark Zona had already been contacted and everything like that and, and he was going to be hired, he was going to come on and they wanted him and Jerry and I to be on to be on a show where there were
I can’t remember what the show. It was a studio show, and I don’t remember quite what the purpose was, but it was too kind of hard to to maybe roll out mark zone, you know, And we pulled into the parking lot right next to him. He pulled us up in his rental car
And he has a kind of a biker drag on, you know. You know what I mean? Kind of like a Harley-Davidson on its head. Yeah. You know, I don’t know why. It’s the only time I think I’ve ever seen him, you know, in that particular kind of get it. But that well, maybe,
You know, maybe like too much of a role that way, you know, likes to ride, you know, he’s born to ride, you know, the kind of guy, you know. And we were very we were, you know, kind of not real sure about one another at that point is
My is my opinion of it. Until he started talking, I said, well, obviously he’s going to be able to handle this just fine because he’s very smart and he knows he knows what’s up. You know, having never set foot in a TV studio before, he kind of knew right
Where to jump in and what to say. And that was the first time I met him was in Connecticut. So he never you guys never spent any time together. Previous. It was just like you two are working together and yeah, lettering. Yeah, yeah. And then he came in
And the next time I saw him, they said, we’re bringing him in to, to Do you know where it was? Just me and Jerry doing one of these postage shows, you know, with After the fact show I think it was from Guntersville and they brought him brought Mark Zona in to do it.
And it was it was great. I mean, was he was tremendous, You know, as you can imagine, he was he was born ready. Yeah. It was the old saying he’s like boiled ham. He’s always ready is I mean you went from working with Jerry to Zona. I would feel those are two very,
Very different people. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It was like it was like working with Winston Churchill, and then all of a sudden you’re working with Pat McAfee, you know, a little bit. Right. And you know, not quite that drastic. But yeah, it was it was a different it was a different thing I had
That had to keep up and soon realize and I think we talked about this the last time we talked, you know, I my role as the straight man to be the foil to his, his energetic, you know, notions and new ideas and crazy jokes and whatnot and gags that he would bounce off
Off the world and, you know, be in there to help set that up was was my role. And I was more than happy to play it and still am. Did you ever throughout your career, I mean, because you are honestly one of the funniest dudes I know, like, you know,
Eons I want to go out after a night in a after day work and some of the greatest memories. And you are one of the funniest dudes. But do you ever battle that? Because I think that some, you know, in TV that that’s a battle for a lot of people
To be the straight guy, to accept that like, I’m not going to be the laurel. I’m going to be the hardy you listen to. Sometimes I try to sneak a joke in. Oh, yeah, it’s back here and there and everywhere, But that’s that. That’s sufficient to me. It’s up to me.
It’s. It’s way more important to. To have the structure. You know, the way it’s working right now. You have to have every look at every, you know, entertainment team that there’s ever been. One is one is is is this the foil and the other one is the one who who delivers the gag.
You know, and you know, somebody you have to have a straight line to play against the the crazy line in order for it work. And that’s how shoot that’s there’s no other way to do it. What are some of your favorite anglers that you’ve covered or favorite moments
That you’ve covered in this sport? Favorite moments that I’ve covered in the sport. I just, you know, just about every time we do. Steve Kennedy I just love it. It’s just got a different energy, a different way of expressing himself. It is just so completely different from from everyone else. It’s like
It’s, I don’t know, you you could probably describe it better than I could, but I just love Steve Kennedy. I loved all of, you know, everything I can. That’s everything over the top that he’s done when he’s landed a fish, you know, you know, banging his head on the
You know, on the steering wheel and doing all that crazy stuff. I’ve loved all of that. But, you know, I’ve always loved you know, I get reminded of this on this project we’re working now about the history of bass. Yes. You know, we had Denny up and visited with Denny in a while,
And just all his his, you know, competent, knowledgeable thing, along with a real crusty ness. So irritability that that that is just makes him so, so much fun to listen to. You know, that’s, that’s other people, you know, gosh. Gerald Swindell Of course all those guys and you know, it’s just, it’s terrific.
You know, listen, I’m hold on, I got something to be delivered here. But anyway, you that that’s the deal. There’s okay, the mail. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Wow. At a moment when you don’t show. But I was going to call you later anyway. But now he took care of that. All right.
I guess Steve Bowman’s done it for the week. Yeah. Merry Christmas. On his way. Yeah. There you go. Little bonus from that. From that. The great Steve Bowman cameo. That’s right. Two Hall of Famers at once on camera just said great. You know, people from now I just like Drew Cook’s personality
You know he’s he’s he’s he’s irascible too. You know, he didn’t start out he started out kind of meek, you know, and sort of like getting his feet wet. And now he’s sort of, you know, he tells it like calls them like he sees them and, you know, talks about this.
I just you know, it’s it’s I’m leaving out all the important ones, I’m sure. But that’s who comes to mind immediately. Does it affect you in either way? Like the I mean, obviously and I can only a swindle people some of those people you mentioned, there are times where you can
Hit just cruise control and let him roll. Oh, yeah, it is. Does it affect you? Like when it’s a quieter angler? Do you feel like you have to work harder or is your job the same regardless? I guess the pressure is there to too, but also, you know,
If if they’re a quieter person, you have to give them some more time to say something, you know, and not just try to say, okay, well, he’s not going to say anything, so we’re just going to keep talking over this guy right here. You know, it’s I think you can read a lot
From from body language. And eventually everybody gives you something good. Most all the time. Don’t you feel when you’re doing it? Yeah, I think I think I think when I first started, I mean, even the show, there’s times where I’ve thought before, Oh, we’ll do this and this will be hilarious,
Or we’ll do this and that. And it almost never, you know what I mean? Like, you just let it happen and let the end. It’s the same advice I give every angler Be who you are and if who you are is a bounce off the wall hyper dude that is, you know,
Overly excited about everything. Be that. But if what you are is a quieter person or whatever, there’s people that relate with all of those. I think that’s the unique thing about I mean, I think it’s weird in fishing when you compare it to other sports, like, I mean, you can’t
I know you love golf, you can’t you can’t talk to Tiger. You can’t. I mean, there’s kind of the hold a sure sign. And meanwhile, we’ve in our sport, you not only have to talk to us, but you have to be entertaining. You have to you know what I mean?
There’s there’s a pressure from if it’s not even from us, that pressure from your family, from your partners, sponsors, you know, all the people that work with you who deliver more. Do you think that’s fair for the anglers? No, it’s very hard, I’d say. You know, you just not all
Not that you have to be all that and you have to be catching them at the same time, because if you’re not catching them, we’re not going to see you anyway. You know, by and large, you know, unless it’s day one, you know. So yeah, that’s a that’s tremendous. You got to be
You got to be the breadwinner. You got to be the the the team captain and the strategist. And you also have to be the the analyst and the play by play guy at some point yourself, you know, the whole time through. But that’s what people want. That’s what they demand they want.
I’d rather hear their version of why they’re doing something than certainly mine, you know. Have you ever gotten into a situation with an angler over the years where you said something and they didn’t like the way it was delivered? Oh, well, that’s the what comes to mind
Is as a person who had a name, just not isn’t fished Bassmaster for a long, long time and he it had a middle initial or a front initial and and I just called him by the two words of his name and didn’t put the front initial. And the next Monday
We heard from his sponsor who said that Angler ex is very, very disturbed that you did not say his initial that starts his name before you said the rest of his name. And I bet you can probably figure. Yes. But he is very, very you know, I had no idea.
People can be very protective of name, but I was I was certainly told to apologize to the sponsor and to that angler. And so I did. I did. Wow. Wow. You in zone. A lot of time has passed. I can tell that story. Yeah. I mean, I think also that. Do you believe?
I believe in general, the world is a lot more honest than it once was in the way that and I don’t know if it’s from social media, if it’s from all the live different things, but I just feel like it’s okay to tell a lot of stories now where people would be like,
I can’t believe you brought that up. Like just people. Are they less offended, do you think, or do you agree with me? I think they’ve just come to expect it. You know, back 25 years ago, you could you could sort of cruise along and pick your spots and appear like a hero.
The times that you were, you know, in the public eye, in the spotlight and everything else would would slide, would slide away unnoticed. And now everyone knows that nothing goes unnoticed anymore. You know, you’re you don’t have a fans. You have Stans stalker fans. You know, and the people
That consume everything you do because it’s all laid out there because the pressure is on you to get it all out there all the time. So I think they just expect it. I don’t I don’t know if they like it anymore or they’re more agreeable to it, but they know to expect it.
And they’re smart. They they sort of conduct themselves accordingly. You’re working on a project, you mentioned it a few minutes ago, and I think it’s one of the most important projects in fishing. But the cast. Tell me about it. Oh, the cast. Yeah. Well, of course, the thing about the cast is
It was spurred to late by the passing of Ray Scott. I mean, what an incredible person. The the main source for all the stuff that we do now, it is the Bass Anglers Sportsman Society. So in the in the wake of that, in the year after that, it was, you know,
Everyone started thinking, Wow, we really need to do you know, we’ve had a great sport up to now because most of the original guys were still around up until just a few years ago. And many, a few of them still are, you know, and we’re thinking about whether they’re not
Many of them are not around anymore. And there’s going to be a whole of them not around. That’s the way the world works. And so we need to get talking to these people and get the real story about what the world was like before versus what professional bass fishing was like before bass.
So we started this project called the cast, and I think we’re coming out with seven or eight episodes of it to start the New Year, starting in the New Year. I don’t know exactly which which date it starts on in the first episode is a one hour episode where we take it
From the very start from back before beginning be assessed from right. We take it from Ray’s world, what he was seeing right then and the people that populated it at that time were primarily a guy named Glen Andrews who was thought of as the guru of bass fish.
He was the authority on bass. Virtually everyone who wanted to get really good at it sought Glen Andrews out and we found Glen Andrews in his nineties. Still just as lucid as as you can imagine, and spend the day with him up at his home and got some great stories from him
About the Wild West world. It was professional fishing. He pitched into what they called the World Series of fishing and he was the World Series champion and all these crazy tournaments with where they changed the rules on him because he was so good and he had to
He had to have a fistfight with a guy who had bet on the tournament, a fistfight back at the dock because this guy was out there messing with him with his boat while he was out practicing the day before the tournament started. So he had had a fish
With a cast on his arm through the tournament and still won it, I think. And and Glenn is just great and and still, you know, in that. And that’s where it started. And so to tell that story, guys like Glenn, guys like Bob Cobb, you know, who was right there from the beginning
With Ray before the classic All the things that happened before the classic, especially Bassmaster magazine and how that was different and still is for many other fishing publications. And Bob is a great storyteller, of course, and did a great job and Severe who succeeded Ray.
We got her in the room as well and Jim Keen, students who was race sort of assistant, you know, for some she gave us some great stories. One story in particular I could think of when they were they had gone to Iraq during the Iraq war to hand out rods
And kind of do a tour around and promote fishing, you know, And so Jim and Ray were had finished that tour there waiting near the airport to get their ride out of Bagram or whatever airbase they were at the big C-130, the big transport pulls up there
And a guy walks out and in a kilt and bagpipes and starts playing. And then they start bringing out the coffins with the American flag draped home of all the the fallen soldiers who are going back home. And he talked about how much Ray was moved by that, you know,
And how that really affected him and as it would anybody. But just stories like that, you know, sort of flesh out Ray’s world and why he was such a great, unique America. He was an only only in America. He was he was like Don King, you know, he had. Yeah.
And and that’s the of Ray is fascinating. It takes up most of that that one hour but great reminiscences from the likes of Bill Dance and Hank Parker and Bobby Murray and people like that all telling his story. And and then we take it up to the first classic and Bobby’s
Whole account of that and all the things we never knew about that classic and about him winning it, why that was so improbable. And those those first tournaments and Johnny Morris talking about and Jim Morris was a part of that same back day, qualify for it first and then the first couple
Three classics I think. And you know, his story and how he got his giant mega business started with that group basically as the, you know, the walking billboards for bass fishing and bass fishing tackle that he was selling through the mail at that time. So there’s a fascinating story. And that’s the
That’s the kick off and it takes a surpassed the classic through the first first half of the seventies. You know you know and it’s it’s really we have guys like Rick Clunn and Hank Parker who you know fill us in so well on all of that. And of course it moves up at
I think really seven episodes will probably get will probably get well into the nineties, maybe halfway, maybe halfway into the nineties because we have Denny or Larry Nixon and Davy is terrific on it. You know, it’s just always we spent a lot of time with the likes of Dewey Kendrick a trip
Well then you can imagine the things that trip will take you know your work with Tripp for so many years. He was as you can imagine, just really great. And it’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be really good as something we’re all real proud of. It’s a very cool project.
I look, I really look forward to seeing it. I think in general, we all forget how young. I mean, our sport is. I mean, like like you mentioned Rick Clunn, and that’s the amazing thing. This is going to be his 50th season this year. He is been there from the beginning,
Basically like take that. I mean, as you age, do you look at Rick Clunn and be like, look, I don’t think people really look and realize just I mean, he’s 78 years old. Like, it’s incredible that he’s still competing, still competitive today. He’s he’s he’s so different. He’s a miracle.
And there’s just nobody like him. He he has thrown off all the shackles that we have on us that prevent us from, you know, being in the game for for forever and forever. We got to go sit down. I’ve got to hit the bench for a while. I just I can’t compete.
He’s not bound by any of that stuff. And we visited him up at his place, this beautiful place way back in the woods. And he told us some great tales, including fishing. I will say this fishing in the all together. But when the was not in a commercial,
Not not in a tournament, but a in a in a very secluded place, you know, just seeing what it was like to be sans clothes fished. And I hope it makes it into the show. So I haven’t at least for the longest time, because we heard a lot of stuff
That we thought, oh, gosh, I wish we could use that. But I don’t know if we can or not source of stuff like that. Well, you can use it here, Tommy, Just so you know, if it doesn’t make it in there, this this particular show has no rules whatsoever. Well, that was one
Of the others that I really do have to tiptoe around it. Maybe get permission even to use use on your no holds barred, nasty, naughty show that you run here today. That’s what we are. Naughty. Very, very naughty of that show looks at the past of bass fishing and what got us here.
And I think that’s super important. But what do you think the future of it is, Marty? You see this sport ten, 20 years from now? Gosh, I see it changed some. I think, you know, I mean, we’re we’re seeing some changes now. The stuff we’re always talk about
That’s got everybody up in arms, you know, one thing or another from year to year. And a you know, the business is change. The industry that is fishing industry is changing. And I don’t know how that’s going to affect how anglers make it in this world, how they how they go forward, whether
Who it’s going to favor and who’s going to it’s going to be rougher on, I think, TV, a lot of talent, you know, people doing the TV show, not, you know, younger than me, of course, but I don’t worry about that too much. I think they’re going to be able to the take.
And for the viewers. I think the viewers well, the viewers get to make a lot of decisions. Whether they choose to watch or not is going to define some of these some of these elements, whether they stay or whether they go, They’re going to be the ultimate arbiters.
If if they don’t watch, then that will spur change, I think by a by a unanimous decision on the part of anglers, industry, people, sponsors and so forth. Where do you think it’s going one day? Well, you’re really good at turning questions. I mean, I like how you do this. I mean,
I realize you’re very good at this. You do get into a set and you give me kind of an answer. Then you’re like, Well, why don’t you just tell me your thoughts? But my thoughts, that’s what people really want. Bull crap, I think. I think the term world
I mean, I think it’s very strong. I think it’s just going to continue to evolve. I don’t believe the the I believe we live in a very weird time right now. Like, I mean, and I think most times I mean, the fact that we fish for five biggest fish
And we make such a big deal out of it is really weird in general. Like all of it’s weird, but I think that we live in a time where and I don’t know that it’s ever been like this in the past, but the push for negativity sells to a certain extent,
And you see it in every sport. It’s the the sky is falling and in it just seems to increasingly get more. So I think that there’s a lot of people out there that say this is going to change, that’s going to change. It always has. It always has.
Since day, the cast will show you that. I mean, oh yeah, the limits have changed. And now the way a pro is perceived is changed. I mean, the fact that at one time Bob Cobb and race car had to fight the law to release fish. I mean, just right when you say that.
Now it just seems like Mississippi, there can’t be even a real story. So I think it’s going to constantly change. Yeah, but I think that it’s it’s a special it’s never going to change for the people that love it. And it’s always been that way. But that’s the great point. There’s a certain
Percentage of the population who are, as we say in Arkansas, eat up with it, who cannot get enough of it, never will be able to get enough of it, no matter what the form of it is. Yet they still get to vote. You know, with what they watch more
And what they watch less and and how they communicate with with everyone in this world, in this culture that that race started by the way, you know. And yeah, you’re right. That’s a great point. It’s always changed and it’s going to change some more. It’s never been without challenges and it’s it’s never,
You know, the going has never been, you know, smooth and easy. The going is always tough. And shoot fishermen will find a way to fish. Guys are going to crawl, crawl over an eight foot chain, link fish, advance the fish if he’s eat up with. And and I think that we don’t give
The sport enough credit for how far it’s come. You know what I mean? Like when you go to a Bassmaster Classic and you see 150,000 people go to a town to support and not fish, just not fish. The thing they love, they don’t get to do that. They’re just watching other people
Do it in. I mean, least they get to watch it now with live. I mean, for a long time it was just like they went out and came back and told regaled us with their stories. But like to me, I think sometimes people got to
Look can be like there’s a lot of sports that would look at fit that probably look at fishing, look at the bass master. You scratch your head and say, How does how is that a thing? Because it is amazing that you know the way it is. You look at the staging just in
In the time that Jim took over. Weighins I mean, I think people forget it When ESPN owned it, they spent a lot of money. But if you look at those, if you go back to classics previous to 2011, the staging, the lighting, none of it is at that next level.
Like it is literally just a small stage in the corner. It gets bigger and better every year. And the weird thing is, and this seems to be coming pretty relevant pretty quickly when I have conversations with people, there’s a lot of older people that say it’s it’s
This is not good, this is going this way. But the young people, there’s more young people now than ever. And the one thing in mankind that is undefeated is youth. That’s right. I mean, if you’re going to if you’re going to bet on something, you bet on youth, it wins every single time.
And the fact that there’s that many high school kids, college kids, grade school kids fishing when I was in school and, you know, I did I had a picture of Hank Parker in my locker and I remember him. It was a toy. It was a hummingbird ad.
And he had the trophy over his head. He had won the classic, and that was the picture at my locker. And I remember people used to laugh at it and make fun of it. And now we just had a high school kid qualify for the Bassmaster Classic, and that’s in my lifetime.
You know what I mean? It’s it’s I think we’ve we we sometimes in the drive for negativity people forget just how amazing what’s happened in the sport of fishing is. Yeah that that’s the way reporting is now reporting has to be about you need to be fearful because you need to
Give us a hit not every day, but every hour. Yeah. So, so keeping people agitated is the whole purpose of reporting and following news these days. And that’s so unfortunate. It just it just ruins it for a lot of people. But that’s that’s you’re right. That’s the changes. I mean,
When you watch this casting and you’ll see the the 79 way in at the classic in a parking lot, you know, with the strike people walking across the parking and putting the fish down on a scale that was obviously borrowed from the butcher shop down the street, you know, and and
Compare that to the being in the, you know, the the arena there in Fort Worth. You know, this brand new place is just the Dickies arena. And and the contrast is amazing. And so it’s amazing how far we’ve come. That’s yeah. And I think that gets forgotten sometimes people you know
And again it you know, back in the day I mean, I love a lot of stuff I look back on to every that’s just natural but look where it’s gone. Like look at I mean it’s just like the battle of would there ever be a summer classic? Because no kids
Go to the classic when it’s not in the summer. Look at that. I mean, let’s not just take opinions. Let’s just look at the numbers. Every year, the classic numbers go up and up and up. And that’s been since it’s been switched to the winter. I mean, I love the fact
That summer classic, there’s there’s things that I love about it, but the classic is a much more important event in the sport fishing world today than it was ten years ago than it was 20 years ago. And absolutely, if you fight in those crowds, Knoxville just trying to get into the building
For for a way in or the other building for the expo, you know, it was you know, you thought you’re never going to get there. It was it was just way beyond anything anyone expected. It was beyond capacity. And and I just couldn’t believe it was so good. All right.
I’m going to I’m going to play a little name game here with you. I’m going to just give you some names. Okay? You can tell me a story. You can give me one word on them, whatever direction you want to go. Right. And I’m going to start the Jerry McKinnis hero for me.
And, you know, visionary. Absolutely. He was he was there at the beginning of all that bass fishing stuff, too. But he like Bobby Murray, like Bill Dance, of course, they fish some tournaments. He fish just a handful of tournaments. But he he had a vision for it back then.
And that’s kind of still what we’re unrolling for the world right now here in this building that he built. And that’s as Jerry McKinney’s my inspiration, Bob Cobb. Bob Cobb, great storyteller. I mean, a guy who would had no quit in him, just like Ray saw a way to to create something
Absolutely unique with with bass master and successfully beyond all your expectations did that and then turned as turned his his talents to the TV which he had no idea how to do and got that done as well to end. Like we just mentioned, it’s still many people’s favorite era for bass master television.
Bob Cobb still relevant? Absolutely. You mentioned him already today, Denny Brower. Denny Brower, you know, so many tournaments, 14 tournaments. Yet until he won that classic 1998, he felt kind of like, I’m not really a success. He really, really said it’s never going to happen. I’m going to be, you know, forgotten.
And of course, that wasn’t true. And then he then he won the classic and he’s still a hero to so many people. Kevin Van Dam. Kevin Van Dam, the goat, the greatest of all time tournaments. One second, of course. And angry gear to to Roland four classics tied for the lead in that
With Rick Klein and you know someone who took took it where I I didn’t foresee it being taken in the mid-nineties you could see flashes of that from him. But then then he just man, he waited out of the crowd and just started slaying every dragon out there. I mean, he’s
He’s he’s a conqueror in the in the world of masters. James Overstreet. James Overstreet, world’s most interesting human, to be sure, person who gets stopped by TSA for way too much, you know, just because of how he looks. It’s not fair. It’s not fair at all. One of my favorite people,
Country in the most endearing way and uncompromising and a great, great artist as well. James Overstreet, Mike McInnis, Mike McKinnis unsung, super, incredibly visionary, like his dad, very capable, probably a better organizer, probably better at dealing with the people he works with on a day to day basis. No ego. I mean.
No, no, no, no. You know, grandeur, you know, delusions of grandeur for him, he knows the job. He knows he can do it. A supremely confident but in a non egotistical way and just super capable and and creative. Very much so. Yeah. He’s I don’t want to inject myself in this,
But in my opinion, he needs to be in the best position. Hall of Fame. Oh, actually Mike McInnis created live like that alone like the the dream that his own father dreamt of one day live bass fishing and he he is the reason. I mean, I remember what he told
The three of us. Me, you know that. And we were all like, Yeah, that. That’ll never work. One of those crazy ideas. Yeah. Wishful. Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, and he, he’s, he’s a detail guy on top. All that he attends to every little thing that’s got to get done in order
For that to happen. And he knows how to delegate the other things to people who are better than that. Better at that than anyone else. Yeah. Davy Hite. Davy. Hi. One of the greatest anglers of all time. Two, for starters, an incredibly personable human being and very, very good.
From the very first time he sat here, a tournament at Okeechobee and did the analysis so different from Mark Zona. But so good, you know, just so, so solid and empathetic and, you know, with, you know, experience the draw. And that’s, you know, a measure and just
A he’s one of the he’s a Navy SEAL. He’s like you and Mark Zona. I mean, you guys, you know, me and Ronnie. And so each week we hang around here all day and deal with the rest of we don’t we don’t pay attention to one another. We take each other for granted.
But you guys are the Navy SEALs. You come in is one of. Yeah. Mark Zona, they the original Navy SEAL who came in here full blown, ready to go, ready to be one of the top. Let’s face it, sports analysts not in fishing, but across the spectrum of sports, extremely savvy,
Extremely good at reading people and knowing what excites them and knowing what they’ll do, how they will react in a certain situation. An incredible mind for every detail of how a fish is caught, no matter where it is, what the situation is, and a tremendous instinct for entertainment. I mean, that’s
That’s what it’s all about. I mean, you always walk away from whatever mark Zona is doing, watching it, wanting more. If you have to leave, you’d rather stay. And I think that’s the ultimate compliment. All right. I got another one. And this one’s probably going to be the most difficult for you.
Yeah. Tommy Sanders. Sanders tries to be prepared, tries to have something every day. That’s the way you deal with maybe not having something fantastic every now and then as you try to have something at least semi-solid every day and you know that enjoys it. Incredibly lucky above all, and incredibly
Gifted with a cast of players in this endeavor that are beyond good, that are all the superlatives, the top of their craft. So lucky in a word, here’s my well, I’ll just switch that up for one word. Lucky. Lucky. Yeah. I think there’s more than luck involved, but thank you, mate. You are.
You are incredible and irreplaceable. So you’re never going to retire right? Oh, no. I guess I didn’t think I was. I mean, Mike and I said at the end of last year, I said, okay, are you going? I said, Well, I guess if you you’ll have me, I’ll, I’ll go out.
Are you going? Yeah, I’m going to go. So okay, we’ll just reboot. Is it a start of 724. Okay. And now we’re all plugged into all these things. So I guess I guess we’re going for another year, but no, it’s not going to come on. Once again, I’m no Al Michaels,
But you know. Well, yeah, long as I can feel youthful doing it. But at some point, the natural order thing, you got to pass the torch. You got to, you know, one, one thing that I think we left out that you started to hit on in the future. Bass fishing.
We’ve got more for young people than than there’s ever been available. Yeah, than ever before. At way more each and every year. I mean, you had to. You had to defend yourself on the poster, I think Hank Parker and scrambled to find every little tidbit of fishing information they can
They can jump into a whole world of it, you know, for better or for worse. That’s what the the, the and the Internet and social media allows us to do. We’ve got way more for young people than we’ve ever had before. And, you know, I think they probably
Would welcome seeing a younger face hanging out of these bands on these mass markets or broadcast. I disagree. I think everybody loves seeing you there, Tommy, But what would you do if you retired? Like, what is what I’m asking? I mean, you know, I’d play golf, but, you know,
We go travel a lot and go camping and fishing and hiking and golf and a lot and stuff like that. But, you know, you never know. I think people never know, you know, people who are some of them just like fallen off a log is perfect for them.
You know, they’re good to go. And others kind of they’re at sea. They’re they’re lost a little bit. It takes them a while. And sometimes they never do figure out how to fill up their days. You could just it’s it’s a daunting thing for everybody. I think YouTube, YouTube is your future.
If you retire, I will pay. I’m more gladly subscribed to just watch you just like wherever you are. Florida keys walking along commentate on what you see. Okay. Well yeah, I made it to every day. Right now I’m watching somebody scoop ice. You’ll send me some shows that I can throw to Will
Just recreate the old ESPN outdoors format and you know you know you can round up some shows and we’ll we’ll just do a whole morning’s worth every week. Sounds like a plan. Yeah. Yeah. Are you are you all set for Christmas? No, no, I’ve still got Christmas shopping to do.
I’m enjoying it. Very nice. Keep it. I’ve a nice family gave me. That’s good. That’s very nice. That’s wonderful. Otherwise. Otherwise I got work to do. What is your favorite Christmas tradition? My favorite was when I was like most people. It’s from when I was kid. My dad would, you know, we’d.
We’d get up, would have the Santa Claus had left this or that for from play with our toys. But he’d get real tired of watching that for after about 45 minutes we’d eat breakfast and we’d get and we’d go do something. We go down to the bayou somewhere that he grew up on
And maybe, maybe fish, but just walk and be out there, dig for arrowheads, stuff like that. We’d duck hunt, you know, on Christmas mornings, back in those certain seasons when you could, we would play golf and 25 degrees one Christmas morning, that was, you know, it was, you know,
It got you away from all the trappings, you know, and into, you know, something different just to get your mind off something you’ve been ginning up in your mind as a kid for three weeks or three months, you know, in advance of Christmas. I, I was thankful for that. Do you remember, like,
Did you ever have that gift when you were a kid, like a Red Ryder? You know what I mean? The Red Ryder, B.B. gun, whatever. Like, do you have any of those memories of that gift you really wanted or or even gave someone? I wanted a certain kind of bicycle
Back back in the day, you know, and it was it was it was it was, of course, of the expensive kind and the kids type bicycle, you know, and and I, I it was unreal. I was unrealistic about it. And got a perfectly good bicycle. But I remember being a little selfish lately,
You know, disappointed for a for a brief moment there. So that’s yeah I bet we’ve all our got one leg but that was my one shiny object that I that I really wanted so much, but I taught myself to get along with the other. You I had. Yeah.
I had some I mean it was a fish and reel. There was one fish and really, really wanted at one time and, and that was kind of my bread bribe. It begun when I was a kid and, and I just like to read, write or be begun.
I didn’t shoot my eye out with it, but I was thankful, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t. Yeah, it’s weird. I mean, it’s so funny. Like, as you get older, like, literally all you want is time. Like, just one time with people. But you know what I mean?
Like, I don’t care about gifts at all anymore. Like, I like hard to get that time, you know? It’s that. That’s so precious. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Oh, that’s too depressing direction to take it. I know how to pick this back up, though. We. Okay, We have something.
It is a it is a tradition on this show. We started it two weeks ago, three ago, I guess this tradition and it’s a new thing we do in the show called Ask for answer a question, ask a question. So it started with David Fritz
And he asked a question to the next guest without knowing His next guest is. And then it went on to our next guest will last week with nine guests. They all answered the question. They were all the new rookies. Oh, yeah, that are coming. They all answer the question,
But they’re horrible at asking questions. So for this week’s ask a question, we went to the viewers and I needed a serious answer to this. Tommy and I thought this was one you’d enjoy. I mean, you asked you some very traditional, boring questions. This is not
This question is who wins in a fight, a bald eagle or a king cobra? I say the king cobra wins the fight. The king Cobra wins the fight because he has venom. And we’ve heard, you know, we all the mongoose can kill that, the cobra and so forth like that.
But the bald eagle, despite being our national symbol, the bald eagle is just not a fighter. You know, he’s really not he he doesn’t he prefers dead stuff. He’d rather go pick up a dead coot than fight a live goose for sure, to get something to eat.
He, you know, he loves flying over birds on the water and scaring him, but he doesn’t ever he rarely, you know, he you know, once in a while he’ll snatch a little snatch of fish out of the water. If the fish is not doing too well, which is why
It’s on top in the first place, probably. But I safer, I say for no fear, the cobra. The Cobra Windsor. Okay. Now, very un-American of you, huh You people have a hard time working with you. Wow. Tommy Sanders really hates America, but really be the Overstreet and Davey. Hite We’re in the subway
Last year, whatever. And the lady says to Davy’s ordering a sub, the lady says, What kind of cheese? And he says, American. And Overstreet turns to me. He’s like, What are the colonel’s cheese? You think baby hide orders? It’s good to get his hat, lady. What kind of cheese do you think?
Exactly? Yeah. Taught me one of my favorite holiday traditions that happens in our house is every year. Doesn’t matter how. How big and old my children get, they have me read the night before Christmas to them, before they go to bed. And I’ve always told you. I mean, we did Dr. Seuss.
I think the last time you were on this show. We did. We did. We did do what? One fish. You you trotted out one fish to fish. And we did. Yeah. Yeah. It was a big hit. People loved it. And I thought for this, our festive special, you could read the Night before
Christmas. Oh, wow. Clement Morse the night before Christmas. And that’s not the name of it, by the way. Point of trivia. Wow. What is it? Name of It is a visit from Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas, popularly known as the Night Before Christmas. All right. So do you have a copy nearby?
Oh, here’s one right here. How about that? Yeah. Okay, You ready? I’m just going to sit back and enjoy. All right. Put yourself in that place. Twas the night before Christmas. And all through the house. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds with visions of sugarplums danced in their heads, and mama in her kerchief and I in my cap, had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap. When out on the lawn there arose
Such a clatter that I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. The way to the window. I flew like a flash, open the curtains and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow gave a luster of midday to objects below. When what?
To my wandering eyes appear but a miniature sleigh eight tiny reindeer with a little old driver so lively and quick. I knew what a moment he must be. Saint Nick. And he whistled and shouted. Call them by name now, Dasher, now Dancer, now Prancer and Vixen. On Comet.
On Cupid. On Donner and Blitzen. To the top of the porch. The top of the wall. Dash away, Dash away, Dash away All When they meet with an obstacle like leaves before the wild hurricane. When they meet with an obstacle, they mount to the sky. So up to the house top the corsairs.
They flew with the slave full of toys. And Saint Nicholas, too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the Ruthe, the pawing prancing of each little hoof Anna I drew in my head and was turning around and down the chimney. Saint Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur
From his head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot and a bundle of toys. He flung on his and he looked like a peddler just opening his sack, his eyes, how they twinkled his dimples, how Mary, his cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow. And the stump of the pipe he held right in his teeth. And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath. Sarah He had a broad face and a little round belly that shook when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a ripe, jolly old elf, and I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself, but a wink of his eye and a twist of his head soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
Filled all the stockings and turn with a jerk. There’s more and laying a finger a side of his nose and giving a nod up the chimney. He rose sprang to his sleigh to Steve, gave a whistle and a way they all flew like a down of a vessel. But I heard him exclaim
Ere he drove out of sight. Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night. That’s the visit from Saint Nicholas Day. Tommy Sanders. You are incredible. You are a gift to our sport. And I believe you have just recited a new holiday tradition for Bacitracin fans all around the world.
They will listen to Tommy Sanders. What is the name of it again? It’s not a night before a visit from Saint Nicholas. A visit from Saint Nicholas. From Saint Nicholas? Yes. That’s the actual name of the poor Clement Moore. All right. I think it Day was a beautiful rendition. Thank you.
I’m a I’m a ham from way back. So you’ve known that all along? I love that stuff, Tommy. You you’re one of the people, I guess I said before I did the show, one of the people who I love to talk to the most. And I appreciate you spending time time with me
And our viewers here this week. And Merry Christmas. Thank you. The feeling is mutual, Dave. I love every time I get to visit with you and we don’t get to visit enough, But thanks for having me on the show today. What a way to finish a festive special. I could listen to Tommy
Sanders, read anything, and I loved listening to him read The Night Before Christmas or whatever the actual name is. I just know it is the night before Christmas. But thank you, Tommy. Thank you, Aaron. Your voice. And thank all of you for for making this show an actual thing.
I mean, this is honestly something I look forward to. It’s one of my favorite things that I get to do. I mean, not just because I get to have conversations with amazing people, but because I get to share them with you guys. Because I get to communicate with you guys.
You guys have made this show in this community something very, very special. And I cannot thank you enough for that. Next week I’m off. It’s the only week to take off all year in between Christmas and New Year’s. So there will be no show next Wednesday. But maybe I mean, sometimes we actually
Maybe it’ll be something up. So check up next Wednesday. Disregard what I said, but we will not be recording the show. But I will tell you this. You guys have made this something and I’m going to do everything I can to continue to make this bigger and better than it’s ever been.
And we have some guests booked for 2024. They’re already lined up and ready to rock. And trust me when I tell you the upcoming guests are incredible, incredible guests. Some of the who’s who of the fishing world and some of the most interesting people in the fishing world.
And I hope you all enjoy it. So have a very merry Christmas, a happy New Year, a happy Hanukkah or whatever you celebrate. Happy holidays to all of you. I hope you spend it surrounded by family, surrounded by loved ones and surrounded by happiness. As always, enjoy being.
And for the final time in 2023, Bob Cobb, Take it away. Thanks for watching. Please like comment and subscribe. Because Bob Cobb, of the bass masters, told you too, you hear? you hear?
22 Comments
Awesome Dave! Tommy reading The Night before Christmas was the best I ever heard. That’s got to be a every year tradition. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Happy birthday Dave great show Tommy is a gem !!! Merry Christmas all
Happy Birthday Dave!
PERFECT way to end the season,DAVE! Belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY & to you and your family we hope that y’all have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS & A SAFE, HEALTHY, & PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!
I’d hate to run my boat 70 mph plus at 17 next to other speed demons during takeoffs. It can get squirrel e out there. That’s first thought as well what I’d b thinking of the most. Or 4 plus ft rollers solo. Great deal on him getting to the big dance so fast
Couple thoughts, Dave… Pat McAffee is Epic… I can listen to Tommy for hours and hours and lastly… you’re crushing it with guests and content. Happy Belated Dude 🎉! BigBass, Out!
I agree college football Keith Jackson whooo Nelly!!!! Loved when he called Alabama games now Eli gold is awesome …but Tommy and Z are great tommys voice is relaxing exciting but relaxing i do like Davey tooh by the way any talk of KVD doing some in the future ? Who better To talk bass? and MERRY CHRISTMAS to u and yours dave 🧑🎄
Tommy is by far my favorite person in bassmaster history. Above all anglers he is the number 1 reason to tune in to bassmaster
Great show Dave! Merry Christmas! I can’t wait for the season to start.
Happy 50th! Keep on feeling/acting young
One the most enjoyable pod cast I’ve ever watched!
Great show, loved it Dave. Tommy Sanders and Bob Cobb are the voices of BASS! Love hearing Tommy on live. Great to hear Tommy read the night before Christmas. Have a great and Merry Christmas! Hohoho! 🎅🏻
Dave, your podcast is awesome bro. I really look forward to watch them.
Not impressed..sorry..
What about Gary Thorne
Big thanks and what a dad, who before final day, was the young man's partner! Ole dad let him fish The spot. What a thing to do for your son!
Happy Bassday
Dave, I literally didn’t want this one to end.
Great pod cast Dave as usual Merry Christmas to you and your family and wish you a blessed new Year
👍
Aaron should weight into Seventeen by winger for the classic 😂
Yup…great way to end the BASS/Mercer season with “uncle” Tommy reading a Christmas classic…the best!