Required Reading
By Pete Robbins
Mid-Atlantic Staff Writer
Feb. 1, 2008
I spent a combined seven years in institutions of higher learning in pursuit of my undergraduate and law degrees. Along the way, there were a lot of books I was supposed to read.
At the undergraduate level, every student was expected to read the entire canon of Western literature starting with Homer's Iliad and running through Aristotle, Rousseau, Freud and others I can't remember.
Law school was worse –- at least the Greeks knew how to tell a story. Even though the cases were shorter, there was little excitement in contracts, civil procedure and Federal income taxation.
I can't say that I read every word at both levels. Truth be told, some of the books were never even purchased, checked out of the library or removed from the shrink wrap. In hindsight, it brings to mind the words of John Belushi's character Bluto Blutarsky in Animal House: "Seven years of college down the drain." I could've spent more time chasing little green fish.
Nevertheless, I'm enough of a nerd that I continue to read a fair amount of literature. Not just the sports page or my bass magazines, either. Books – real books – continue to be a passion of mine along with fishing. Fortunately, I've been able to combine the two interests.
I got my first bass book when I was 10 years old. I read about Doug Hannon in Sports Afield magazine and wrote him a letter of admiration. He sent me a copy of his book with a note: "To my pal Peter Robbins – a great bass fisherman and CONSERVATIONIST. Doug Hannon." I still treasure it today.
I've added substantially to the collection since then. I will continue to add to it and hope that one day I too can add a work of my own to join the masters.
Here's a list of five that I've enjoyed. I believe they're all still available:
Bass Wars: Angling for Fame and Fortune In Big-League Bass Fishing, by Nick Taylor (1988)
Nick Taylor had very little experience with our sport prior to researching this book and he was relatively unaware of the popularity or reach of professional bass fishing. That worked to his advantage in crafting meticulous descriptions of techniques and personalities that could draw in the non-fisherman and fascinate the expert angler alike.
The framework of the book compares the efforts and lifestyles of the "haves" (Rick Clunn, who was already an admired and seasoned veteran 20 years ago) and the "have nots" (primarily a newcomer named Randy Moseley, who no longer fishes the tour). In between, he managed to weave in anecdotes and descriptions of major players including Ray Scott, Orlando Wilson (where have you gone, Orlando?), Jimmy Houston and others. Danny Correia, then an unknown, is treated with particular grace.
While he was compassionate where appropriate, Taylor's status as an outsider to the industry enabled him to point out flaws and blemishes without hesitation. He pointed out prize pots swelled by annuities that wouldn't mature for years and talked about some of the rivalries and jabs that occurred between anglers, like the competition between Clunn and Roland Martin, or the barbed comments that Wilson made about Clunn's victory in the All-American.
Twenty years later, the book still rings true. If you watch TV coverage from that era everything looks dated – the boats, the rods, certainly the anglers' clothes, but the book still seems current. It's one that I re-read every year.
Diary of a Bass Pro: A Year on the Inside of Fishing's Fast Track, by Joe Thomas with Tim Tucker (1992)
Before there were Blogs or online tournament journals (actually, before most of us knew what the internet was), Joe Thomas put his career out in the open for everyone to see, in this introspective look at his year on tour.
The book chronicled a year's worth of tournaments, but it also delved into the other issues that fishing fans may not know about – the sponsor game, the family strains and the financial pressures that accompany all but the top fishermen.
I know that this book made me a better fisherman, because it demonstrated convincingly that fishing is very much a mental game. Most of us can cast, flip, pitch and skip reasonably well, but there's so much more that goes into fishing, particularly tournament fishing. How do you block out external worries? How do you tell if a draw partner is bluffing? How do you know when to make a switch in strategy? You can have the best skills in the world, but optimum execution depends on so much more, and Thomas showed how those other factors can make the difference between a $100,000 All-American victory and a long drive home with no check and your tail between your legs.
A final note on "Diary": In this year when Tim Tucker unexpectedly and tragically passed away, I believe this work is one of the pieces that makes his career so important to the sport. I didn't always agree with his positions, but he was able to report on trends before anyone else and in some cases shape those trends himself.
Kevin Van Dam's Bass Strategies: A Handbook for All Anglers. by Kevin Van Dam with Louie Stout (1995)
Long before Kevin Van Dam became the superstar of today, the first ballot hall of famer and odds on favorites to win just about any tournament on the planet, it was clear that
that's where he'd end up.
In 1995, he hadn't won a Classic yet (he's won two since), but it was apparent that he was ready to steamroll every record in the book. That's why this book was so heavily anticipated. He broke down every aspect of his fishing strategy and arsenal from forage to tackle to common problems that confront all anglers.
He gave away secrets and dispelled the most common myths and excuses. He laid bare his entire theory of the sport and still no one can catch him. If anything, he continues to get better. This book is a blueprint for what a tournament angler should aim to achieve, but it just shows that even with absolutely perfect preparation, there's something else that puts the pros, and in particular pros like KVD, far ahead of even the best weekend anglers.
Fishing on the Edge, by Mike Iaconelli with Andrew & Brian Kamenetzky (2005)
If Van Dam is the great genius of bass fishing, the once-in-a-lifetime Einstein, Picasso and Mozart all rolled into one, then Iaconelli has served as a counterpoint in recent years. Ike has added another component to the repertoire – unbridled emotion. Sometimes it has hurt him, sometimes it has helped him, but it has continuously put him in the limelight.
Van Dam won the Louisiana Delta Classic in 2001 and when the pros returned there for the Classic two years later, it was Ike who took home the big prize. It was the first of his public "never give up" moments and it signaled the real beginning of the era of the bass pro as media personality. Love him or hate him, he generates more publicity in more different media than anyone out there.
There was no reason to think that his book would be a standard how-to, and it didn't disappoint. I'd say it didn't surprise, but that would be a lie – the blunt honesty that he displayed about cliques, alcohol abuse and other problems on tour may not have earned him many friends on the water, but it spoke volumes about his sincerity and honesty. He opened himself up to further criticism and perhaps even ridicule, but it demonstrated that little if any of his antics are calculated – he's obviously an emotional firepot, but if you read what he says, or listen to him being interviewed, you'll see that he's one of the most articulate and clear-thinking anglers around.
The Series: A Photographic Look at the Inaugural Bassmaster Elite Series, by Doug Cox & Steve Bowman (2006)
My ultimate dream involves me hoisting the Bassmaster Classic trophy above my head in victory, but if I can't have that, the outdoor writer in me would love to follow the Elite Series for a year and document each of the events. Bowman and Cox lived that dream and produced a stunning 168 page photographic coffee table book.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one might cash in at a price comparable to that of my crankbait collection (don't ask, but it's a lot). The images that these two writers produced are breathtaking. They managed to capture all of the excitement and drama of the season visually, and the prose explains even more.
In terms of this article, "The Series" provides an important bookend to Taylor's "Bass Wars." Twenty years ago, the sport was in its nascent stages. That was halfway between the date when Ray Scott hatched BASS and today, but it was worlds apart in terms of professionalism, media coverage and the sheer amount of dollars involved.
Look at a 1988 bass boat, probably 18 feet with a 150 on the back, and compare it to today's 21 foot, 250 hp rockets wrapped in corporate logos and sponsor insignias and it's like juxtaposing Babe Ruth and ARod. They're both great, but the old baggy uniforms and less than perfect muscles that Ruth used to crush his competition would look woefully out of place today.
In 1988, there was still room for a grinder to have the occasional bad day and still do reasonably well in the year-end standings. In 2008, if you don't catch 'em every day, you'll be toast.
Epilogue
If you want to check out a comprehensive website on bass books, look at the work of Washington's Clyde Drury: http://members.aol.com/bassbks/index.html
Some of the other books I've enjoyed include the following:
Bass Madness; Bigmouths, Big Money, and Big Dreams at the Bassmaster Classic by Ken Schultz
Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for the World Record Largemouth Bass by Monte Burke
Bass Master Shaw Grigsby: Notes on Fishing and Life by Shaw Grigsby
Secrets of a Champion by Kevin Van Dam with Louie Stout