Fishing Mentors - How They've Helped and What They've Meant to Me
June 2, 2009
I believe just about every angler out there will admit to having, at one time or another, a fishing mentor. For most of us it was dear old Dad taking us fishing when we were kids and teaching us to appreciate the time spent on the water. After all, we all looked up to Dad when we were kids!
My Dad started teaching me about the outdoors from the time I was three years old, and when I say outdoors, I mean the entire outdoors. From gardening to farming, milking cows, raising tobacco, baling hay, fencing, and when there was hunting, fishing, frog gigging, camping, and just wandering around in the woods. Pap taught me to respect and care for the outdoors. He always said, “Try and leave it better than you found it.” My Dad passed away in 1980 and I still miss him. I practice those things today and appreciate him taking the time from his busy life to teach me how to enjoy just being outdoors.
As I wrote in an earlier article, when I was about twelve years old one of our neighbors, Jerry Ingram, took me under his wing and showed me the wonderful and addictive world of bass fishing. He took the time to teach me the what’s, where’s, and how’s of bass fishing from the bank. Jerry started me using artificial lures and teaching me why and when to use them.
Jerry was the first and strongest influences when it came to bass fishing. He was always ready - daylight or midnight, it didn’t matter, and there were many times we fished until it started getting daylight. We would run home, get cleaned up and he would head for work and I would head to school, only to meet up later and do it again! I haven’t seen or talked with Jerry in about thirty years, but I would be willing to bet he’d be ready to go if he was able!
As I got older, I started doing things more on my own. I tried to develop new styles and techniques of my own. I was constantly reading and watching fishing shows, hungry for anything that might help me catch more or bigger fish.
In 1982, I moved to Texas. Everywhere you looked down there were huge lakes and I didn’t know of any ponds or small lakes to fish, so I did what any self respecting angler would do. I bought a boat. But I discovered another stumbling block. Fishing from a boat on a big lake is nothing like fishing from the bank in a small pond. I was having trouble catching any fish at all and getting very frustrated.
During that learning period, I was working as a service manager at a local Dodge dealership. I came back from lunch one day to find a van in the shop with lure names all over the side of it - Bomber, Heddon, Rebel, Cotton Cordell! I told our service advisor that I wanted to meet whoever drove that van. I discovered from a mechanic the van’s transmission was out and needed to be overhauled. The owner came back about four o’clock and was told it would take three or four days to repair. I called him back to my office and he informed me he had to be in Missouri (if I remember right) in three days to film a television show and couldn’t wait that long to get his van repaired. It turned out this was his lucky day. Before going into management I worked as a transmission mechanic. I told him I could have his van ready to go the next day. When he asked how much extra that would cost I replied, “Just a fishing trip when you get back.”
And that’s how I met Blackie Lightfoot!
Blackie came in the next morning to get his van and was actually surprised that it was ready. He promised to take me fishing when he got back. I figured I had seen the last of him, but I didn’t know Blackie then. Several weeks later, Blackie walked into the shop and asked if I was ready to go fishing, and of course I said “Yes!”
That fishing trip was the beginning of a long, enjoyable friendship that was very rewarding in terms of education. Blackie taught me I was only a beginner and had a long way to go. He showed techniques I would have never dreamed of or at least would have taken many more years to learn on my own.
Blackie introduced me to people such as Zell Rowland, Rick Clunn, Randy Fite, Guido Hibdon, Randy Dearman, Larry Nixon, and Tommy Martin. Blackie and I fished Sam Rayburn, Toledo Bend, Conroe, Richland Chambers and Amistad. I was in Hawg Heaven!
It was Blackie who talked me into fishing my first tournament. He got the first call when I won my first tournament. I’m not sure who was more excited when I did well in a tournament, me or Blackie and his wife Lorena.
Blackie passed away last year from cancer. I was at Lake Fork fishing at the time with no cell reception. By the time I found out I’d missed his funeral. I wish I could have told him just how much he meant to me.
It did my heart good to read the articles that Stan Fagerstrom did on Blackie (click here for the article) for the Inside Line a couple of months ago. The articles stirred up a lot of fond memories for me. One instance in particular, Blackie and I ended up with matching boats and tow vehicles (not intentionally, just worked out that way). At times, some of the local guides would follow us to steal our holes and would deny it when we teased them about it later. One morning Blackie told me to take my boat and go on. He went a couple of coves over in his boat and waited. Sure enough one of the guides pulled up around another point and got out his binoculars, (this was before the days of GPS) and started watching me fish. Blackie idled right up to him and hollered, “You’re busted!” and took off. It was a standing joke for several years after that.
Not too long ago, I was helping with some proto type rod tests for a local rod manufacturer and was putting it on them pretty good. The owner asked what I was using and I told him it was a Blackie Lightfoot lure, figuring everybody knew that was a Gold Redfin, but he didn’t know. Nobody could catch them with a Redfin like Blackie, and yet I still try! Blackie gave me one of his coveted Redfins not too long before he passed away and it is hanging on the wall in my fishing room. It is the only trophy I have on the wall.
Everything that I am as a fisherman today, I owe to my Dad, Jerry Ingram, and Blackie Lightfoot. I’m not saying they were my only teachers, but these three have shaped me into the “outdoorsman” I am today, and I thank them for it.
If you have someone who has been important to you as a fisherman or just as a person, let them know it and spend time with them while you still have the opportunity.