There have always been a certain percentage of tournament bass anglers who specialize in the offshore game. Guys like David Fritts made careers out of it while most of their competitors were beating the banks. With the rise of new technologies in recent years, more of them have headed offshore.

For me, however, since 2021 the term “offshore” has taken on a different meaning – I’ll always love Guntersville and Rayburn and the smallmouth of the Great Lakes, but I’ve gained a new appreciation for the ocean and the fish that truly live offshore.

I’d been fishing in Costa Rica in the 90s, but when we went to Casa Vieja Lodge in 2020, and then Sport Fish Panama Island Lodge in 2021 (twice in 2021, to be exact), something more clicked in my brain. These fish were apex predators, big and mean and altogether new to me. I had next to no clue about how to catch them, how they fed, or how they lived. I became obsessed.

Part of it, but not all of it, is just how damn big and how damn strong these fish are. Until you’ve lost to a 100-pound yellowfin tuna on spinning gear, and then conquered the next one, you can’t fully understand it. Until you’ve seen two sailfish zigzagging in the spread, greyhounding your teasers looking to eat, you can’t understand it. Until you’ve had a roosterfish stalk your popper, and felt the hairs on the back of your neck standing up just like his comb, you can’t understand it.

I know that many of our readers are hard core bass anglers. That’s what you live, sleep and breathe. That’s cool. It was my first love and resides in my DNA, too. But I strongly suggest that if you think you are a capital-A-Angler that you at least intersperse a trip into the ocean.

I’m now planning trips number six to Guatemala and Panama. If you want more info about those, shoot me an email. We’re also headed to Cabo this fall to chase striped marlin. This is the stuff that inspired Melville and Hemingway and countless others, and it’s not out of your reach.

After our first trip to Panama, I told my wife Hanna that I’d sell my bass boat if I could pop for tuna 30 days a year. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that, but we’ve taken a whole bunch of serious, accomplished bass anglers down there since then, and every one has had those same wide-eyed moments. No one’s going to force you to give up your trolling motor, your hollow-bodied frogs, your flipping sticks, or your Roland Martin signature glasses, but time on the big pond will change the way you think about fighting fish, about tackle, and about breaking down water.