Courtesy of Vance McCollough

“I’ve always said you can tell more about a person through their avocation than their vocation.”

– Shaw Grigsby from his book Bass Master Shaw Grigsby: notes on fishing and life

Who is the world’s best bass angler? 

Not the best known. Not the one you initially think of with all the trophies and titles. Not the one you’ve watched on TV for years. 

No, the best. 

The one the world will never know. The one floating on some obscure lake or wading a tiny creek and casting not for glory or cash prizes but for pure and simple love of the sport. 

Pure and simple.

‘Pure and simple’ seem to have gone out of style. With the 24-hour news cycle and an internet that never sleeps it seems that we’ve developed a two-pronged obsession with both, giving our loyal spectatorship and seeking personal attention. Consider the ancient riddle: ‘If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it did it make a sound?’ Now compare the modern equivalent: ‘If I catch a fish but don’t post a picture to social media, did it ever really happen?’

And the best place to show off our skills is the tournament scene, be it the local Tuesday night wildcat tourney beneath bugs circling an overhead streetlamp or the spot-lighted stage of the Bassmaster Classic amid thunderous applause and rapturous music. 

Not to down tournament fishing. Not at all. Tournaments are, perhaps, the greatest laboratories ever for exploring fish and fishing techniques. They’re even better laboratories for exploring human behavior, the character of contestants against the weather, the clock and other contestants. 

And against the fish.

The fish as adversary. This may be the biggest stumbling block to growth for many anglers. I believe the best anglers look at the fish as partners in a dance rather than something to be mastered, which will never happen anyway. The greatest among us have developed an acute awareness of natural rhythms and cycles, changing weather, cues as to how fast to dance, when to slow the tempo and how to get the fish to dance along with them. A Pied Piper of bass. Have you ever seen such? Many of us have watched someone touch greatness for minutes or maybe hours. Surely, the best angler would be able to reach such a state more often than anyone else and stay there longer, but since nobody pays us to actually fish, professional status matters little. It’s about time on the water.  After all, ‘love’, for any person or any thing or any activity is spelled ‘T-I-M-E’.

So where is that greatest angler? I met some good ones in Cuba. A wonderful thing about America is that anyone can pursue practically any dream. A guy can make his livelihood by fishing here where sponsors poor money into the sport. They come from around the world to do so – Italy, Japan, South Africa, even Canada. 

But in Cuba, the one thing you know about a fisherman is that he does not pursue his game for fortune or fame. These don’t exist in Cuba. Not for the angler. The angler in Cuba does what he does for sheer joy and love of the pursuit. True, they are fishing for food too, but my friends down there who kick their way to the blue water three miles offshore in nothing but old tire innertubes to cast jigs on cheap spinning rods are as eat up with their sport as anybody I know, anywhere. In this way, they are the purest of all anglers. And theirs is the purest pursuit.

Pure and simple. 

The Cuban angler is destitute. Yet he fishes still. Then again, there’s not much else to do. And there is so much water in which to do it. 

Many in the US risk financial brokenness to chase their finned dreams. That’s dedication. But what happens when the dream chaser goes broke? Does his threadbare soul continue to fish in threadbare clothes? If fishing fails to provide his living, does he continue to fish? Alone? For sheer joy? If so, he continues to grow closer to the fish; to deepen his understanding of them. 

And that’s what the greatest angler possesses – not mastery but understanding.

More than what he possesses, the greatest thing any angler can give is a shared love of the outdoors. We can be great stewards, not only of the fish but of the next generation who can then enjoy and pass along our sport, creating a common thread to reach up through the generations and connect us in a meaningful way to a future that will outlive us. The greatest will instill in others a reverence for the magic that swims through all places watery and wild along with the common sense to protect these places and the things that live there. 

Keep it pure. And simple. 

The world will never meet him, though more than a few fish have, and if you said you knew his name, I’d call you a liar because nobody knows who the greatest angler alive is. He is likely fishing now. Or practicing his vocation to financially support his avocation. Fishing need not be expensive, but tournament angling is prohibitively so. Therefore, the odds that we’ve ever seen what people are capable of on the water are correspondingly small. And so, he fishes on in anonymity needless of the cheers and approval, the trophies or the money. 

He has already won.