At the end of 2021 I catalogued the preceding 360+ days and found that it had been a pretty good year. Memorializing it was a great way of keeping myself accountable while celebrating and re-memorializing everything I’d done. Accordingly, I’m back again and while things could always be better I’m pretty proud of the way things went down in ‘22. Here’s my summary:

The Biggest Change

If everything goes according to plan, Hanna and I are about five years away from quitting our full-time jobs and careers. I’ve been in the same position for nearly 22 years, and practicing law for nearly 28, and while I’m proud of what I’ve achieved I’m also ready for a change. I’ve discovered my bliss through writing about fishing, and after paying my dues sitting behind a desk 50 hours a week in service to some other goals I’m anxious to take advantage of the many writing and fishing opportunities that I’ve had to turn down in order to ensure long-term stability. When I started writing about fishing two decades ago, I vowed that I’d never let a writing assignment get in the way of a day on the water, but with this short runway ahead of me I’ve reversed course – this year I fished comparatively little (for me) but took advantage of the incredible earning and networking opportunities that were in front of me. For example, despite getting a new boat in the spring, I ran it only once in the months of August and September. I don’t love the fishing around here that time of year and I felt that I could better serve myself by getting ahead on my retirement savings. Moreover, I don’t regret that decision.

Lisa Livesay and Brad Vanderpool of F5 Custom Rods

The Good

While some people may claim that the fishing industry and the word industry are in downturns, you wouldn’t know it from the amount of assignments I’ve received and completed. This was my best year to date in terms of output and earnings – in fact, I earned $15,000 more than in my previous best year, and while I don’t see dollar signs as the ultimate marker of success, they’re one way to measure output.
While I’m still unable to attend all of the Elite Series events, this year BASS hired me to write a daily “Elite Analysis” of what had happened that day – short snippets of dialogue, factoids and observations about what had occurred each day of Elite competition. It was fun and invigorating and I got more positive feedback about those columns than about anything else I’ve written in a long time.
We visited a new property – Ballard’s Black Island Lodge on Lake of the Woods – and whacked some giant smallmouths. Anyone who wants a relaxing and affordable summertime multispecies vacation should book a trip up north. Tell them we sent you.
I remained invigorated writing about Lake El Salto and Lake Picachos. Despite the fact that we’ve been visiting Sinaloa to fish since 2009 and we’ve penned over 100 articles about it for this site alone, we still found ways to write about the experience to help newcomers and veterans alike.
In addition to continuing to serve on the Board of Directors of the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame, I got to celebrate the induction into the Hall of two anglers who were important to my writing career – Aaron Martens and Lonnie Stanley – and I was selected to present Lonnie’s plaque to his wife Patsy.
While I’m still far from an expert swimbaiter, we attended the Swimbait Universe Gathering and that inspired me to write more about swimbait culture and the people who comprise it. It’s the most excited I’ve been about a new topic in many years and there seems to be endless fodder for articles and columns.
I upped my YouTube game. While I previously saw the YouTube revolution as a threat to my writing career, now I see it as a complement to that output and I had a lot of fun seeing my production qualities improve and generating new and better content.
I appeared on Matt Pangrac’s Bass Talk Live podcast twice and the minutes flew by as I pontificated and recalled stories from my nearly 30 years in and around the bass fishing industry.

The Bad

I wasn’t able to cram any media trips into my schedule, despite being invited to places including Florida (twice – once for bass and once for sailfish) and Michigan, where the prior year I’d caught my personal best smallmouth.
No mentoring. I’m still looking for someone who wants to follow my loose path through the outdoor writing world and who is fully committed to it – but while I’ve had some inquiries, no one has really followed through.
On our Islamorada trip, even though I had a few chances I did not land a tarpon.
While I ventured into the world of YouTube and podcasts, I still haven’t tried to learn anything about photography. I use the decent camera on my phone as a crutch, even though I know that I could get more assignments and make more money if I had reasonable skills with a “real” camera.

How to catch snook on Light Tackle in the Florida Keys backcountry

Semi-Related Notes

I finally had a Nashville Chicken sandwich. Pretty sure I will enjoy many more (if Hanna allows or does not monitor me).
I was going to write that I didn’t achieve any new Personal Best gamefish, but that’s not entirely true. On our May Islamorada trip I caught new species including tripletail, snook and mangrove snapper, all of which count as PBs. In November in Panama I FINALLY caught a cubera snapper.
I solo videogamed my first bass, start to finish, while fishing with Chad Morgenthaler at Table Rock in October.