Bassmaster Assistant Tournament Director Craig Lamb with Four-Time Bassmaster Classic Champion Rick Clunn

After 41 years (and hopefully more) I’m fortunate to have a “paid” job doing what most people consider a recreational pastime. I get paid to promote fun, as in bass fishing. In the autumn of my career, what matters most to me is passing on what I learned from those before me. How I got where I am should be a source of inspiration to those who will come next.

Going through the motions in high school and then college, I was mesmerized by the tournament scene. I couldn’t get enough of the photos in Bassmaster of neatly dressed pros fishing from sleek, shiny fiberglass bass boats. Ray Scott’s showmanship and the overall energetic vibe of the tournament scene planted seeds for what would shape my future.

Getting a driver’s license is a teenage rite of passage, and my ticket to freedom led to the tournament trail. I worked summers as a marina gas jockey, using the meager earnings to the tournaments. Travel increased in college as I occasionally skipped classes to meet my heroes. My college roomies went to Daytona Beach to chase girls; I went to spring break tournaments to find a career. I even blew a season’s worth of job money for entry fees into three B.A.S.S. Invitationals, never intending to be the next Rick Clunn, instead to get noticed.

My friendship turned to mentorship with Clunn and he invited me spend a summer at their home in between tournaments, crashing on their living room couch. Later on, I hitched rides with Bassmaster Classic winner Hank Parker anytime he passed through Nashville.

Eventually I did get noticed. My impromptu trips to tournaments inspired tournament director Harold Sharp to give me the nickname, “the original B.A.S.S. groupie.”

The moniker fit. I stalked B.A.S.S. boss Ray Scott at his motel room at a Kentucky Lake event, shyly telling him I wanted to work for B.A.S.S. He just laughed, wished me good luck, congratulated me for just having graduated from high school and autographed my tournament program. I shifted attention to Forrest L. Wood, president of Ranger Boats, getting the same kickback reply but with a mandate to finish college and then come see him.

I did both, driving from my Nashville, Tenn., hometown to Flippin, Ark., home of Ranger Boats, walking into the boat factory without an appointment. A surprised Wood invited me into his office, caught off guard when I recalled our conversation. They had nothing available for me and I drove home, dejected. When I got there my mother said Wood called, leaving a message to call him back. It was in 1982 that I got my first job in the business as Wood’s caddy, towing his Ranger behind a 1979 Lincoln Continental, while acting as the P.R. guy back at the office.

Highlights of Craig Lamb's career with B.A.S.S. included working with Helen Sevier and meeting President George Herbert Walker Bush

Deep down, I always wanted to work for B.A.S.S., finally getting my chance in 1986 when Sharp retired, and his assistant tournament director, Dewey Kendrick stepped into the job. Kendrick needed a replacement and I got the job.

As assistant tournament director for Kendrick, I experienced the phenomenal growth spurt that took tournaments out of their southern comfort zone, with Bassmaster Classics in Richmond, Va., Baltimore and eventually Chicago. We had a West Coast division, and we started the forerunner of the current Bassmaster Elite Series. I wrote the first of its kind manual for improving fish handling and post-release survival techniques.

By now, the lesson to be shared is be relentless in your passion to pursue your career goals. Helen Sevier, CEO and B.A.S.S. owner at the time, encouraged us all to openly participate in the company’s growth. That was a good idea, considering most of the employees were in their 20s, myself included. We were energetic, ambitious and passionate about B.A.S.S, and Helen let us run with it. Anywhere else, the decisions and projects we were allowed to be key stakeholders in would be reserved for more seasoned employees twice our age.

That invitation to grow led me to a job in editorial as associate editor of B.A.S.S. TIMES and Bassmaster, under Dave Precht and Matt Vincent, both treasured mentors. I was hands-on daily with the production of the very magazine that started my dream in the first place. My dreams became reality.

The digital age brought the need for print-centric B.A.S.S. to launch an obligatory website. I was chosen to take on the project, and it became my ticket to freedom at a different level. Gone where the monthly print production cycles. The sky was the limit, and I took full advantage of the opportunity, serving as the first editor of Bassmaster.com, overseeing significant upgrades and relaunches, and later moving on to my current position as senior editor while overseeing production and management of custom content for our sponsors.

None of this wordsmithing is intended to glorify me towards a nomination into the Bass Fishing Hall of Fame. It’s more reality of what can be achieved through persistence, maybe even borderline relentless annoyance. But it worked for me, and it can for you too.