Dave Mercer big smallmouth traveling angler Canada

Dave Mercer may be best known for his television program “Facts of Fishing,” or perhaps for his role onstage during Bassmaster tournaments, but whichever of his endeavors shine most brightly, you can’t help but notice that the guy is all about enjoying life.

Indeed, he’s repeatedly said that his favorite (or, in this particular case, “favourite”) quotation of all time comes from John Lennon: “When I was five years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘Happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

Dave is a person who consistently makes you feel good about yourself, and takes an interest in your interests. We first met him at the 2008 Toyota Texas Bass Classic at Lake Fork, and we’re not sure we’ve ever seen him without a smile on his face in the ensuing 12 years.

He’s combined his passion for happiness with his love of fishing to build an incredible career on the water and onstage, and along the way he’s gone on some pretty epic angling adventures. For a kid who didn’t have much growing up, he’s done things that many of us will never get a chance to do – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.

The following are some of his thoughts about fishing travel, sprinkled with lots of good advice for aspiring globetrotting anglers.

HPFC: You’ve fished all over the world. Did you grow up traveling to fish, or was there some point later in life when you started?

MERCER: I was born in Ireland, so we started traveling when I was five because my mum was Catholic and my dad was Protestant, which at that time made us Canadian. I was an immigrant into Canada, but growing up we were broke. When we moved, we went to a cottage one week a year. It was a big deal and when I was a kid that was the greatest thing in the world, but when I look at those cottages now they were just little tiny huts. I have so much respect for them doing that. I think about it all the time, what they did. Could I uproot my life and move just because it’s going to be better for my kid? They had a good life in Ireland but when they moved here there were times when my dad – who worked in insurance his whole life – he delivered pizzas at night. He was an insurance salesman in his mid- to late-30s, knocking on doors and delivering pizzas, and hoping he didn’t see clients, like ‘Please don’t let it be that Mr. Smith.’

HPFC: So do you think you appreciate what you have now differently than someone who might’ve grown up with a broader set of opportunities?

MERCER: I think so. I would hope so. I try to. I think that’s what our world has become. We are all so incredibly blessed in so many ways, but really the true part of happiness is realizing it. I’m standing looking at the lake while I’m talking to you. When I was a little kid, if somebody had told me how this was going to work out, I would’ve been like, ‘Where do I sign up?’

HPFC: Where was the first place you traveled to for a long-distance fishing trip, and you can define ‘long-distance’ however you choose?

MERCER: My first time I got in a vehicle and drove for hours was a trip to Florida. I wanted to catch a double digit bass and I went down with a buddy. I might’ve been 19 or 20 at the time. I couldn’t even legally drink in America. I definitely didn’t like that – I could drink in Canada but I couldn’t drink in America. But after that, I started traveling early on. I mean, I’m no fool. My people may not have been travelers, but as soon as people started offering me trips to cool places I took advantage of that. I guess I went to Brazil in my mid-20s, and Northwest Territories in my mid-20s. That’s the period when I really started to travel a lot. I could afford to have a vehicle that was good enough to cross the border safely.

HPFC: So of all of the places you’ve been – and imagine you’re talking to a hard core bass fisherman who hasn’t traveled much – what’s the one place or species he needs to experience before he dies?

MERCER: There’s two, and I give the same two every time, even though they’re polar opposites. You’ve got to go to the Amazon to peacock bass fish. Actually, that’s the one, if you’re a bass fisherman, because it’s so visual and you can’t fathom what it’s like in real life. You may have seen the videos of a big cinder block hitting the surface and it literally scares you when the fish hits. It’s incredible. The two greatest places I’ve been are there and the Northwest Territories – Great Bear Lake and the Tree River with Plummer’s Lodge.

HPFC: What is it about the Plummer’s experience that would appeal to bass anglers and anglers in general?

MERCER: It is that you’re somewhere so remote. It’s not like you’re in the middle of Lake Guntersville, or the middle of Lake Erie even. When you can sit in the middle of Lake Erie there are times when you can’t see one side of it, but when you go up to Plummer’s, it’s hard to explain it. I always say that it’s the way the world used to be. I honestly think of that every time I go there. This is what the world was before everything was developed. You can drink water right out of the lake. You literally bring a metal cup out with you in the boat and all day you can shovel water. It’s not like getting a bottle of water. It’s so refreshing and on a lot of other trips you come home feeling like crap because you’ve eaten too much, but I always come home from there and I feel rejuvenated. I can breathe better. You’re at the end of the earth, for as far as you can look there’s not another human being. It’s a cool but at times eerie feeling. It’s somewhere that I think not just bass fishermen, but every outdoorsman needs to experience. Whether you’re up there to fish or a hunter that wants to go up there for a musk ox hunt or something on the tundra, it’s just a crazy place. Anybody can go to a lot of places, but there’s very few people that have been there. I have so much respect for the life up there. We’re so spoiled and up there the tundra is such a tough environment.

Dave Mercer Plummers Lodge NWT char arctic bass pro shops

HPFC: Is there someplace that you’ve yet to go or some species that you’ve yet to catch that’s highest on your bucket list?

MERCER: Two things that I want to do for sure are Golden Dorado and I’d really like to do tigerfish. Sabertooth payara was my ultimate one for a while, and I did that in Venezuela a number of years ago. I’d love to do that again because it’s awesome, but of the ones I haven’t caught tigerfish for sure and the dorado. Even since I saw that Larry Dahlberg video where the dorado bends the hook in – there’s a lot of fish that’ll straighten a hook, but there are not many fish that’ll literally crush a hook. One of those fish literally flattened the hook.

HPFC: Is there a particular fish, pound-for-pound, that you think fights the hardest?

MERCER: A tuna. I don’t even know why I had to take time to think about it. Honestly there’s not another fish that fights like a tuna. The first one that I ever caught I think it was like 20 pounds, a tiny little tuna, like a little frisbee. He literally kicked the crap out of me. While I was fighting it I was like, “It’s a big one, man.’ I really thought it was a big fish. Anything from the salt is so much stronger, but I’m just amazed and I’ve never even caught a big tuna. I know you can go after real big tuna, but I’ve caught some up to 100 pounds, and those things are tough. There’s nothing as tough as them.

HPFC: Is there a species that people are obsessed with that you think is overrated?

MERCER: One hundred percent – the freaking muskellunge. It is a great species and I like catching them, but I just think that there is too much reverence for them. They’re really just a big pike. I know that guys like Pete Maina would hate me for that, and I get the reverence for them, but if you’ve ever caught a musky you spend five minutes fighting it and then you spend about 25 minutes reviving the thing beside the boat. With that big rep – I mean, if you’re catching sabertooth payara, we have footage somewhere of that thing trying to bite me. I would put my finger near its mouth and it would close its mouth. A pike or a musky is never going to do that. When you hear stories of something like that it’s that somebody put their hand in and it thrashed. I would say muskies are overbilled.

Dave Mercer hates muskies, not a true Canadian

HPFC: You realize you’re going to get kicked out of Canada for saying that?

MERCER: I’m also going to get kicked out of the Bahamas. The bonefish – that’s some bullshit, dude. If you go catch them on a spinning rod they are dumb as a rock. We went to South Andros where all the fly fishermen are, and I get it that it’s a lot harder when you’re fly fishing for them, but if you used 10 pound test with a spinning rod you could literally catch hundreds of them in a day. It’s shocking. They have a bigger rep than maybe they deserve, I think.

Sarah Mercer before her husband got on the “do not fly” list to the Bahamas

HPFC: If you had to chase a single species for the rest of your life, what would it be?

MERCER: I’ve got to go with smallmouth and I’ll chase 8-pounders on Lake Erie. I’ve never caught an 8-pounder. It’s my obsession. I’ve caught a bunch just under 8, but I’ve never caught an 8 and I’m absolutely obsessed with it. It would have to be deep water fishing for them, with jigging spoons, dropshots, stuff like that.